Switched from gas to induction and love it. I miss my stove every time i have to cook elsewhere. Mine is pretty much the cheapest induction range on the market (and i bought it used). Heats up way faster than gas (WAY FASTER, will get cast iron glowing if i leave an empty cast iron on the stove for a while at the highest setting), low/medium control is excellent and precise, and i really appreciate the lack of waste heat (pot handles don't overheat, kitchen doesn't quickly heat up from cooking - small kitchen).
The fact that the stove is more expensive is really the only downside. Not being able to use fabulous copper pans seems like the only meaningful downside but I'm not rich enough for that anyways.
Forget climate and respiratory issues, I’ve gone induction out of pure convenience and don’t miss gas at all. My induction cook top heats up faster, has more precise control, retains less heat on the “burner”, and is way easier to clean. The only downsides I’ve found are you can’t char things on a flame, or use copper pots.
It seems like people keep comparing gas to “regular” electric stoves, which are definitely inferior in many ways. The biggest issue is they’re very inefficient, and take forever to heat anything.
I just moved from a home with induction range to one with gas range and I feel like I am on crazy pills waiting for anything to happen now. I get that things like extreme control and wok cooking are a bit difficult on induction, but at least it's ~possible.
A consumer gas range simply doesnt put enough effective power into the cookware. This isnt only about boiling water quickly. This is about getting a pan hot enough fast enough to maintain a certain cooking style, even if its kind of half-assed. It might not be perfect, but I can make what I think is really good stir fry on a quality induction range (i.e. one that will actually tolerate movement of the pan without cutting power).
I had enough time to order an 1800w portable induction unit while I waited for my kettle to boil via fire this morning.
This sucks a lot. Induction stoves are better than gas stoves but chefs don't like them because it's a new tool the need to learn how to use. They have a many years of experience with their old tool, of course they will say the new thing is worse. We see this in software engineering and technology all of the time. We need to decarbonize the economy and these cities shouldn't be allowing new gas stoves.
Can you elaborate how you find gas more convenient that an induction stove?
I've worked in a kitchen with gas and I found it awful. It was harder to clean, you had to be really careful to not burn yourself when you had to do a quick wipedown. Making sure not only that you turned it off, but that anyone else there wasn't forgetful either.
Induction like I have at home now is so convenient. I have no worries. It responds super quick to temp changes, it automatically detects if I have something on the stove or not, so no fear of wasting power. You can't burn yourself. The surface is flat and super easy to keep clean.
I switched from induction to gas after a kitchen renovation. My experience is that induction is more efficient and powerful than gas, but is also much more uneven, more picky about cookware, and does not work well with “professional” cooking techniques which were created around gas and wood stoves.
I gave induction a solid trial run and in the end, it didn’t cut it. The stupid controls design made it even worse.
Also, gas is not dangerous from fumes at all if you have an externally vented hood, which you should have with ANY cooktop, as cooking fumes are worse for health than the byproducts of a blue flame.
Whoever wrote this article doesn’t know what they’re talking about and clearly doesn’t gourmet cook regularly.
My wife can be in another room and not even know I've turned on the stove/oven, and she starts to cough when I start cooking. (we rent, don't get at me about replacing)
I try to use our portable induction burner whenever I can now, even though we pay for electricity but we don't pay for gas.
I was extremely skeptical and snooty about the potential of induction cooktops when it was first floated, but if I owned a home I would definitely prefer an induction stovetop to a gas one now. Induction is a lot faster and more responsive than gas, in my experience. Just wish there were induction stovetops that has real knobs and weren't so easily cracked or scraped.
Induction has huge advantages over gas, I’m seeing it increasingly used in newer high end homes. Gas wins out on lower end luxury builds given that a gas stove is much cheaper than an induction stove.
Induction stoves are good for boiling water and nothing else. And I mean boiling, not simmering. I'm going back to gas very soon and can't wait to start cooking properly again.
Chef here:
I've used induction, but the biggest annoyance is heat loss when lifting a pan.
Most pans section dishes are moved quite rapidly, lifting then off of the burner, to toss the ingredients(I could be cooking 5-6 dishes at once, so speed is very important), with a gas burner this doesn't matter as the radiant heat is there.
Now I'm assuming there are radiant stovetops that are designed for hospitality, but I've yet to see one, the only I have used the heat started dissipating rapidly when lifting the pan, and my wife was freaking out when the pan made contact thinking that I was going to break the cooktop.
Induction is completely fine. I had a gas stove for the first time with the house I have now and I just don't see what the fuss is about. Also, my wife set her clothes on fire cooking, something that literally could not happen with an induction stove.
Gas feels really natural to cook on. It FEELS good to cook on. Induction stoves really are amazing with how quickly they heat up but they don't feel as good. Electric is obviously horrible.
Very interesting to me that gas is considered the 'high end'-option, I presume in the U.S?
Where I live, the high end-option is to get an induction stove. I have one, and it's extremely pleasant to cook on. Granted, I've never cooked on gas because that alternative is mostly not used, in my experience.
What kind of stove do you now have? I’ve had coil (trash), ceramic (still trash) and induction (amazing, and way better than gas, at the cost of needing compatible cookware) - I’d never voluntarily to back to gas.
> Gas heats up considerably faster, allows for more rapid cooking temperature changes, is considerably cheaper to operate in many localities, and is actually relatively clean burning compared to most fossil fuels. Go see what any world class chef outfits their kitchens with. It's almost always gas.
Resistive stoves are faster than gas though less responsive. Induction ranges beat the pants off both gas and resistive on basically all dimensions. The only thing induction can't do well is tasks that specifically involve an open flame ie charring pepper skins, the wok hei flavor, etc. Most of these can be reproduced by buying a $10 blow torch or using a propane grill instead.
Have you used an induction stove before? It's better than gas, and it's not even close (and yes, I have a gas range). Note that induction is not the same thing as resistive.
Once you've tried induction, going back to gas feels absolutely primitive.
reply