SHOULD YOU GO INDUCTION?

There are many ways to heat your food, but the one which puts you in the most control is cooking on a hob. This flat surface atop of your heat source lets us use pots and pans to cook your food with a degree of control. Originally this use to be a shelf above or to the side of your fire, allowing you to heat things slower. Now, for most, it is the surface on top of our stove/ovens or a completely separately powered surface. 

Until fairly recently our choice of hobs have been either an electric element (ring) either exposed or below a ceramic glass surface, or a gas ring. Before we go any further it helps to understand the basics of how these hobs work in relation to your cooking. _{(Know this already, skip to the end)} 

Cooking with an electric hob relies mainly on conduction to heat your pan, this is basically where heat is transferred from one material to another by contact. How well this happens can depend on your pan.
An electric hob with an exposed heating ring will firstly take energy to heat up, which in turn will then pass that energy on to the pan (via conduction and a little radiant heat). Pretty straight forward.
An electric hob which has a glass surface works the same but with the added layer of the glass, therefore your element heats the glass first, then the glass heats the pan.

Your control of heat comes from various settings which is built on timers. For example;
Setting 1 may heat the ring for 10 seconds then turn of 20 seconds, repeatedly,
Setting 2; 15 seconds on, 20 off,
Setting 3; 20 on 20 off, and so on. 

Cooking on gas is a little difference. Without going in to too much detail; like cooking on a fire, gas distributes its heat mainly via convection, this is where heat from the burning gas flames rise up and make contact with the pan. It’s simple to turn on and even simpler to control. Because you can see the flame you can gauge your heat output so you instinctively know when to turn it up or down and the speed at which it does that is instant. This is one of the reasons it’s so liked. 

If you have used both of these hobs you may understand the pro’s and cons of each, however its worth pointing them out to reinforce what we’re looking at.

Electric

Pros:
– Runs off electric so although sometimes needs to be put in professionally, it can be fairly flexible on where it is placed. 
– Most houses have access to electric. 
– It is a clean source of energy, doesn’t omit anything toxic
– Electricity is cheaper than gas and is likely more future proof

Cons:
– Unresponsive cooking. The biggest downfall for traditional electric hobs is that they can heat up well, but often slowly, and once they are hot, they need to cool down to lower the heat out put. This sluggish way of working makes it difficult if you want fast responsive heat changes. 
– This sluggish way of heating contributes to the electric hobs other big down fall. Wasted energy. We described how the element has to heat up and then pass that on to the pan, if it has to heat glass first too, there is always a loss of heat (energy) along the way as it transfers from one thing to another. Then there is the wasted heat after it is hot, unless you can plan ahead to use this excess heat after you have finished cooking it is often just lost. 
– This slow cooldown period can also make them dangerous. The cooking surface can reach extremely high temperatures which even when turned off takes a long time to cool. Touching can cause serious harm and it is not always obvious that the heat is there. Children and pets are most susceptible to burning themselves.  

Gas

Pros:
– Upon lighting, the heat source is instant.
– Because you can see the flame you can easily set it to your desired amount.
– Gas is controlled by a dial, meaning you can precisely adjust the amount of heat.
– Once you turn the gas off, the heat stops and residual heat is only where the flame has touched, which is usually a small area.

Cons:
– Cleaning is a lot more fiddly, cleaning around and inside the gas ring as well as the pan stands. 
– Not everyone has gas to their property and often its not in the right place so extra costs are usually involved to get a supply put in and professionally connected. 
– Gas is not a clean energy, meaning that all the time you’re using it, if you’re not ventilating your kitchen properly you are adding unhealthy particles to your air. In the last 10 years this has become more of a ‘concern’. 

The reason for outlining all that for is because…  

This ingenious way of cooking meant that using electricity you could heat your pans up with no wasted energy and have full control over them cutting the heat instantly or adding it when you need it. Because of the cost on its launch was so expensive, it never really took off, but over the years as demand the for cleaner and more efficient cooking grew the price crept down and became a now more affordable option, putting it at a similar price point to most hobs. 

But is it worth it?

If you’re considering induction and still wondering why, then the easiest way to think about it is looking at the pro’s and cons against the alternatives. 

Being electric, there are no added airborne particles added in to the mix like gas.

There is no heating element to get hot first to transfer the heat to the pan like standard electric, meaning there is no wasted heat, no waiting for things to heat up first before your pan, and less residual heat left over (none other than what the pan was touching). 

It is easier to clean, like the flat surface of an electric hob with a glass top. 

It can be put any where there is access to power, (though some require higher power cables). No need for a gas supply. 

The control of heat is instant as there is no ‘middleman’ in the process, just the pan. 

Sounds perfect, so what are the cons?

Aside from the price, which has come down a lot now, some people do not own pans that are compatible for induction. Because your pan heats up through this magnetic field, you’re pans need to be magnetic, meaning stainless steel, carbon steel or cast iron. This isn’t quite so much of an issue today as most people do own these sorts of pans already, but it is something to think of. You can test your pans by just seeing if a magnet sticks to the bottom of them. 

Installation, although some induction hobs can just plug in or be wired straight in to your previous electrical point. Some more higher powered hobs may need a separate fuse box and heavier wiring. But you can choose accordingly for that. 

Skip to the end…

Obviously if you don’t care about anything other than what is it like to cook on, then here it is, (from my personal experience). 

I’ve used induction hobs for a fair few years in different settings for different things. I have few portable hobs, which I use for teaching and in the last 3 years I switched from gas to induction (with a brief, but felt painfully long, stint of using a standard electric hob in between). 

Firstly if you are coming from an electric hob to an induction hob, your experience will be a fairly bliss change. It looks and feels the same, especially if you’re used to pushing a number setting for heat. The pan will sit the same on the hob and your hands on experience is very similar. The differences you will notice are

1. When you press your button to heat your pan, it will take a mere 5 or so seconds for it to heat, you need to unlearn that habit of putting your ring on full to quickly heat up your pan then bringing it down again before you’re at the point you want it. 
2. If you’re bringing something to the boil, again the speed at which this will happen is very quickly, however you no longer have to plan ahead as you can turn off or lower the heat and it will instantly stop; the heat source will disappear. This means you’re always fully in control of your cooking.
3. Induction can be powerful so don’t go all in at once, the speed of it means you can quickly over cook or burn things so getting used to the heat settings is good and it’s advisable to start low and come up in stages. 

Other than that, aside from any fancy additions your hob might have, like timers etc, it is very similar style of cooking. 

An induction hob is still programmed to heat using the same method as an electric hob as I described above. Each heat setting powers the hob area on for a certain amount of time and then off again, the higher the setting longer it’s on. 

If you’re coming from a gas hob, you may find it takes a little more time to adapt. Less so than going to a standard electric hob but in subtle ways, so in addition to the above points.

1. Unless you are buying a stove (oven and hob combined), the main thing you will probably find you need to get used to, is pushing buttons rather than turning knobs. Originally for me this was a real pain as I’ve always disliked touch screen buttons when cooking. I did find a couple of options from Smeg that did have dials for changing the heat, but they didn’t match what I needed. Neff do one with a removable dial, but it didn’t look sturdy enough for me. My portable hobs (from Lidl) have turn knobs and are amazing, but the options at the time of writing this aren’t great for individual hobs. This is partly to aid with its sleek easy to clean finish, which I now appreciate. I have got on fine with my hob and do find that now I know the numbers and what they achieve, the changes in heat are great to give me precisely what I need, meaning less adjusting as you cook. So in the long run it works out better.
   
   They can be irritating sometimes, when something splatters on them and it reads it, or you wipe it down and it cancels things, but overall they have been good. If you’re really keen for dials then you have much more choice with a full stove option. 
2. The second biggest thing you will notice is the way you hold and handle your pans. When cooking on gas it allows you to pick up your pan move it around and vary the heat on the bottom by changing the distance from the gas ring. Because of how induction works, your pan does need to be in contact with the hob in order for the pan to be heating, lifting it away breaks that connection and the heat stops. Only placing it back down again starts the heating again. This might bother some more than others. I got used to it fairly quickly, and the subtle control of heat you can get means I don’t need to do this so much. 
3. Similar to the above point. Moving you pan around too much on an induction can sometimes break that connection and also give you a little concern on scratching your lovely new hob. Depending on what hob you buy depends on how well it reacts to movement etc. 

The other main thing you might need to get used to (depending on your hob) whether you’re coming from gas or electric, is the visual indication of your heat. Aside from your chosen heat setting number, on an induction hob there isn’t always a clear view of whether your hob is on and at what temperature. Obviously if the pan isn’t on the hob there is no heat, but when in use with a pan there is no glowing red ring or gas flame to remind you of that. It’s not something you will always come across but, you can put an empty pan on your stove and forget to put turn it off. Neff I think have a range that shows a digital flame gauge next to each heating area which I though was a nice idea to mitigate this. 

The other big question people are concerned about is pan size. Smaller and cheaper induction hobs generally have a marked area for you to put your pan on, this is where the copper coil will recognise the magnetic surface of you pan and then engage with it and create that magnetic field. People often wonder, if my pan is larger or smaller than the induction area, will it still heat up and if it does, will it heat up effectively.

The rule is, as long as (magnetic) metal comes in to contact with the copper ring of the induction hob, that metal will generate heat. So with large pans for example, some or all of the metal base is going to make contact and thus heat, so yes a larger pan will work.
If there is an insufficient amount of metal making contact, like on a small pan, then your hob may not ‘recognise’ the pan and be able to work.

In terms of how efficient the hob will heat up a larger pan… The area of the pan in contact with the induction coil will heat up via induction, the rest of your pan will heat up via conduction, ie the heat gets spread throughout the pan from the area that’s heated. How well this happens depends on your pans and the size etc. Therefore some of that fast heat effectiveness is lost with larger pans.

HOWEVER

Induction hobs have come a long way from their first release and are becoming more advanced. One such advancement is ‘flexible cooking zones’. With people having various pan sizes and layouts manufacturers have come up with ways of being able to accommodate this. 

The first and most popular way is called flex induction, this is a fairly simple way of combining two induction areas in to one when they are both in contact with metal (your pan). This means instead of just half the area of your pan heating up through one induction coil, two areas/coils work in tandem to cover more of the surface. This is usually limited to two zones. Some hobs have a long strip for a zone that has multiple coils along it, allowing varied size pans and different cooking temperatures depending on placement. All these ideas are different to each manufacturer and off different levels of functionality at increasing prices.

If you want what I think is the absolute best when it comes to induction and where it really shows off the technology, then look at full surface induction. Instead of having zones telling you where you can and can’t cook, full surface lets you put your pan of any size; anywhere on the surface of the hob and it will detect it and heat it accordingly. This works by having lots of mini coils that individually activate when in contact with a pan, but at the same time work together. It comes at a price but is worth it and takes out the questions of pan size by working with pretty much everything. 

The only pan left to cater for on an induction hob is a wok. Proper wok cooking needs a constant high heat to a pan so that your ingredients can fly around the pan cooking quickly without burning. This is where gas can work well offering a large flame that surrounds the pan, heating it quickly and evenly. On induction there comes a few difficulties with this. Authentic woks have a round bottom to allow that movement of ingredients in the pan, which when using on an induction hob proves impossible as there is no surface contact. Flat bottom woks are available to cater for ceramic topped electric stoves and as they’re usually made from carbon steel, these will be compatible with your induction hob. But for some, a flat bottom is not good enough! If you really love your stir fry, then you either buy a separate single gas hob or you can get induction stove with a built in wok indent. These smooth spherical indents in your hob allow a round bottom wok to sit in and move around at the same time as being in contact with induction elements, amazing. 

Other additions

Induction can have some other features that are useful and not always on a standard oven. 

• Timer, these are great for not over cooking food if you have lots of things on the go. Your hob will simply stop the heat when the timer stops. 
• Pause functions, allow you to temporarily drop the heat on all pans whilst you do something else. 
• Linked to your cooker hood, you can pair some hobs with hoods so they work in tandem to turn on and off. 
• Temperature control, although induction doesn’t offer precise temperature control for your pan (which would be great), some offer temperature ranges to keep your pan within certain ranges, helping you not overcook or burn certain foods. 

For me in short, cooking on induction has been enjoyable. You soon realise how responsive it is and it really keeps you in control. It is quick and efficient, with no wasted heat coming from it after cooking, which is great for putting things on it afterwards. If anything boils over it does not stick to the surface as it is not scolding hot, it is easily cleanable, even mid cooking, which is great for sploshes and splatters. You do have to be careful of the heat settings as they can be aggressive if on full but like with all new hobs you learn how it responds to what you need. 

I have 0 regrets moving from gas, with the future of gas being uncertain and the it being more unhealthy, couple that with the cost to heat your food is soaring, induction seems to be the best solution and not only that a more enjoyable one. If you can afford it and you love your cooking, a full surface hob will bring you much joy. But if you’re just looking to heat your pans up all induction hobs will work similar so as long as you look after it, you can’t really go wrong with any of them. 

I’ll look to do a video review of my induction hob soon so you can see how they work. 

If you have any questions or want to know more, just leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer.

If you want to have a go on induction, then you can always look at a cooking experience where you can get some hands on time with one.