A4 Box Induction Cooker

[JoNorvelleWalker]

On 7/30/2019 at 11:40 AM, Shelby said:

Lol, what's wrong with me.   I must be having a weak moment. I keep staring at this thing.  It's going to cost  $258--because I would want the octopus ball pan and you have to buy that set separately.

 

I don't need any more toys lol.  

 

 

If only it came in pink...........

 

Received an email from A4Box this morning:  Sunset Pink in North American version is coming soon.  North American versions of Smoke Green and Moon Blue are now in stock for purchase.

[Shelby]

2 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

Received an email from A4Box this morning:  Sunset Pink in North American version is coming soon.  North American versions of Smoke Green and Moon Blue are now in stock for purchase.

ENABLER 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 minute ago, Shelby said:

ENABLER 

 

You're welcome.

 

[Smithy]

I must admit that the price tag has been one impediment but so has the lack of color choice. Oh, dear!

[Smithy]

1 hour ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

Received an email from A4Box this morning:  Sunset Pink in North American version is coming soon.  North American versions of Smoke Green and Moon Blue are now in stock for purchase.

 

...and, @Shelby take note: the Sunset Pink is $50 less than the other colors!

 

Edited to add: listed for $50 less than the others, listed as "coming soon" AND listed as "Sold Out". Huh?

Edited September 11, 2022 by Smithy
Updated the post (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

26 minutes ago, Smithy said:

 

...and, @Shelby take note: the Sunset Pink is $50 less than the other colors!

 

Edited to add: listed for $50 less than the others, listed as "coming soon" AND listed as "Sold Out". Huh?

 

What is sold out is the 220v version.

 

[rotuts]

As I understand it

 

the A4 is not a particularly large kitchen device.

 

why would it even come in 220v.

 

is that the common voltage for kitchen counter

 

items in Japan ?

[JoNorvelleWalker]

6 minutes ago, rotuts said:

As I understand it

 

the A4 is not a particularly large kitchen device.

 

why would it even come in 220v.

 

is that the common voltage for kitchen counter

 

items in Japan ?

 

Japanese line voltage for kitchen appliances is 100v.

 

[Sid Post]

Is this a good induction cooker?  Also, are the other pans available individually or just as a set of three?

 

Also, it looks like these are on sale for 40% off.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

8 minutes ago, Sid Post said:

Is this a good induction cooker?  Also, are the other pans available individually or just as a set of three?

 

Also, it looks like these are on sale for 40% off.

 

The A4 box is a good induction cooker.  I believe the additional pans are only available as a set (you could write them and ask).

 

While I can only say good things about the A4 Box, I must admit I hardly ever use mine.  But I like knowing that I have it.

 

[lemniscate]

@Sid Post

I really enjoy my A4, I use it on the patio and for travel.   I bought ALL the interchangeable plates, I primarily use the flat grill insert, the soup insert and just started using the mini-pancake insert for Oladi.   The raised grill insert and octopus ball insert have gone unused so far.   The A4 is pretty easy to keep clean.

 

The pancake insert seems to be hotter in the center 2 and colder on the outer 4.   I end up swapping the pancakes around to get more even browning if I care about that at the moment.  Eh, not great, but not terrible either.

 

It's expensive (normal pricing) but for me I feel like it's cut down on kitchen mess and has saved a bit of money and time when there's been no restaurant food available or desirable during roadtrips.

Edited November 27, 2022 by lemniscate (log)

[Anna N]

38 minutes ago, lemniscate said:

I really enjoy my A4

Although I don’t cook much these days I am still a huge fan of my A4. Mine was a gift and I was lucky enough to get all of the plates. I have not made use of the small pancake one or the takoyaki plate. 

[lemniscate]

I am not trying to enable anyone but I got an email this morning about an ongoing sale for the A4box,    There is white, green and blue for 120V US/Canada.   I put the green one as an experiment in my cart and the discount code showed $149.00 with free shipping.   It comes with the smooth and ridged plates.   The additional 3 plate combo shows sold out at the moment.

 

40% OFF SALE ENDS TODAY Use code: COOK40 at checkout, or click the link below to automatically apply the discount to your order.

Edited November 29, 2022 by lemniscate (log)

[lemniscate]

I did some more Kefir Oladi in the A4 Box today.   I was out on the patio on a pleasant morning (rare rain is in the forecast).  I had a breakfast beverage (German Pils for day 3 of the Beer Advent Calendar from Costco) to assist.   The pancakes turned out very nice, I used the circles insert.  You can see in the pics how the heat varies from middle to sides on the insert by the browning of the pancakes.

[Sid Post]

On 11/29/2022 at 7:55 AM, lemniscate said:

I am not trying to enable anyone but I got an email this morning about an ongoing sale for the A4box,    There is white, green and blue for 120V US/Canada.   I put the green one as an experiment in my cart and the discount code showed $149.00 with free shipping.   It comes with the smooth and ridged plates.   The additional 3 plate combo shows sold out at the moment.

 

Turns out, the reason I was seeing only getting the $249 price was that I was not "subscribed" to their email newsletters per the email response to them.  Now the normal price is apparently $199.

 

This all seems like a 'bait and switch' type of thing like Amazon does for Black Friday sales.  I would have been seriously tempted at $150 but, this whole thing is a turn off at this point.

[lemniscate]

I found that a bag of TJ's pork dumplings/potstickers fits exactly in the A4box   Was at a get together and brought the cooker as a serving device.   Steamed a bit then fried on the bottom.

[dtremit]

I am late to post here, but ended up grabbing one in Moon Blue during the Christmas sales. Have used it a couple of times now for table cooking to great effect.

 

I was particularly impressed with how the grill pan performed for Korean BBQ — probably no great surprise as I am pretty sure the company behind A4Box is Korean. Great browning on the meat with almost no smoke at all. The griddle pan also cooked pajeon nicely to accompany the meat.

 

Just got the three additional pans set in — will be experimenting with some hot pots soon, and maybe budae jjigae on a cold night. We are traveling to Japan soon so both okonomiyaki and takoyaki seem likely to make an appearance at some point!

 

I'm also tempted to use the six pancake insert to make something like crumpets or English muffins. I'm not sure if the wells are tall enough for the extremely fluffy Japanese-style pancakes that are so trendy over there now, but it might be worth a try.

[Anna N]

One of the reasons that I am reluctant to use my A4 box is not the fault of the box. I am afraid of using most things that sear lest I set off the smoke  alarm. I know those suckers are for safety but if you are not very mobile there is no easy way to make them stop screaming! I am always afraid that my neighbours will come running. We need some better way of dealing with smoke alarms that maintains their safety features and gets rid of the rest! Like a remote control that would have limited ability to turn them off for a very short time or something. I just miss using my A4 (or most anything else that might produce smoke).

[lemniscate]

On the patio with the A4box tonight.  Last decent weather evening per predictions.  Sablefish sautéed in butter in A4, eaten right out of A4.   And some saku tuna.  

[rotuts]

@Anna N 

 

why not consider re-mounting your smoke detector ?

 

@ eye height on a side wall .

 

if there were a button to push on the device 

 

to disable it , that would be mush easier to do 

 

than on a ceiling .  then you push the button 

 

to put it back in service 

 

after the ' smoke ' clears ?

 

its true smoke rises , but the alarm would sill 

 

work about a foot or two lower , on a wall ?

 

 

[dtremit]

17 hours ago, Anna N said:

One of the reasons that I am reluctant to use my A4 box is not the fault of the box. I am afraid of using most things that sear lest I set off the smoke  alarm. I know those suckers are for safety but if you are not very mobile there is no easy way to make them stop screaming! I am always afraid that my neighbours will come running. We need some better way of dealing with smoke alarms that maintains their safety features and gets rid of the rest! Like a remote control that would have limited ability to turn them off for a very short time or something. I just miss using my A4 (or most anything else that might produce smoke).

 

They're not cheap, but the Nest Protect smoke alarms from Google can be silenced from a phone app (at least for low levels of smoke). Unless things have changed, they also give you a spoken warning that the alarm is about to go off before the actual siren sounds.

[Anna N]

2 hours ago, rotuts said:

@Anna N 

 

why not consider re-mounting your smoke detector ?

 

@ eye height on a side wall .

 

if there were a button to push on the device 

 

to disable it , that would be mush easier to do 

 

than on a ceiling .  then you push the button 

 

to put it back in service 

 

after the ' smoke ' clears ?

 

its true smoke rises , but the alarm would sill 

 

work about a foot or two lower , on a wall ?

 

 

Thank you but for lots of reasons it's not terribly practical.

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, dtremit said:

 

They're not cheap, but the Nest Protect smoke alarms from Google can be silenced from a phone app (at least for low levels of smoke). Unless things have changed, they also give you a spoken warning that the alarm is about to go off before the actual siren sounds.

Thank you. Again it is not particularly practical for me but I do appreciate the suggestion.

[dtremit]

I strongly suspect that the white nonstick coating on the hot pot insert is going to need to be babied — I don't know whether it came that way or if we screwed up when cleaning it, but there are a couple of tiny pits in it already. And I know gave it a small scratch when a utensil slipped the other day as well. Disappointing as the coating on all the black pans seems really solid.

Edited March 6, 2023 by dtremit (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

12 minutes ago, dtremit said:

I strongly suspect that the white nonstick coating on the hot pot insert is going to need to be babied — I don't know whether it came that way or if we screwed up when cleaning it, but there are a couple of tiny pits in it already. And I know gave it a small scratch when a utensil slipped the other day as well. Disappointing as the coating on all the black pans seems really solid.

 

I thought the hot pot was just ceramic?