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I honestly would be interested for an actual chef to weigh in.

I'm all for using an induction stovetop at home, but have people actually seen chefs fry over an open flame? They're moving the pan around, lifting it up and around, using it to toss the food, etc. That would basically be impossible with an induction stovetop.

It seems rather tone deaf to me to not address the issues that the chefs are actually concerned about.

Chef here: I've used induction, but the biggest annoyance is heat loss when lifting a pan.

Most pans section dishes are moved quite rapidly, lifting then off of the burner, to toss the ingredients(I could be cooking 5-6 dishes at once, so speed is very important), with a gas burner this doesn't matter as the radiant heat is there.

Now I'm assuming there are radiant stovetops that are designed for hospitality, but I've yet to see one, the only I have used the heat started dissipating rapidly when lifting the pan, and my wife was freaking out when the pan made contact thinking that I was going to break the cooktop.

I wouldn't be surprised if the market is unready to provide something professionals are happy with, and that could be a disaster - but if it's mandated throughout the state, the demand will exist for a supplier to try to do better.

I can say that for my own home cooking purposes, electric coils have always been acceptable, and that's really where my attention is with the ban - I already know I won't feel direct pain from it; whereas restaurant food as a consumer service is a case of "just make something good and I don't care how you do it if it's in line with laws and norms", and the rest is a matter of how much has to change in operations, cooking style etc to make a technology switch. Gas cooking has only been around since roughly the 1850's, following heating and lighting introductions; coal stoves remained popular well into the early 20th century, but coal in cooking today mostly conjures up backyard barbecue. It could easily turn out that the gas-centric styles become a "flash in the pan" niche if we make the switch.

I would imagine the vendors of propane & propane accessories would be licking their chops at the prospect of going into all these restaurants.

It's all about the heat transfer, previous to gas we used bur ing wood, so a high heat transfer without physical contact. I'm not sure if there is even a way for a ln induction cooktop to provide heat over a distance.

But sure, if it's mandated then chefs will have to change their cooking style, which -with plenty if grumbling from chefs - won't be the end of the world.

Sure but resistive stovetops could probably do this. They don’t all have to be induction, right?

Not a chef, but an avid eater and obsessive home cook:

I eat at a lot of high end restaurants (and usually a couple Michelin starred places per year), many with open kitchens, and in the last 5 years I've noticed a trend towards induction. From the high end cookery blogs that I've read, it's mostly about reducing heat in the kitchen. I have worked in kitchens in the past, and it's difficult to understate the quality of life improvement by a significant reduction in kitchen temperature.

At home I've also switched to induction, and it's been in general great.

Charcoal is actually the trickier one to replace in high end cookery since it's very difficult to simulate the amount of radiant energy with electricity.

I can’t imagine many professionals would wildly appreciate changing their core tool from underneath them, regardless of whether the tool is actually better.

If I wanted to stir the pot with a grenade, I’d say it’s like asking Vim users whether they should all move to VS Code.

> I’d say it’s like asking Vim users whether they should all move to VS Code.

If Vim was actively contributing to climate change and fouling the air of everyone around me, I'd switch tomorrow. VS Code has Vim bindings, I'm sure. I'll be okay. We're long past the point where everybody keeps being able to do their first favorite thing at all times, _and_ we somehow also solve this huge problem we've gotten ourselves into.

VS Code obviously contributes more to climate change than Vim.

Yet Vim vs Emacs arguments contribute to a lot of hot air...

Zingggg

I'd gladly move to VS Code if it was more efficient than Vim (and not controlled by Micro$oft, but that's irrelevant). However, that's far from being the case.

Well they probably should move to emacs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpdngXQOkBI

I don’t know about chefs but my mom always complains about how hard it is to cook with induction heating because it takes very long to switch between high and low temperatures. You can’t be as reactive with induction cooking (alternatively moving the pan off the direct heat and moving it back again might achieve this)

Switching between high and low on my induction cooktop is immediate.

If you can see red coils on your mom's stove under the glass, it's not induction.

Are you thinking of electric coil? Induction heats up super fast (way faster than gas or electric coil) because the stove itself doesn’t get warm - it transfers energy directly into the pan.

It's an interface issue. Instead of a knob, it's usually a touch interface, with +/- control, and slowish.

Don't understand why this was downvoted. The induction stoves I've used all had a touchpad controls, for some reason. They take one second to change the power output 10%, with hotkeys for 100% and 40%.

It would be trivial to add a dial with some simple fail-safe.

They're incredibly responsive, though, more so than the gas stoves I've used. Never tried the following with gas, I'm guessing it would work, but you can easily turn down the power as a pot of pasta has started boiling over, and it'll stop before the foam pours over the top of the pot.

It's just a stupid trend in electric cooktop design, not something specific to induction. I've got an SMEG induction combo oven/stove and it has real knobs – out front, where they belong. They also make induction cooktops with real knobs.

Know what brand? I'm planning a remodel and I fucking hate this "smart" trend in my home appliances. Luckily at least the dumb stuff is cheaper.

Already found a knobby oven but all the induction tops are damned touch screens.

I already mentioned the brand: SMEG.

This is what I've got:

https://www.smeg.com/products/C9IMX9-1

This is a cooktop with knobs (they have several more):

https://www.smeg.com/products/SI364BM

I was curious, so looked at Home Depot in Canada.

I see Samsung and LG with induction oven models, that now have dials for the "burners".

When I bought my range, maybe 5 years ago, I don't think these models existed.

So, perhaps the trend is reversing?

The oven itself seems digital in all cases, but that's fine. I don't mind setting it to 400F by entering the numbers, because that stays static for most of the cooking process.

If cost is no concern, the Breville Polyscience Control Freak has a knob and is generally considered the Rolls Royce of induction burners.

Honestly: it looks pretty gimicky, and the dimensions and wattage don't put it in Rolls Royce category for serious cooks. It does 1800 watts into < 20 cm (8 in.) whereas the central burner on my SMEG induction stove does 3000 watts into 27 cm (11 in.). A gastronomy induction stove will get closer to 5000 watts per burner.

It looks like it's far more targeted towards the "magical cooking" crowd than prosumer. It looks like you could probably replace a sous vide bath and a deep fryer with it, but most serious cooks already have those as separate devices, and you'd have to give up your "best" burner while doing so.

Keller uses them at The French Laundry, and Grant Achatz uses them at The Aviary (Though I misspoke in another comment said he uses them at Alinea). Shola Olunloyo and Ivan Orkin are also fans.

If it's good enough for 3 michelin star restaurants and some of the most highly regarded chefs in the industry right now, it's kind of hard to say it's not good enough for serious cooks.

UI is orthogonal to the heat source.

Not when the UI includes (or does not include) a view of the heat source.

Your mom's stove has the stupid +/- touch UI, just like mine. Using a knob would solve the problem. I am not complaining because +/- is easier to clean.

The other issue is that induction is invisible, there is no flame. But moving stuff around on x-y has the same effect as with a gas stove. On induction, the pan is the stove. Take it off the induction and the heat subsides. Move it off center and you heat only part of the pan.

Inductive cooktops are quite reactive, the pan stops generating heat as soon as the electricity is cut off, and while the glass does get hot, it cools reasonably quickly, at least IME. Older style "convection" electric cookers were glacially slow in responding to heat changes, since there was a massive amount of heat stored in the heating element.

I think _because_ of their intimate knowledge of the craft, Chef's are going to give you a wider variety of answers with less certainty than anyone else.

Not a chef, but I cook nearly every meal, whether home or at my SO's. A gas stove is a world of difference compared to cooking with an electric one.

One major pain point is that the number settings on electric barely provide insight as to what level of heat you're cooking with, and there seems to be a lack of consistency between one electric stove to another. Whereas with gas, you can just eye the flames and know what you're dealing with without resorting to the knob settings, regardless of which stove you're using.

Another thing that comes to mind is that with a gas burner the pot/pan is above an open flame, so if you need to go from high to low heat, you can do that in an instant. With electric, the pot/pan is resting on a heated surface that gradually cools down and can really ruin whatever's cooking.

> Whereas with gas, you can just eye the flames and know what you're dealing with without resorting to the knob settings, regardless of which stove you're using.

Not the case. Our son cooks on some cheap-ass gas stove with burners about 2-3" in diameter. I cook on a Viking. There's nothing about the flames on either stove that will give you any idea how many BTU's are reaching the food. You have to learn to correlate the flame appearance with cooking results. First efforts will likely burn on the Viking and slow-cook on the el cheapo.

As noted by another comment, it really does sound as if you have not used an induction stove. And in particular, that you have not seen the latest "innovation" of surrounding the heating elements with variable brightness/size blue LEDs to simulate the flame effect.

> I cook on a Viking.

Wouldn't know what that's like. I cook on what you call "el cheapos". Was speaking to those models, as they're pretty ubiquitous among most apartments.

> You have to learn to correlate the flame appearance with cooking results.

Dude, that's essentially what I meant. Sorry for not detailing that one should look for color, size, etc of flame, and how one's brain interprets what works and what doesn't.

And no I have not used an induction stove, but am curious.

It’s not gas vs electric. It’s gas vs induction vs everything else. An induction cooktop is more powerful than any residential gas range, and responds instantly when you change temperature.

The only two problems I’ve encountered are a) the heat stops instantly if you pick up the pan and b) you don’t get heat up the sides of a wok or other curved pan.

I’ll never go back to gas, and that’s not even considering the health risks of indoor combustion.

Third problem on cheap induction cookers: the power control via +/- keys is too coarse in the low region. E.g. for cooking buckwheat, 600W is too much (the water boils too intensively, especially near the end), while 400W is not really enough, and there is nothing in between. Fortunately, 12 minutes @ 600W + 8 minutes @ 400W yield an acceptable result.

> With electric, the pot/pan is resting on a heated surface that gradually cools down and can really ruin whatever's cooking.

Sounds like you need to try an induction cooktop?

I've only had one experience with induction- probably 15 years ago now. It was a place we stayed in hawaii (like pre-airbnb) and there was a sign saying if you even looked at it wrong it would scratch the surface (necessitating a full replacement). Are they really strong now or do you still have to worry about scratching? Some googling suggests that you still need to be careful with cast iron.

Cracking the glass of a induction cooktop is still a problem. So I recommend carbon steel over cast iron for this purpose. They’re similar in that they both need to be seasoned. But carbon steel is much lighter and it’s smooth unlike most modern cast iron cookware.

Well, I'm attached to my cast iron (pan, griddle, casserole and more), and treating my cooking top roughly (I used to be a cook in a restaurant, there we used carbon steel, which is fine, but sort of a different beast, from cast iron) is just how I roll. So I guess induction is still off the table. Even resistive electric coils don't really handle things quite as well as a gas range with metal grates.

Carbon steel deforms over heat. Also leaks oil through the pores. Or maybe I should have bought a more expensive pancake pan? Otherwise I like it; using both but I am extra careful with the cast iron.

Yes thin carbon steel cookware warps. My wok is a good example of that. But there plenty of high quality thick carbon steel cookware on the market that’s stronger.

What do you mean it leaks oil? I’ve never noticed any like that.

I always find oil on the induction cooker glass, under the pan. So I assume it leaks through pores when the oil gets hot and fluid? It's an ok quality pancake pan.

https://www.amazon.com/Kitchencraft-Non-stick-Crepe-Master-C...

(the reviewers that claim it sticks have not heated it up properly and the peeled off "teflon" is just burned crêpe)

Carbon steel should not have any non-stick coating applied from factory. Using a pure carbon steel pan will create a slick surface. Look at e.g. DeBuyer for a good brand.

In your case I think that oil gets over the lip and around the pan.

No different than a standard resistive electric stovetop with ceramic glass.

It looks almost the same but it's very different as the glass doesn't heat up like the resistive and the heat is instant, like gas and unlike resistive which has a lot of inertia. The glass only heats up from the cookware which is also a safety benefit (less likely to burn yourself).

But the glass itself should be the same.

I miss Korean BBQ on a gas or charcoal burner. The only places I have ever managed to have it that was at Jongro in NYC or everywhere in Korea. The electric burner experience just isn't as fun.

I think you could easily reproduce the gas experience with a combination of induction and convective heating. It'd be more reliable and it would be easy to have a set temperature rather than needing the wait staff to periodically adjust the burner. It would need appropriate cost and engineering. Plus the under table apparatus would probably be much smaller.

The wood charcoal experience is of course very unique.

Huh, I've never used an induction one, and I've been to a bunch in Chicagoland and LA. Even at home we use a butane grill.

What's a good one in Chicagoland? I get over there every once in a while.

Not OP, but San Soo Gab San (Western & Foster) was always great when I lived in Chicago.

Hey, if you’re going to make a trip out of it, when you’re done with the BBQ, head a few blocks south and take in the German bars on Lincoln Ave. There used to be a cool little Karaoke place at Lincoln and Western, too.

I agree on San Soo Gab San as my fave (both the Chicago and Morton Grove locations are good). There was an awesome one in Lincoln Park that I'm pretty sure closed down that had all you can eat KBBQ _and_ all you can eat sushi.

> Since gas stoves are so inefficient, natural gas should provide no cost benefit.

In North America, the cost of gas is basically just the cost of transmission. It's so plentiful it's almost free.

Agree that the move to electric has tons of benefits though.

The low cost contributes to the negative externalities of production. If it was less plentiful, arguably we wouldn't have dramatic methane plumes in the southwest due to atmospheric release.

Induction burners are extremely efficient (>80%) vs something like 40% for gas burners, so the induction would come ahead in your example (1400W vs 1100W).

The cooktops you can buy here in Europe are limited to 3.7kW, and you can bridge two burners for up to 7.4kW. I rarely use one burner beyond ~70% power, anything above gets scorching hot (= burns everything) when using a good iron/steel pan. I heard the US has the infrastructure to deliver 240V so that should be possible.

North American electrical infrastructure is natively 240v, split phase (two 120v hots, with a centre-tapped neutral). All houses have 240v power, and all stoves and ovens are already 240v at 40 or 50 amps. If there's a need for 240v power at a particular location (such as a high powered window AC unit), it's generally quite easy to switch a standard 120v circuit to 240v and replace the outlets on the circuit with their 240v counterparts (identical except the prongs are horizontal).

Getting a bit off topic here, but I’d like to learn more about this…

In most cases wouldn’t you need to run a thicker wire to replace a 120v outlet with 240v?

No, only if you increase the amperage of the circuit breaker. Doubling the voltage just doubles the power you can deliver over the same wire. To keep it the same, you can actually use a thinner wire. That's part of the reason long-distance transmission lines are at many thousands of volts.

You run two hots instead of one, that's 200% "thicker". Between the two hots you now have 240V. Between each hot and the neutral you have 120V like before.

They might be 80% efficient, but I think around 40% of California electricity comes from natural gas. It’s kind of silly to convert from gas to electricity to heat in terms of efficiency.

It may sound silly at first, but the numbers are not far off. The added losses for 50% (power plant) and 80% (cooktop) efficiency would give you the same 40% overall, but now you don't need massive pipes carrying flammable pressurized gas everywhere. And both of those numbers are probably higher for modern equipment (ex 60/90 = 54% overall efficiency).

Natural Gas to electric energy conversion happens at a higher efficiency. Millions are invested to ensure that.

In addition every gas to heat thing can't be decarbonised (electricity to gas won't work at this scale and would be hugely inefficient) to negative emissions.

I checked this recently. California is still in the 30-40% range for gas/fossil fuels usage on average, but it has achieved a 100% renewables grid for a 15 minute period this year, and it wasn't a fluke or engineered stunt, but one more in a series of record-breaking milestones which have seen the grid periodically blast through the 90% range. So the trend looks good for electric conversion.

Why are they preparing for widespread brownouts this summer? https://www.eenews.net/articles/grid-monitor-warns-of-u-s-bl...

I’m getting tired of people citing the efficiency of electric vs gas without including the any of the electric production and distribution. Sure at the point of use electric is more efficient but what do you think they make that electricity with? Most likely it’s coal, after that it’s natural gas. The best argument in favor isn’t dubious claims to efficiency or even indoor combustion but that it’s fungible. Once you put the electric infrastructure you can transition from one source to another more easily. As more renewables come online you can phase out fossil fuels. I’m a little suspicious of the motivations to go all electric and rip out gas infrastructure. Enron and the recent troubles with the Texas power grid don’t bode well.

In California it's mostly renewable with a small amount of natural gas and nuclear. Occasionally over 90% renewable depending on the time of year.

I don’t know where you got your data but mine would say otherwise

https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...

Commercial induction woks go up to ludicrous power levels. I've seen 15 and 20 kW models online.

Yeah but commercial gas wok cookers are also just basically broken-off gas mains with a foot pedal valve. They're probably up into the tens of kilowatts effective, too.

But 3/4 of that heat goes around the wok.

I used to have a very negative outlook on electric cooking for Asian food, specifically where a wok is needed, because I've never seen one get hot enough to imbue the "wok hei" flavor that comes from high-temperature cooking. But then I saw there are bowl-shaped commercial induction wok cookers which should be able to more than match the heat of even the most powerful gas burners. With that, I think induction finally is a real alternative.

> A large reason electric (restive and induction) are seen as inferior to gas is that portable units are limited to 120v/15a (few are 20a) so the total possible power is technically less than a gas stove; <1800w vs >2800w effective. However, gas stoves are very inefficient so in reality it's not a huge problem and 240v electric stoves could even be hotter (~4000w) than a gas stove.

Could a combination of induction heating and heat pumps be developed to be hyper-efficient for cooking? Such a system would have to include the vent hood as well, and require the cooks to don insulated gloves. The idea would be to also recover heat going up the vent hood, then concentrate the heat in a stream of hot air which would hit the pans/woks again. Is this even feasible or desirable?

Simply switching to induction would be a big win. That and keeping the lid on while cooking.

You don't need a heat pump to recover large amounts of heat from the vent - just look at an HRV.

The problem is the reliability of the system. The air going up the vent is incredibly oily. The oil in the air will gum up your heat pump or your HRV core or whatever you use. At a minimum, you destroy your efficiency. More likely, you destroy your equipment.

They're negating most of Asian cooking by taking away gas. This is stupid and overdoing it imho. It should be done with an adjustment period over 5 years or more.

I'm all electric at home but using a wok on an induction stove is a pita and doesn't even resemble a wok. I have friends who cook as a hobby and swear by gas.

Korean BBQ could be probably done on electric as well. Takes more time though. If I'd open a KBBQ restaurant tomorrow I'd probably do it on electric anyway, for safety reasons.

Would hydrogen be a viable replacement for natural gas? Maybe mixed with sodium (table salt injection?) to have an orange flame instead of invisible.

Most gas stove tops in the US are not great for cooking with a wok anyway as they are underpowered and the flame comes out the edges of the "sealed burner".

I use an Iwatani 35FW tabletop butane burner for wok cooking which works much better than my gas stove. It claims 15,000 Btu vs my stoves 7,000. I suspect both claims are inflated, but the Iwatani will boil a pint of water in 1/4th the time of the stove. The wok is acceptably stable on it and the flame pattern is usable if not ideal. The butane cans are well under $2 and will make several meals per can. It's a bit pricey ($100-ish now) but mine has lasted six years of frequent use.

Hydrogen is actually worse for the climate then natural gas right now. It is harder to transport is made from natural gas anyway. Key word: Steam Reforming

Electricity to Hydrogen has much more energy waste even in a carbon neutral world.

Residential gas appliances can draw up to 100 kBTU/h from the gas line. That's about 30 kW. Commercial gas lines are twice as wide, they supply 200 kBTU/h i.e. 60 kW. It's true that 30 kW is more than 2800 W though.

I live in Tokyo and some yakiniku places even have charcoal table grills.

Double the voltage and double (or triple) the current for the power consumption/output of an electric range. They are in the power neighborhood of an electric clothes-dryer not an electric hairdryer.

I definitely enjoy cooking with gas more, but a modern induction range will bring a full stock pot to a boil faster than the gas equivalent you find in homes.

> gas should provide no cost benefit

If that were true, there would be no need to ban gas stoves. So we can conclude that electric cooking is more expensive than gas.

I'm not a professional cook.

I miss gas stove over the induction because:

1. I have visual indicatation on how hot it is. The numbers is just not so good indicator.

2. I miss trashing pans around, specially when managin multiple things at once. Glass induction would not be able to withstand it. So suddenly I have to be gentle with machinery.

3. God forbid I spill something in the middle of cooking on induction. Suddenly I have to try to cleanup a hot glass and manage the whole mess. Gas, because it was raised, cleanup could be done later once food prep was over.

4. I'f there is powerloss (hi wars and other stuff) I don't really care. I used to run propane tanks 11kg, no pipes, refilled once-twice a year.

> God forbid I spill something in the middle of cooking on induction. Suddenly I have to try to cleanup a hot glass and manage the whole mess.

I think you’re overestimating how hot induction stoves get, the element itself doesn’t heat up at all.

When you have a significant spill on a gas stove, it can put the flame out partially or entirely, which is much more of a challenge than wiping off an induction element.

Sounds like they have used a normal (resistive) electric cooktop, not an induction cooktop, and are confounding the two.

> the element itself doesn’t heat up at all.

That doesn't sound like possible to me (I've never used those stove, so I've no knowledge). Although induction only heats the pan, wouldn't the pan simply heat up the stove by contact?

They do heat up but not enough to make it impossible to wipe them clean. I hate resistive tops for cooking with a passion. I loved by gas range but induction is fine. It heats up quickly. It can stay consistently low. It goes smoothly from the two in short amount of time. But I’m an European so I don’t suffer from the American cast iron pan fad and just use normal cook wear.

Yeah what is 3. This smells like never used induction before.

Or maybe you haven't. You can burn the sh_t out of your fingers on the glass surface of an induction cooktop. The heat does not magically stay in the cooking vessel. It radiates, as heat is wont to do. Voice of experience. I love induction and think it is safer than gas.

I've been using a nice one for over a year now.

But my main sadness is I can't leave food on the cooktop to cleanup later. Imagine water boils over, suddenly I have to start cleaning cooktop in the middle of cooking. Gas might be extinguished but I can restart and deal with it later once I'm finished cooking.

I think better tech could solve a lot of this.

1. Can partly be solved with LEDs

2. Should be solvable too. Just stop using normal glass. There's got to be an engineering plastic that's good enough. If Celazole is proven nontoxic that should work, perhaps with fiberglass reinforcement.

3. Can probably be solved too, with nonflat burners. The magnetic field should reach a centimeter up just fine, high enough to be above spills and not worsen messes.

4. Is why we need better battery technology.