Rethinking electric

[Fat Guy]

Over the years we've had a few topic on electric cooktops, including:

Is there such a thing as a great electric stove?

cooking with electric

Giving up on gas and going back to electric

As a longtime user of gas ranges, I've never really had to embrace electric. I've known, in the abstract, that electric technology has been improving, but it hasn't affected me. In New York City, most everyone uses gas and in the two most rural houses where I cook often as a guest our friends have gone to great lengths to have propane tanks put in.

This week, however, I've been staying in some friends' townhouse in Charlotte, NC, and they have electric. Nothing fancy, I think this is just the unit the condo builder put in all the kitchens. It's a Maytag with glass-surface radiant-heat elements, like this one.

After cooking on this unit for a few days, I've really come to appreciate electric. I'm not saying it's better than gas for all purposes. It's just that I've been impressed.

I think in terms of raw power this unit outclasses any non-restaurant electric range. The primary test for this is boiling water. The range is unusually efficient at turning a pot of cold water into a pot of boiling. The strength of the largest burner is described as "Large: 1-10 in. 2100/3200 watts." I'm not fully sure what that means, but the thing is strong.

For high-temperature sauteeing the unit is equally effective. It gets a pan super-hot very quickly.

The common complaints about electric are that it's slow and that you can't see the flame. This unit is fast: you turn the dial to a setting and within moments the burner is glowing red. Temperatures are held by cycling on and off, but with heavy cookware there isn't major temperature fluctuation -- still, this is something that's better with gas.

[maggiethecat]

Steven, were you listening in to our five minute ago conversation?

I've just returned to my gas range after cooking for two months on my Dad's plain ole coil electric stove top. It took me two weeks to get the, er, range on it, but I figured out that I had to cook most things on Med-Lo. It's a hot thang.

I put on a pot of water to boil for rice tonight -- two minutes on my Dad's range, four minutes on mine. This lifelong gas apostle grumbled.

[Shalmanese]

Having been a gas snob all my life, a few years of working with electric (even crappy old electric) has made me pretty much ambivalent. One of the unsung joys of electric is that the heat does not travel up around the sides of your pans. With gas, the sides above the fill line would often get overly hot and cause food stuck to it to burn.

[Edward J]

I learned to cook with electric ranges, gas is very expensive in Europe, and most restaurants use "french top" electric stoves and even electric deep fryers and salamanders.

There are pros and cons to both gas and electric.

Some of the pros of electric are:

-When sauteing, the oil mist won't ignite and cause flare ups

-No flame that licks and wraps around the sides of the pot scorching everything, as Shalmanese notes.

-Clean ups, spills, overboils, etc, are VERY easy to clean on smooth top electrics. I think any pro cook can appreciate this, as every pro cook has either "burnt" an entire gas burner over another one in order to burn out crud in the gas jet orifices, or has labourously picked out crud from the burners with a hair pin or bamboo skewers.

-No need to replace piezo-electric sparkers or pilot lights.

[teapot]

When a friend installed his DCS gas range, he called me on the phone to crow. I, with my 1958 GE Hotpoint electric stove challenged him to a boil off. We filled our All-Clad sauciera with 4 cups of water and I turned on my burner at the same moment he lit his. I beat him by a couple of minutes easy - not proof of anything other than direct heat is going to heat faster - but it was a fun little race.

I bake a lot of breads and pizzas - and I have a hunch the performance I get in my old electric oven is better than I'd have with gas. But I'd be interested in comments about gas v. electric ovens.

[technophile50]

3200 watts = 10883 btu/hr

From the description of a randomly chosen sears gas range ~$900 -

"Enjoy a high performance cooking center with 5 cooking zones - versatile cooktop provides high power to low simmer operations. Cooking zones include a 17,200 and 12,000 BTU power burner, one 9,500 BTU burner, one 10,000 BTU oval burner perfect for griddles and longer pans, and one 500-5,000 BTU simmer burner ideal to prepare delicate foods and sauces"

So a 3200 watt electric element is sorta in the middle.

A low end ~$350 Sears range like I use has 4 9000 BTU burners. Their $350 electric has 2 2100 watt/7140 BTU elements, and 2 1250 watt elements.

A $5000 Viking pro stove will get you 4 15000 btu burners. To get that from an electric stove would require 80 amps at 220 volts - but home cooking would almost never need all 4 burners on high.

The seafood restaurant I worked at in junior high school had a 3kw Amana "Radarange", which was amazing; the chef would put a tray of "baked" potatoes in for 5 minutes, and they'd be done - kept hot in a warming oven above the gas broiler which ran continuously

All of them will burn food; higher output will just do it faster &:>)

The low effective mass of the air/gas flame allows near instant response, while the mass of an electric element takes a while to change temperature - although the radiant element that Steven describes sounds pretty low mass and responsive. A wood or charcoal fire is even less responsive, but they have been used to prepare many more meals since the dawn of cooking; one in twenty people who have ever lived is alive today, and a majority of them still cook with wood or charcoal. Whatever you use, learning its characteristics is a small part of learning to cook.

[weinoo]

I didn't think the knock against electric ranges was that they were slow to boil water.

I always thought the knock was that they were slow to cool down and thus when cooking, you needed to move the pot off the heat to stop the cooking process. Or, alternatively, to move it to another, cooler burner to continue at a different temperature.

[David A. Goldfarb]

I always thought the knock was that they were slow to cool down and thus when cooking, you needed to move the pot off the heat to stop the cooking process. Or, alternatively, to move it to another, cooler burner to continue at a different temperature.

Yes, this is why I don't care for electric, which I grew up with for the most part, but one can manage with what one has.

If the flame on a gas burner is too large for the pan, then the problem isn't the fact that it's gas--you either set the flame lower or use a bigger pan. That's like saying the problem with water is that the sink overflows, if you put in the stopper and don't turn it off.

I was watching some old Julia Child videos on YouTube some months ago and noticed she was cooking on an electric range, at least on a couple of the clips I watched, maybe all of them.

[Darienne]

What I hate about electric stoves is that it seems that in such a little time, the heat in the coils is so uneven. Perhaps I should be replacing my burners more often?

Last week I was deep frying something and with my insta-read thermometer realized with dismay that the temperature of one side of my pan really was much hotter than the other side. Picked up the saute pan...looked at the coils...arrgghhh....

[JBailey]

I believe it is Electrolux which is not offering a cooktop with a hybrid of both flat surface electric and induction hobs. Personally, I have been using a CookTek hob and find it certainly is as, if not more, versatile than electic when adjusting temperatures. The biggest advantage I appreciate is the steadiness of temperatures. From what I have read, induction allows for direct melting of chocolate where one would want a double boiler using conventional gas or electric.

[thock]

Yeah, not only the uneven heat, but with my coil burners, also the lack of levelness across the coil. Or rather, it sticks up more on one side than another. Rather irritating.

Hmm. Maybe I should get new coils. But I'm not sure that would solve the sticking-up-on-one-side problem.

[Mjx]

We have a glass stove-top (they're the standard in Denmark, with induction versions becoming increasingly popular, but we decided to wait on that one, until the research is more conclusive), and I really like it, but would love to have gas burners for a wok and for the moka: I cannot seem to get the hang of getting the moka to behave consistently on an electric stove-top. Unfortunately, gas burners are luxury items here, and between their cost, the costs of the permit (many cities no longer even have gas lines, you need to get tanks), and of the gas itself, we've held off.

On the Vermont Country Store site, I came across a warning to not use at least certain enamelled cookware on glass stove-tops, but I'm not clear as to the reason for this, and discussions of this online seem to differ on this point.

Edited February 26, 2011 by Mjx (log)

[Chris Hennes]

I extoll the virtues of my electric smoothtop to anyone who will listen. In my opinion the ease of cleanup is all it needs to make its case. I love it, and hope never to be forced to use gas or an electric coil ever again (except my wok burner, which I also love, but which cannot be used indoors!).

[BarbaraY]

Gas snob here. I first learned to cook on a wood range. Since my marriage in 1953 I have cooked on wood, gas, and electric including one glass top electric which I managed to kill with a pot of tamales.

I still prefer the gas for it's instant response or maybe I like seeing a real flame. Even more important is that living in a rural area when we have a power outage I can still cook a meal except for anything baked because we have electronic ignition.

[JAZ]

I didn't think the knock against electric ranges was that they were slow to boil water.

I always thought the knock was that they were slow to cool down and thus when cooking, you needed to move the pot off the heat to stop the cooking process. Or, alternatively, to move it to another, cooler burner to continue at a different temperature.

Mitch, when you turn the flame off under a pot on a gas range, what makes you think the burner cools down immediately? Isn't there a hot burner grate under your pot that still radiates and conducts heat? The only burners I've used that actually stop the cooking process when turned off are induction.

[Chris Hennes]

Isn't there a hot burner grate under your pot that still radiates and conducts heat?

This is an area where el cheapo gas stoves (like I've had in past apartments) outperform their fancier high-end brethren: the cheap stoves have thin, crappy prongs supporting the posts. These tend to cool down quite quickly when the flame gets turned down. But you are pretty screwed if you've got those gorgeous cast iron continuous grates that you find on the high end gas stoves: those suckers hold way more heat than even my electric smoothtop, which I think does take a while to cool down. It's something you adapt to in either case, though.

[Darienne]

In New York City, most everyone uses gas and in the two most rural houses where I cook often as a guest our friends have gone to great lengths to have propane tanks put in.

Just what lengths does one go to to put in propane?

[haresfur]

I moved from a glass top induction-radiant hybrid to a gas cook top where the burners are set into a glass plate. You still have to clean under the burners and probably the worst is trying to clean the stuff that gets way down inside. But the top is pretty easy.

I think gas is less expensive than electric here but I prefer the electric. I seldom use more than 2 burners at a time so the radiant burners got little use. They actually had finer temperature control than the hybrid ones but didn't have the low end, which as mentioned above is as important as the high end temperature.

The main problem with switching from induction is that I was in the habit of picking up spilled food bits with my fingers since the stove didn't get hot...

[andiesenji]

Over the decades that I have been cooking, I have had experience with a few electric ranges and cooktops and have nothing good to say about any of them.

In fact, they were yanked out and replaced with gas as soon as possible, and one was at considerable expense because there was no gas line to the house and that and the meter had to be installed at my expense.

Electric ovens are a different matter entirely. I like electric ovens.

My complain with those old electric burners was uneven heating, remaining hot for long after the power was turned off, slow to heat to maximum and difficulty cleaning burnt-on stuff.

That being said, I do like the induction burners - I have three for "emergency" use.

In particular in case of earthquake when gas lines may be affected, I have generators that will power these and other necessary appliances easily.

The newer electric burners may be superior to those I have used but as I have no experience with them, I can't comment.

My gas stove top is easy to clean, the burners are sealed to the stainless "well" in which they sit and it is level throughout with no nooks and crannies to gather debris. I just lift off the grates and wipe up anything that has spilled.

[janeer]

I like gas for cooking and electric for baking; this is what I've always had in my own houses. Electric drives me wild for anything but making tea. So I am presently wild--have electric in the condo I rent in Nashville during the academic year. I've cooked on glass top and traditional coil, new ones and old ones, and find them equally annoying. I'm open to trying induction, though.

[Dianabanana]

As an update . . . the third thread that FG linked to up there was mine. I ended up buying an induction range, and love that thing like a pet. I've had gas, electric coil, and smooth-top electric, and this beats them all by a mile--for ease of cleanup, evenness of heating, responsiveness, range of temperature (both high and low), everything. It's one of the best purchases I've ever made.

[lesliec]

I'm with Diana. After years of being gas bigots (faster, more controllable - the usual reasons) we were finding the gas hob we put in with the new kitchen a few years ago just wasn't doing the job. Since the hob was the only gas-consuming thing in the house it wasn't worth getting connected to mains gas, so we used 9kg barbecue-type bottles. This was probably the problem - the pressure, perhaps, just wasn't sufficient to make the burners roar, and pretty much any time after the first week of connecting a full bottle, running more than two burners (sometimes one) at a time was very tedious.

Our lovely new induction hob was installed a couple of days before Christmas and we're totally sold. It's fast, it's powerful, it's gentle, it's even, it slows down when you tell it to and speeds up likewise, and it's easy to clean on the odd occasion I do forget myself and let something boil over. The one we got even fits in the same size hole the old gas one came out of, and almost all our cookware was induction ready (not deliberately - it just worked out that way).

It doesn't matter whether you think you're a gas person or an electric one (no robot jokes intended) - if you're looking at replacing a cooktop, look very closely at induction.

[Fat Guy]

Just what lengths does one go to to put in propane?

Most any home in the Western world is wired for electricity by default. If you want to install an electric range it's just a question of plugging it in, or maybe having the electrician make you a 220 circuit -- standard in a lot of kitchens and laundry rooms anyway. If you live in an area with a municipal gas supply then home construction in that area will often include gas plumbing. In New York City, for example, most every building is connected to the gas utility and you rarely see a non-gas burner in a home kitchen. But if you live way out in rural Connecticut or North Carolina there is no municipal gas supply. There may not even be municipal water or sewage: you have a well and a septic system. And if you want your range to run on gas you need a large, usually unsightly propane tank out back of your home, you need the plumbing to run that to your kitchen (which is not so hard to do if you're doing it while building a new home but is a major pain in renovation), and you need to monitor and have the tank filled when necessary. My friends who've gone through it are evenly split on the decision. One friend really likes cooking with gas and is willing to endure the inconvenience of the propane tank. The other friend says that if he had known what an annoyance it would be to maintain the propane he'd have gone with a modern electric range. Also, it seems that people with propane-fueled ranges often have calibration problems because the installers often don't know what they're doing with the conversion kits.

[Darienne]

Thank you, Fat Sir. Propane will go into the bin marked 'things that are never going to happen in my lifetime'.

[dcarch]

You cannot char food with electric, for instance, with peppers and tomatoes to remove the skin.

Electric does not work as well with those double cast iron griddles. It can't heat up as evenly.

dcarch