Foodie from Boston

Made some Hollandaise sauce this weekend - recipe courtesy of @CanadianHomeChef (also found a similar recipe on PolyScience Culinary website along with their YouTube video by one of their chefs, David Pietranczyk). Turned out great (despite the fact that I forgot to switch to probe control at first), maybe a little too lemon'ey for our taste (will try to use less lemon juice in the future). I really liked how simple it was - just throw it all in at the same time, no need for a vinegar reduction or bain marie or anything like that.

Made a couple of French omelettes last weekend - thanks so much @CanadianHomeChef for sharing the recipe! Watching this video also helped, especially with the plating technique (covering frying pan with a plate then flipping it). What I've learned: - the key is not to get too greedy with the fillings or it becomes difficult to wrap it up (I used basil, tomato, ham and cheese for fillings) - 228F works really well - it took me a little longer than 2 minutes, more like 3-4 minutes (probably due to difference in frying pan induction characteristics)

Done - thanks so much!

Thanks - will try crepes at this temp and report back, 285F works but takes a little too long

According to Breville’s website, 20 times per second.

I did - it was relatively constant (1800 +/-20 Watt) while CF was heating up a pot of water. Agree with @CanadianHomeChef that the main advantage is precision, not speed. We made some crepes yesterday on both CF (using newly bought induction-friendly Staub cast iron crepe pan) and a regular nonstick pan on a gas range, side by side. CF took longer, yes - but we could leave it unattended for the most part. Dialed pan temp to 285F (according to the chart on Breville’s website), did a quick “test crepe” to measure the times with a count-up timer, then set countdown timers for 6 minutes on one side and 4 more on the other side, so it took about 10 minutes per crepe (plus turning and pouring). The regular pan on a gas burner set to medium was roughly twice as fast (it was also smaller so not an apples to apples comparison), but we had to constantly monitor it and almost burned a crepe once (luckily noticed the smell and quickly took it off before it was too late). Sorry I forgot the pictures - the ones made on CF turned out to be slightly less brown (could have increased the temperature or the timing I guess), the taste was the same as far as we could tell. Did anyone else try crepes or pancakes? What was your target temp / time per side? P.S. I also tried to measure internal temperature of the crepes with a Thermapen and it showed around 200 - which is probably off as it wasn’t thick enough for the sensor to get fully submerged. Will order another one with an integrated IR thermometer from Thermaworks soon.

yep, and my electric kettle did 0.75L in 2-something minutes (vs. 4 on the CF). I'm guessing all these "omg look how fast it is" reviews were comparing CF to an old electric range or something. A little disappointing, but at least now I know it's normal and the unit itself is not defective (at least not in this regard lol).

JFYI - heated 2L (~2 quarts) from 50F to a full boil (212F) with no lid in 10 and a half minutes - very close to 10’55” in the video. I’m guessing those reviewers who managed to get water boiling in less than 2 minutes either used much less water (e.g. 1 - 1.5 cups), or it was warmer to begin with, or both.

Try Sur La Table - this is where I bought mine from, at the same price point ($1,499). Unfortunately, Sur La Table doesn't stack their discounts (I also had a couple of 20% coupons from them - ironically, it would have been slightly cheaper if I bought the unit at full price $1,800 with a 20% discount haha), but I think you're right that it may be at its lowest. That's a great question (and highly subjective of course /CaptainObviousModeOff>) Before I pulled the trigger, I spent about a week reading various reviews (and re-reading this thread several times 😜), at which point I realized I've become a little obsessed and figured if I'm spending so much time researching it I should just buy the damn thing 😎 (your mileage may vary)

Great, thanks @ElsieD for helping out with the research! So far it looks like time-to-boil varies from pan to pan (to be expected due to the different amount/characteristics of ferromagnetic material used), although they all seem to be in the same ballpark, and most importantly my timings are not far off, so I'm keeping the unit! Thanks everyone for your contribution P.S. By the way, turns out I misspoke when I said it takes 6.5 minutes to bring 2 liters of water to a full boil - it's actually about 9 minutes in my 2.75 qt Scanpan (with the lid on and target temp fully cranked up to max). Still, I think it's in the same ballpark with @ocd's calculations - I adjusted them a little bit (used 4.2kJ / kg*K as water heat capacity since it varies slightly from 4.183 to 4.220 from 0 to 100 C), delta Temp is 85K in my case (cold tap water was 60F or 15C), which gives us 397 seconds (or 6.6 minutes), but that's assuming 100% efficiency as @ocd pointed out. According to Wikipedia, US D.O.E. conducted new studies in 2013 and 2014 which found that induction efficiency (percentage of the energy consumed by a cooker that have been transferred as heat to a standardized aluminum test block) is only about 72% on average (and not 84% as it was previously thought). Divide 397 by 0.72 and voila - 551 seconds or 9.19 minutes! I also found an article with a video on Eater.com where they are doing a similar test with bringing 2 liters of water to a full boil - and it takes them about 11 minutes (granted, with an open pot - going to re-do my test with no lid and see if I get the same result).

Thanks - that's a great tip! Yes, I thought about that too! When I get home tonight I will test my electric kettle to see if maybe it boils water a little faster or at least at the same speed so I can divide and conquer (e.g. pour 2 quarts into each and once they start boiling combine them in CF). This should help if I'm in a time crunch (hungry guests etc ) Thanks - absolutely! I really like this community, and I appreciate the support and inspiration I've gotten so far - will do my best to give back and contribute. I can totally relate to that - my lady and I both work crazy hours and we rarely have the energy to cook something serious when we get home. We do like to cook on the weekends though - will try to keep track and share once we come up with something interesting.

Great, thanks so much @ocd and @CanadianHomeChef - this was very helpful, I feel so much better now!

Greetings fellow cooks and foodies, First of all, Thank You All Very Much for starting this thread and sharing tons of helpful info - it inspired me to pull the trigger on the Control Freak, so I ordered it from Sur La Table (it was on sale) and it arrived this Monday! Happy to report that it does work with my Scanpan CS+ 10 piece cookware set (CS+ is their latest non-stick line exclusive to SLT) - at the same time, I never managed to bring water to boil in "under 2 minutes" as several online reviewers have claimed. With my unit, 0.75 liter (about 3 cups) in a 2qt saucepan takes about 4 minutes to boil, and 2 liters take a full 6.5 minutes - that's with the lid closed, Intensity set to Fast and the temperature knob cranked up to max (482F). My first thought was that perhaps the unit is not drawing enough power so I tried different outlets, and then I measured wattage with my WeMo smart plug - it hovered around 1800 W as per CF specifications. I then tried a different cookware (Staub Perfect Pan - enameled cast iron), and got similar timing with similar amounts of water. By the way, pan probe temp at boiling point is much higher than water temp, 270F vs. 212F - is this normal? Question to other lucky CF owners - are you getting similar results with your cookware or is it noticeably faster than 4 minutes for 3 cups of water? If it's not too much trouble, perhaps you could run a quick test and share how long it takes your CF to boil X amount of water in Y cookware? Hopefully the difference is in the cookware - although my $1k Scanpan CS+ set is not eligible for return anymore, at least if I know what cookware works better I could buy a pan or two just for when I need a faster boil. If it is the unit itself then it should be eligible for replacement - or maybe it just needs the latest firmware? (slim chances I know). I also submitted a support ticket with Breville Support (online chat wasn't available), will report back as soon as I hear anything. Thanks a lot in advance! John.