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Comment by jeffbee | Hacker News Reader

You're right, especially the water example. However, an induction cooktop with a working closed-loop temperature control system would be nice. The one I own has a temperature control and it's anyone's guess what it's thinking. The outcome of setting the temperature control is completely random. Also, since my cooktop works on an extremely coarse duty cycle control it goes full power for several seconds and then is off for several seconds, which isn't even slightly helpful. A cooktop with better electronics that can modulate the power at high frequency, and control the temperature, would be great.

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the breville/polyscience control freak does this, as a single burner, _very_ well, though it's not cheap. I use mine for anything requiring fine temperature control over time & deep frying, but just use my gas range for more general cooking tasks. the control freak certainly proves that it's possible to make a non-gas burner that performs acceptably for me (also no touch controls, which is mandatory), but nobody else is making one. My ideal range setup would be something like 2x control freaks and then a 30k BTU gas burner with an electric combi oven that can do temperature & steam control as precisely as anova's countertop one, but there's zero chance of anyone ever making something like that.

I have a high end Bosch induction cooktop which can modulate the power, and doesn't just do the on/off cycle that so many induction cooktops do to get to a certain power level. It feels more like a gas cooktop than anything else and it is fantastic.

Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately none of the review sites that I have found can be bothered to mention details like "can this be used to cook".

> doesn't just do the on/off cycle that so many induction cooktops do to get to a certain power level

I don't have one any more, but mine did that; I never found it an issue - unless you're cooking with copper (solid, not the pointless/aesthetically clad stuff) or really thin aluminium I can't see that it's going to appreciably lose heat between cycles. Maybe mine just had much shorter periods than those that people complain about, I don't know.

It causes heat spots in the pan.

It's most noticeable with water or a pan of food you want to simmer, it will turn the heat on high for a few seconds leading to items to burn/boil for a few seconds, before turning back off.

That means that if you are making something that needs low and slow heat you get these moments where the heat is WAY too high.

I like to make things like candied mango pieces or strawberries for on top of pancakes, and with an induction stove that has an on/off cycle vs being able to modulate the sugar will quickly burn to the bottom of the pan because the temperature is far too high while it is in its "on" cycle.

It's not about heat retention between cycles, it's that during the on cycle it's too much heat.

Very thick bottomed pans can help dissipate some of it by capturing it, vs just dumping it directly into the cooking surface of the pan, but those pans are heavy and cumbersome and fairly rare.

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