Transition from PNG fired burners to Induction heating

[vyas]

Dear Members,

We are planning a transition from PNG fired burners to Induction heating technology.

I would like to find some technical literature available in web like breakdown maintenance, cooks feedback, taste texture color differences, sizing of the brat pan or boilers etc.,

 

The purpose of this transition is to improve the energy efficiency and clean work space

 

Thanks,

[liuzhou]

What do you mean by PNG? That abbreviation is used for several fuels.

[vyas]

PNG is Piped Natural Gas.

[btbyrd]

So you’re saying it’s natural gas…

[btbyrd]

I occasionally go on long rants about induction, so here's kind of a recap and rehash. Induction has its virtues like its efficiency, cleanliness, and safety. There's no open flame to catch things on fire if a pot boils over or whatever. And I find induction to be extremely responsive. It can be like cooking with gas. Unfortunately, that experience can become blocked off because it gets locked behind a crappy interface. Cooking with gas is responsive in two ways: the cookware will respond almost immediately to a change in flame. If something's about to boil over, you can drop the heat and the boil will stop almost immediately. But gas cooking is also responsive in the sense that you can just reach right out and touch a dial to crank the heat up and down or nudge it ever so gently. Having a physical dial or control is valuable to me as a cook, and basically none of the 240V rangetops seem to have great control schemes. Some have touchscreens for God's sake. The idea that I'd want to touch a capacitive touch screen with kitchen hands in the heat of cooking... it holds no appeal for me. I need the heat to be responsive and I need a tactile interface that allows me to access that heating power with ease. Induction typically delivers on half of that promise. Pity.

 

There's all sorts of other stuff to complain about with induction. The uneven heat is perhaps the most bothersome. The other things I hate are a lack of fine grained temperature control (10 power levels isn't enough, people) and not having a control knob to control the temperature (membrane switches suck). I have a commercial induction burner in the form of the Vollrath Mirage Pro, which has 100 power levels and a knob so it avoids two of the three pitfalls. But it still unevenly heats larger cookware because of the relatively small size of its induction coil. As others have noted, cast iron is a bad conductor of heat but cast iron isn't the culprit here. I have a similar boil pattern in my All Clad Copper Core and D7 cookware, and it never gets better no matter how long you let things boil. And if I put something massive like my Modernist Cuisine baking steel on it and let it heat up slowly for an hour, it's still abysmally unevenly heated. It varies by hundreds of degrees from center to edge and has a noticeable colder spot in the center. I wouldn't even use it to make a pancake. This promotional photo from the Modernist Cuisine crew is a terrible lie:

 

 

Induction coils only heat what's directly above them. And they they don't evenly heat even that circle; they create a ring of heat with a colder spot in the middle. For some applications, like boiling water in a medium sized pot, this uneven heat is not really an issue. For other purposes, it can be intensely irritating. Trying to get an even sear on proteins in a 12" pan isn't going to happen. Trying to fry three or more eggs evenly isn't going to happen. It sucks. Even super expensive units like the Control Freak have this problem. Here's the scorch pattern of a cast iron pan on the Control Freak:

 

 

Try evenly searing scallops in that thing. You can mitigate this with more conductive cookware, but it never fully gets rid of the problem. Did I mention that you should be careful about slowly heating up your carbon steel and cast iron pans because they're liable to warp on induction? Grr... so stupid. I had to hammer the bottoms flat on some of my Dartos because I used them at high heat on induction. No longer. I now use portable butane burners for high intensity searing. For $100, you can get a 15,000 BTU Iwatani butane burner and have a high output gas burner that you can put anywhere and take everywhere. Every kitchen needs one.

 

As far as cookware goes, I would totally avoid cast iron and carbon steel because they're such garbage conductors. Europeans, who have better technology and more experience cooking with induction, seem largely to prefer thicker disc bottom pans like those made by Fissler. The thick layers of aluminum in the disc help distribute the heat evenly and help avoid the "ring of fire" induction coil pattern. But because it does so by adding mass, you lose a bit of responsiveness. Everything in life is a trade off. 

 

Just as important as cookware material is MATCHING PAN SIZE TO INDUCTION COIL SIZE. It don't matter how thick your base is if the coil only occupies a small part of the center of the pan. The big 240V rangetops usually have burners of different sizes or zones that cater to cookware of various sizes. But I've never used one that had an induction coil that was large enough to competently heat a 12" skillet. I have been told by Europeans that such units exist. But I've never used one. The one system that seems to avoid this problem is the Thermadore Freedom induction cooktops because they use an array of small induction coils instead of large ones. It dynamically detects the position and size of your cookware and turns on only the coils beneath it.

 

 

Seems like a cool system, but it it multiplies the number of parts that can fail because you're using like fifty induction coils rather than five. And it's very expensive. And you have to control your range through a touch screen.

 

Induction has so much potential but it also kind of sucks.

[pastrygirl]

26 minutes ago, btbyrd said:

Just as important as cookware material is MATCHING PAN SIZE TO INDUCTION COIL SIZE. It don't matter how thick your base is if the coil only occupies a small part of the center of the pan. The big 240V rangetops usually have burners of different sizes or zones that cater to cookware of various sizes. But I've never used one that had an induction coil that was large enough to competently heat a 12" skillet.

 

Thanks for posting your thoughts.  I, too, am contemplating a switch from natural gas to induction but am thinking my larger candy/stock burner would be hard to replace.  Maybe I'll keep that for large batches of caramel and go electric for all the small stuff.

[Laurentius]

9 hours ago, vyas said:

 

 

The purpose of this transition is to improve the energy efficiency and clean work space

 

Thanks,

 

While I applaud the symbolism of switching to induction, it's just that, IMO.  

 

btbyrd has covered why the mode isn't all that.

 

I'll add that there is little solid evidence that induction is more efficient.  In terms of what happens inside the appliance, it is.  But when the generation and infrastructure are considered, it's possible there's no improvement.  If the environmental costs are important, things like more electrical infrastructure, line losses, waste streams, and new appliances must be counted against keeping what we have.  And how is your electricity generated to begin with?  And what of your oven?

 

As far as improving your efficiency goes, there's not much you can do.  I suppose you can always cook in covered, insulated cookware, and avoid using the oven.

 

A clean kitchen...  If you want a glass cooktop, they existed before induction.  Likewise closed burners.  You could even cook entirely in a microwave.  But as with all these things, is it symbolically important enough to you?

[Laurentius]

41 minutes ago, pastrygirl said:

Maybe I'll keep that for large batches of caramel and go electric for all the small stuff.

 

Have you considered buying  PIC to use alongside your gas jobs so you can compare?

[Smithy]

1 hour ago, Laurentius said:

 

Have you considered buying  PIC to use alongside your gas jobs so you can compare?

 

"PIC" may need translating, just as "PNG" did. Does it stand for "Portable Induction Cooktop"?

[Deephaven]

3 hours ago, btbyrd said:

But gas cooking is also responsive in the sense that you can just reach right out and touch a dial to crank the heat up and down or nudge it ever so gently. Having a physical dial or control is valuable to me as a cook, and basically none of the 240V rangetops seem to have great control schemes.

The gaggenau has knobs.  I really wish the rest did as well.  Gagg did it right as well as you can mount them anywhere so you can put them in the blank panel right underneath your range so that cleaning around them isn't a problem. Viking also has/had a knob'd range, but they took up real estate on the cook top which is wrong.

 

I just made/am making the switch from a Blue Star to a Wolf induction.  Wolf had a larger induction coil than the others which made the tests I did on it much more even than my portable IC.

[Laurentius]

2 hours ago, Smithy said:

Does it stand for "Portable Induction Cooktop"?

 

Sorry, yup.  Many are sub-Benjamin (<$100), and really good ones can be had for $500 or less.  They're useful for picnics, dorms. buffet, classes, catering, and some travel.

 

Frankly, if I could be persuaded to give up gas--extremely unlikely--I'd rather spend $1k on two Vollrath Mirage Pros over a new $$$ range.  Or two of a similar 220/240 model.  

[Laurentius]

1 hour ago, Deephaven said:

The gaggenau has knobs.

 

How granular are the power settings?  I.e., how many power settings?

 

And here's an interesting question:  Since the coils are pixelated, and activate more or fewer based on pan size, is Temp Setting X the same under a small milk pan as it is under a large water bath canner? 

[Laurentius]

31 minutes ago, Laurentius said:

Temp Setting X

Sorry, I meant Power Setting.  I other words, do all activated coils at Power Setting X draw the same wattage?

[pastrygirl]

5 hours ago, Laurentius said:

 

Have you considered buying  PIC to use alongside your gas jobs so you can compare?

 

I do have one induction burner, I brought it out & will turn off the gas for a while and see if I miss gas.  This is my commercial chocolate kitchen, I have one large gas burner and a 5 burner range with oven but I don't use them much.  All my chocolate melters etc are electric.  I also use the microwave a lot.   But I'm not trying to get an even sear on anything, I'm browning butter, warming cream, making toffee. 

 

It's hard to picture any restaurant I've worked in going all induction, though.  Line cooks would have to be much more careful about banging saute pans

 

 

[vyas]

22 hours ago, btbyrd said:

I occasionally go on long rants about induction, so here's kind of a recap and rehash. Induction has its virtues like its efficiency, cleanliness, and safety. There's no open flame to catch things on fire if a pot boils over or whatever. And I find induction to be extremely responsive. It can be like cooking with gas. Unfortunately, that experience can become blocked off because it gets locked behind a crappy interface. Cooking with gas is responsive in two ways: the cookware will respond almost immediately to a change in flame. If something's about to boil over, you can drop the heat and the boil will stop almost immediately. But gas cooking is also responsive in the sense that you can just reach right out and touch a dial to crank the heat up and down or nudge it ever so gently. Having a physical dial or control is valuable to me as a cook, and basically none of the 240V rangetops seem to have great control schemes. Some have touchscreens for God's sake. The idea that I'd want to touch a capacitive touch screen with kitchen hands in the heat of cooking... it holds no appeal for me. I need the heat to be responsive and I need a tactile interface that allows me to access that heating power with ease. Induction typically delivers on half of that promise. Pity.

 

There's all sorts of other stuff to complain about with induction. The uneven heat is perhaps the most bothersome. The other things I hate are a lack of fine grained temperature control (10 power levels isn't enough, people) and not having a control knob to control the temperature (membrane switches suck). I have a commercial induction burner in the form of the Vollrath Mirage Pro, which has 100 power levels and a knob so it avoids two of the three pitfalls. But it still unevenly heats larger cookware because of the relatively small size of its induction coil. As others have noted, cast iron is a bad conductor of heat but cast iron isn't the culprit here. I have a similar boil pattern in my All Clad Copper Core and D7 cookware, and it never gets better no matter how long you let things boil. And if I put something massive like my Modernist Cuisine baking steel on it and let it heat up slowly for an hour, it's still abysmally unevenly heated. It varies by hundreds of degrees from center to edge and has a noticeable colder spot in the center. I wouldn't even use it to make a pancake. This promotional photo from the Modernist Cuisine crew is a terrible lie:

 

 

Induction coils only heat what's directly above them. And they they don't evenly heat even that circle; they create a ring of heat with a colder spot in the middle. For some applications, like boiling water in a medium sized pot, this uneven heat is not really an issue. For other purposes, it can be intensely irritating. Trying to get an even sear on proteins in a 12" pan isn't going to happen. Trying to fry three or more eggs evenly isn't going to happen. It sucks. Even super expensive units like the Control Freak have this problem. Here's the scorch pattern of a cast iron pan on the Control Freak:

 

 

Try evenly searing scallops in that thing. You can mitigate this with more conductive cookware, but it never fully gets rid of the problem. Did I mention that you should be careful about slowly heating up your carbon steel and cast iron pans because they're liable to warp on induction? Grr... so stupid. I had to hammer the bottoms flat on some of my Dartos because I used them at high heat on induction. No longer. I now use portable butane burners for high intensity searing. For $100, you can get a 15,000 BTU Iwatani butane burner and have a high output gas burner that you can put anywhere and take everywhere. Every kitchen needs one.

 

As far as cookware goes, I would totally avoid cast iron and carbon steel because they're such garbage conductors. Europeans, who have better technology and more experience cooking with induction, seem largely to prefer thicker disc bottom pans like those made by Fissler. The thick layers of aluminum in the disc help distribute the heat evenly and help avoid the "ring of fire" induction coil pattern. But because it does so by adding mass, you lose a bit of responsiveness. Everything in life is a trade off. 

 

Just as important as cookware material is MATCHING PAN SIZE TO INDUCTION COIL SIZE. It don't matter how thick your base is if the coil only occupies a small part of the center of the pan. The big 240V rangetops usually have burners of different sizes or zones that cater to cookware of various sizes. But I've never used one that had an induction coil that was large enough to competently heat a 12" skillet. I have been told by Europeans that such units exist. But I've never used one. The one system that seems to avoid this problem is the Thermadore Freedom induction cooktops because they use an array of small induction coils instead of large ones. It dynamically detects the position and size of your cookware and turns on only the coils beneath it.

 

 

Seems like a cool system, but it it multiplies the number of parts that can fail because you're using like fifty induction coils rather than five. And it's very expensive. And you have to control your range through a touch screen.

 

Induction has so much potential but it also kind of sucks.

Thank you @btbyrd for your detailed response. I am asking for the induction coil sizing matching to the Pan size. Please see the attached image. So that the heat evenly spreads over the entire bottom. Yes as you said i saw in some woks the coil covering only a portion of the bottom and the heat wont spread beyond that coil area resulting in partial cooking of the food. Actually I am looking for Induction cooktops and brat pans ranging from 50 liters to 400 liters sizes. I am getting more details and will post further for your valuable inputs like in your post. Thank you

[vyas]

21 hours ago, Laurentius said:

 

While I applaud the symbolism of switching to induction, it's just that, IMO.  

 

btbyrd has covered why the mode isn't all that.

 

I'll add that there is little solid evidence that induction is more efficient.  In terms of what happens inside the appliance, it is.  But when the generation and infrastructure are considered, it's possible there's no improvement.  If the environmental costs are important, things like more electrical infrastructure, line losses, waste streams, and new appliances must be counted against keeping what we have.  And how is your electricity generated to begin with?  And what of your oven?

 

As far as improving your efficiency goes, there's not much you can do.  I suppose you can always cook in covered, insulated cookware, and avoid using the oven.

 

A clean kitchen...  If you want a glass cooktop, they existed before induction.  Likewise closed burners.  You could even cook entirely in a microwave.  But as with all these things, is it symbolically important enough to you?

Our cooking processes are boiling, roasting, making thick gravies, making curries having texture like a broth. We are having a 33 kVA sub station power supply from the Electricity board.  Cooktops need of capacities 50 L. All others are brat pans ranging from 100 L to 400 L. I am planning to visit a kitchen where this scale of equipment sizes are already being for cooking. Will post more details. Thank you

[pastrygirl]

50 minutes ago, vyas said:

All others are brat pans ranging from 100 L to 400 L

 

At first I thought you were cooking a lot of bratwurst, but I googled it and that's a tilt skillet for anyone else who didn't know . 

Have you looked at steam jacketed kettles for soups and broth-y curries?  They might not be induction per se but electric options exist.

 

[Laurentius]

1 hour ago, vyas said:

Our cooking processes are boiling, roasting, making thick gravies, making curries having texture like a broth. We are having a 33 kVA sub station power supply from the Electricity board.  Cooktops need of capacities 50 L. All others are brat pans ranging from 100 L to 400 L. I am planning to visit a kitchen where this scale of equipment sizes are already being for cooking. Will post more details. Thank you

You should search out the British study addressing efficiency and cost recoupment of switching to induction for small restaurants.  If I recall correctly, the conclusion was it would take 14 years to recoup  costs of the switch.

[AlaMoi]

"All others are brat pans ranging from 100 L to 400 L."

 

might be of use to investigate the size/type/power needed for induction heating of a 400L=105.7 gallon pot . . .

of that size, most likely non-ferrous construction = induction simply won't work.

[vyas]

Please give inputs on this one  ... 

 

Electric brat pan

 

This may be infrared type if I am not wrong  ... 

Edited January 31 by vyas (log)

[Deephaven]

23 hours ago, Laurentius said:

 

How granular are the power settings?  I.e., how many power settings?

 

And here's an interesting question:  Since the coils are pixelated, and activate more or fewer based on pan size, is Temp Setting X the same under a small milk pan as it is under a large water bath canner? 

Not sure if the Gagg is 10 settings or half settings or what.  It was like $8k and the Wolf was $3300 so it wasn't in the running for me.  It has singular coils and isn't the "freedom" setup of the Thermador with a ton of coils.  It does have some "long throw" tech to supposedly heat up a wok further from the burner than most.  Either way, just wasn't worth the extra dough for a knob for me.  I wish others had the same knob setups....in particular the Bosch/Thermador since they are built usually in the same plant as the Gagg stuff.

4 hours ago, Laurentius said:

You should search out the British study addressing efficiency and cost recoupment of switching to induction for small restaurants.  If I recall correctly, the conclusion was it would take 14 years to recoup  costs of the switch.

To pay for the hob it is something like that.  If you add HVAC to cool the space it is much faster.

I switched for mess and heat.  Also figured it was coming at some point and my bimetal pans are still worth a ton now, but once it comes they won't be....unless they commercialize short wavelength induction for copper, but at that point I could just buy again.

[AlaMoi]

23 minutes ago, vyas said:

Please give inputs on this one  ... 

 

Electric brat pan

 

This may be infrared type if I am not wrong  ... 

 

the information given is entirely non-informative as to what technology is used.

marketing gobbly-gook words - (sigh) all too often to "disguise" the actual facts.

 

infrared / resistance- utterly not discernible from the description.

but note - 380v input . . . this is not your great aunt's tea kettle.....

Edited January 31 by AlaMoi (log)

[KennethT]

@btbyrd@pastrygirl@Deephaven@vyas

Relatively recently, I moved from an apartment with a gas range to a building which has no gas service.  I do have 240V outlets in my kitchen so I got 2 240V countertop induction burners.  One is a relatively inexpensive, but high powered, 3300W Chinese model. You can only control the power in 400W increments via membrane switches.  I use this one basically only for boiling water which it does incredibly fast - much faster than on my "high power" gas burner on the previous range and doesn't heat up the kitchen while doing it.  The other is a Vollrath HPI4-2600, 2600W.  In addition to being able to control the power in 1% increments (1-100), unlike most other induction units, when used on lower power, it doesn't cycle the full power in a duty cycle but truly lowers the continuous power rating.  It works so well that it can hold a subtle simmer and even melt chocolate.  It can supposedly hold the pan temperature using a sensor in the ceramic top but I haven't really tested it - but it also has a probe that I use all the time which will hold the liquid to within 1 degree F consistently (you can change the mode from power level to control via temperature (F or C).  Also, the power (or temperature) control is a knob with a fantastic control algorithm - twist it fast and you can go from 1 to 100 with one flick, but go slow and it's easy to change in 1% increments.  It's quite pricey, but it's my go to for everything and now that I've used it for a while (there was a bit of a learning curve when switching from gas) I don't know if I could ever go back.

[Laurentius]

8 minutes ago, KennethT said:

it doesn't cycle the full power in a duty cycle but truly lowers the continuous power rating.

 

Can you please explain this?  The 120v Mirage Pro cycles in all settings, but not using full power.  My understanding is that is what the "G4" engines are supposed to do.

[vyas]

Could anyone kindly connect me to this program for technical and other relevant support

 

MECS UK