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I’m a big fan of anything that is shiny, or has buttons. Regular readers will know this. If not, well, can you guess what phone I have? It’s not a difficult question….

So when Frances was designing our kitchen, I was delighted to discover that my love of shinybuttony things could be brought to bear on such an important part of our new house.

My Kitchen Gadgets post from last year has merited a few e-mail exchanges with readers about how good (or not) Induction hobs are, and I’ve been meaning to collate them all into a dedicated post.

Needless to say, I’m still extremely pleased with ours. It always features in a ‘tour of the house’ when we have friends staying for the first time. This isn’t as bad as it sounds. Mostly friends are interested in what we’ve done, and like the kitchen…. So don’t worry

The only real negative is you need special pans, and the ones I’d spent ages choosing 3 or 4 years ago weren’t suitable (we just had a ‘normal’ electric hob). That said, I have found some nice pans with a good thick base which work just fine. They’re not a rare commodity either: Just be sure to keep it in mind when you wander around a department store choosing new pans.

I’d challenge anybody who thinks that “gas is best” to give induction a try. I find that the time to get water to the boil with our hob and pans is surprisingly fast. Much faster, I think, than gas ever was in my experience. Plus it returns to the boil in no time, after, say, you add rice to a boiling pan of water. Oh, and it’s a whole lot more energy efficient.

We purchased AEG 4 ring induction hob model. I think they do a few models, but I was quite insistent we get all induction rings, rather than 50/50 (which Frances was favouring, not least that it was cheaper), but I didn’t want one style for some rings, and another for the others. Would confuse me endlessly, and mess up my timings if I needed to switch around. They may do a five hob model, but we didn’t want something that big.

Do be aware that the ‘power boost’ function is limited: There’s only so much ampage that can be supplied to the rings, so you can’t have them all on ‘power boost’, so they arrange the rings in diagonal pairs, and it’ll alternate which as power for a second. Can be a bit odd to get used to, but makes sense. I’ve never needed them all on that anyway, and if I need two on power, I know how best to arrange things.

Some folk feel that woks are no use on Induction hobs, but we picked up a Ken Hom one, with a flat base of course, that is fine, and we do a fair bit of stir fry cooking. OK, here Gas may win out in the grand scheme of things (ie. the flames heat more of the wok), but not by much: I’ve used both and don’t find it’s that much of a problem.

It’s extraordinarily easy to clean (no burnt in residue as the hob surface simply doesn’t get that hot). The hob is heating the saucepan directly, so the surface is just warmed by conduction from the pan. So much lower maintenance!

A couple of caveats: Induction hobs are quite thick compared to ‘normal’ electric hobs - this is because they have fans underneath to keep the magnets cool. About 1.5″ thick in total (roughly), perhaps compared to a 0.5″ on a normal hob? Just bear it in mind if you’re thinking of getting one.

We were worried enough when our (incompetent) kitchen fitters had mounted the oven right underneath, such that the hob appeared to touch the top of the oven. Insulated it may be, I didn’t want to risk it, so had them lower it to give space. Check the clearance heights and so forth on the model you go for, and ventilation requirements too.

I do sometimes find the water-sensor makes fiddling with the controls a bit fiddly, as I’m not the tidiest of cooks I often have wet hands from washing veg and so on. The water-sensor ensures it all switches off if a pan boils over, so I just need to dry my hands: A fair exchange for a useful feature. The power-on is a half-second too slow for impatient old me. That said, the flush-to-worktop surface makes it integrate very well, and there’s nowhere for gunk to build up which would have been the case if we’d gone for tactile controls.

In short, I love it. At least as good as gas (my view is it’s much better). Very efficient. No gas burning. Very controllable. We’ve not had any problems or hassles, and certainly don’t regret spending the extra money to get induction hobs. Highly recommended.

See also

• See my sponsor here, for possible products if you’re searching?

• Wikipedia on Induction Cookers

This entry was posted on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 8:30 am and is filed under Gadgets, House, Personal, Review, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.