Time for a new cooking range! I was a chef for years and am concerned about sauteing on a flatop/ glass suface. A good part of my cooking is rangetop and involves a lot of sauteing; i.e. shaking the pan across the burner.
Isn’t this going to eventually cause a lot of scratching/ wear on a glass surface. May have to go with gas but that involves getting a propane stove as I live in the country.
Thanks, Prbinusa
as long as you’re careful and lift the pan off the surface to flip what’s in the pan, it shouldn’t be a problem.
i cook professionally and i hate cooking at home. i wish i had a gas range.
Electric ranges are spawn of the antichrist.
I grew up learning to cook on gas, then lived for 13 years in a rental with electric and no way to convert it (the owner didn’t mind if I made mods to the house, but the water heater gas was 15 feet away on a concrete slab foundation). Hated it.
Moved to a house with an electric that shorted out every time a teacup of water boiled over on it. (The water ran straight into the control wiring.) Hated it. Fortunately, the water heater and furnace closet was on the other side of the wall, so one day about a year in my wife came home to find dinner being made on a 5-burner Bosch gas unit. She simply said, “What took you so long?”
Moved to this house which still had the cheap electric flattop the builder had put in. Ordered a Bosch range during the move-in. Had to wait three weeks for the propane service to swap things around and run a line to the kitchen. Still hated it, even for that short time.
Go with gas - or better yet, a dual-fuel (gas top, electric oven) - if it’s at all within your budget and situation.
I agree that electrics are a pain, but the modern glasstop ones are a lot better than the old exposed-element designs. They heat up a lot faster, too. Still not as good as gas, though.
But speaking of ranges, and since I’m in the planning phases of remodeling my kitchen, have any of you used an induction cooktop? I really want one - they’re just so damn cool - but they’re a lot more expensive than a gas top.
Welcome to the SDMB, prbinusa!
Although Cafe Society is the forum for food and cuisine, this is actually more of a “hardware” question, so I’m going to move it over to IMHO for you. (Don’t worry! Even people who have been around forever and a half get that wrong.)
Hope you find plenty of other discussions of interest to you –
twickster, Cafe Society moderator
And, IIRC, you have to buy special cookware to use on it.
In my experience, it’s pretty much old people (in the 70s or later) who seem to like electric. Maybe it was the “new thing” when they first had a house and gas seemed old fashioned. But if you can go with gas, go with gas. Do you ever see an professional chef cooking on an electric cooktop?
Electric cooktops are terrible. I can’t wait to move out of this apartment and into my new house which will have a gas range. Go with gas, it’s a much better option.
It just has to be magnetic, not special. Anything steel or cast iron will work fine. Copper and glass and such won’t work.
Does it need to be a particular type of steel? I ask because some steel isn’t magnetic - e.g. most stainless-steel refrigerators. They won’t hold the kids’ artwork etc. I’ve never tried taking a magnet to my cast-iron cookware.
And, will enameled stuff work, e.g. the Le Creuset cookware?
We have an aging electric cooktop and I wanna know WHY??? The house across the street from ours is an almost exact mirror image of ours, and they have a gas cooktop. Ours, though… the cheap electric coil thing. We have gas heat / water heater, so there’s gas to the house… And I hate it.
I’ve been told that the one thing you cannot use on the newest flattop electric is cast iron.
I will not have gas lines to the house. Every time I read about a gas explosion, I tell my husband, “See? That’s why we can’t have gas appliances.” I know it’s very rare, but I’m still afraid of it. We have oil heat and electric everything else.
The unfortunate thing is that it’s hard these days to even get an electric stove with a normal cooktop. Almost all are flat tops. I like my cast iron skillets. If it’s true that copper and ceramic wouldn’t work either, that would mean that all my Corning and Revere Ware would become useless, too. No thanks.
MLS, I think you’re confusing electric cooktops with induction. Any cookware will work on an electric cooktop, but if it’s a glass top, cast iron may scratch or damage the glass.
Induction cooktops require magnetic cookware because instead of a heating element, it has an induction coil which induces an electrical current in the cookware, heating the pots directly instead of requiring the heat to be conducted from a heating element. They’re actually faster and more energy-efficient than gas stoves. But pricey.
Yeah - I’m pretty sure the type of stainless steel used in cookware should always work, but if you’re unsure you could always try sticking a fridge magnet to it. If it sticks then induction will work.
It should - as long as the iron is within a certain distance of the induction coil, it will work. I imagine the enamel is only tiny fraction of an inch thick.
ETA: They say it’s suitable for induction.
The appliance guy told me the same thing, and he also said that everyone who owns a glass top will eventually wind up getting a new glass top.
As far as the “go with gas” advice… that is great if you have gas. In my case it would cost in the neighborhood of $10k to have the gas company run lines to my house.
So then for some of us coils are the only option… there’s simply no way I’m turning in my cast iron or my copper.
Ah, thanks for the clarification. I did not know the induction cooktops were a separate issue. Still not acceptable *for me *either way.
I’ve had gas, exposed coil electric, and a glasstop. I hate the glasstop the most.
My glasstop has resistance coils underneath the top. They are horribly slow to heat, and boiling a gallon of water in a pot requires a good book to read. Wanna make pickles? Buy a good razor because you’ll need to shave, and have extra $$$ to pay the electric bill that month.
Note that this isn’t a magnetic induction cooktop, which requires the metal pan. The one nice thing I have to say about the glasstop stove is that it is definitely the easiest to clean.
Gas is my favorite. I’m considering buying a 2 burner summer stove and a propane tank to use outside whenever I pickle. It would help for my semi-regular outdoor cookfests, too.
I bought a glass top when we remodeled our last place. Gas wasn’t really an option there, and I absolutely hated that goddamned coil burner stove. The glass top will lose it’s shiny newness pretty quickly. They scratch easily and can be a real pain to get clean: Og help you if you use the scrungy side of the sponge on it, as that will scratch it, too. I used the cleaner that came with it, razor blades to get burned on stuff off, etc., but nothing really got it cleaned up well. Now I have a gas range again, and will never go back, if I can help it.
I like it because I’m absent-minded, flaky, and clumsy. Putting fire in my kitchen is just asking for disaster.
I grew up and learned on a gas stove–by far the easiest and best, as far as I’m concerned. But after I left home I’ve only ever had electric coil stoves, and I’ve hated every single one. I dearly love the responsiveness of an open flame, and the ease of visibly being able to SEE what the heat is at without guessing or using my hand as a gauge.
But house-sitting for friends right now with a glass flat-top…I can’t say this is any better than my electric coil range. And in many cases it’s WORSE. Never, ever, ever would pick this for myself. Nope. Not at all.
I use an electric ceramic hob and it’s far from “terrible”. OK, it’s not quite as precisely and rapidly adjustable as gas, but on the plus side it is about a hundred times easier to clean up spillages from a smooth, knob-free glass surface than it is from a gas hob.
Edit… I cannot believe this quote:
Are you talking about a ceramic hob? Like this? They are the easiest thing in the world to clean - no dirt traps and they just wipe clean!
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As for electric coil hobs, yes they are the worst of both worlds, but are they even being made any more? Last time I saw one was in my wife’s grandmother’s kitchen at Christmas, and I think it’s been there since the 1960s.
If gas is an option, get the gas stove! I hate my glasstop. You would think it would be easy to clean, but NoooooOOOoo! Gas is so much better because you can actually control the temperature you are cooking at.