12 hours ago, boilsover said:Have you plugged the Control Freak into a watt meter to see whether the draw is constant?
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.