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Induction also requires specific pans, right? So a regular cast iron pot won't work?
If it's sticking to a magnet, it will work. Cast iron works. Induction is great, i'll never go back to gas!
Thanks! Sorry for spreading the FUD
I have induction; anything magnetic will heat, pans sized to your elements work best. Pans with too much aluminum and not enough iron (or other ferro magnetic material) won't work very well. Getting induction was a great excuse to dump the cheap pans I'd wanted to replace anyway. When shopping the discount racks like Home Goods, Marshalls, etc. I always grabbed some fridge magnets and tried them on the bottom of any prospective purchase; the stronger the pull, the better it will perform with induction. The only item I really missed was my moka pot (stovetop espresso, usually all aluminum casting), but I was able to find one with a stainless steel base that works great. Your pots and pans will also need a flat bottom to react to the induction elements, so woks and such built with a slope or curve to encourage flames to lick up the sides don't work so well compared to gas. Finding a Teflon coated pan that works with induction was difficult (I don't often use it anyway, but SO insisted we have one for their use). I'm looking into replacing the Teflon pans with nitrided carbon steel soon.
Cast Iron and induction are a match made in heaven though. The cast iron heats fast and evenly and the induction means you can be very precise about how much heat you apply and when. When you turn off the element, the only heat left in the whole system is what you've already put into the pan, which is a big deal in my tiny kitchen when I don't always have room to move a pan off to the side to rest or cool. The cast iron and stainless pans I have heat fast enough that I can basically cook starting from a cold pan for most things. Heating an empty pan takes seconds. I can bring a pot of a water of a couple quarts/liters to a roaring boil in about 4 minutes, then back down to a gentle simmer in seconds.
If gas is cooking with fire, induction feels like cooking with science. As may be clear from the rant, I love my induction range.
Small note on induction.
Since power setting works by turning the element off and on quickly, having a really thin pan with little thermal mass will result in some really weird uneven heating (basically just a hot circle).
Two ignorant questions for you:
Do you see any benefits to teflon over carbon steel?
I've been using airbnb a bit and sometimes the tops are some form of electric (but I'm ignorant enough not to know what type of electric) and by far the most brittle part seems to be the touch buttons that many have. Do you have any pointers on shopping around for stovetops without issues with the buttons?
Probably answered below:
I thought it was more involved than that but after a quick search online I'm wrong
You do still need a fair amount of mass on the bottom for it to be efficient. Anything ferrous will work, though.
Pure copper pans will not work for the same reason as aluminum.
A very slight clarification here:
cheap to make alumin
um nonstick pans. Mine doesn't work AND it wasn't cheap : (.
spoiler
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