The burners on our cook top seem to heat differently from one another. I’m very aware of this especially for the lower right (largest burner) which seems to take a long time to heat the pot and the BAMM it’s too hot!
I’ve been trying to remind myself to use the water drop test. Did it on the smaller stainless steel crepe pan the other day and it was brilliant! Just right!
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Haha. Love it. Cooking is definitely and art/science! New equipment changes things! How many times on GBBO are the contestants flummoxed by the equipment in the tent vs. at home? I’m sure he’ll have that thing figured out in no time.
@Immaculata - induction and solar?! Amazing. 
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We paid so much money to run gas & drill through 3 layers of external brick wall to put in our new stove, not to mention buying it and moving the kitchen around. Then the studies started being published about how harmful cooking with gas is on respiration. It’s apparently so terrible, worse than smoking. I’m so pissed we didn’t go with induction. I love cooking with flame but I already have breathing issues, & with 3 kids in the house my guilt know no bounds, ugh.
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Ok, so while we are on the subject of gas vs electric…I have a question for LC’ers in Oregon. Mr Squared and I are planning to move to the Willamette valley area when he retires in a few years. We have been looking online at houses for sale, just to watch the market trends at this point. We have noticed that most do not have natural gas for heat, cooking, water heater, etc, just electric. Even the old houses. Here in TX nat gas is so common and more cost effective. Is it not a thing up there?
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Wow…I had to look for articles and found a lot of them…we both love cooking on a gas range but I have always worried more about fire and fumes…I am a careless cook…plus, none of the homes we ever lived in had gas services.
I miss being able to turn off the burner and it is off…our stove top stays hot for a while and we have both melted utensils and plastic bowls by accident…
Natural gas also pollutes the environment so more progressive areas have switched to solar or electric or a combo.
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Induction is amazing. Hot quickly, completely cold when switched off. Economic & ecological. I wish we’d chosen that but live & learn.
Funny how it’s all over the news here but you had to search. You might like the CBC & BBC for news sources, good reporting & lots of eco info.
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NPR covered it quite extensively, too. NYC has banned natural gas stoves in most new homes and buildings (WNYC is our local station).
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That’s awesome. Men and their tools - I swear, it’s one of the cutest things.
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Yes, TheMisterT and I discussed the reasons not to get a gas range (ours will be propane vs. natural gas because there is no NG service at our house and maybe in our area at all) and I was on board for induction, but… the heart wants what the heart wants and his heart has been wanting a gas cooktop for decades. So.
@tendstowardschaos Right? And TheMisterT’s tools are kitchen tools for the most part from which I benefit directly!
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I know. Cooking with gas is just so nice! There’s really no beating it (though I have not tried induction).
We have a gas stove and have decided when it dies we will swap it out for something more enviro-friendly, but I’m not happy about it, lol. Though I think (hope) we have quite a few years left in our appliances.
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My husband won’t give up his good old Weber charcoal grill…we have discussed the health hazards, environment, etc. but, to no avail…he does so many things environmentally sound, so I don’t protest too much…pick your battles…there are plenty to go around!
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I’m just glad that the oven is electric! I’m so out of practice with cooking since E has been doing it almost exclusively for nearly 4 years that I would have to get used to our existing stove top again, anyway! 
I do bake still, so that will be my learning curve - new oven even if it’s not a new type.
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That’s kind of where I landed with this. We do our best and try to keep improving with our environmental footprint. Mine was a charcoal absolutist until just a few years ago. For him, it was about being “forced” to slow down. After living in the woods for awhile, even while commuting to the city for work, he didn’t feel like he needed the nudge and when he got his advance for his first 2 novels he decided to treat himself to a gas grill. Weber, still and we kept the other for things that he wants to do on charcoal.
We’re the only people we know who live rurally here that don’t have any propane anything at the house. Eveyone is shocked when they hear it and ask, “not hot water? not heaters?” No, nothing. No tank. So the people who hear we’re getting one for the range (and grill) ask/assume we’ll be switching the other stuff. NO! We want solar eventually (and batteries). Mostly so we can run the well pump when the power is out, but also just to live off the cleanest electricity we can get.
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When we bought the new house in March, it came with a glass electric cooktop. I do not like it. I feel like it heats up unevenly, and slowly. Staying way too cool, with your food just sitting there cold, to all of a sudden it’s burning. I miss the precision of our gas stove at the last house, but I think when the time comes to eventually replace this, I’ll go with induction.
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Induction is a learning curve (it’s fast) but so far I like it. It’s pretty expensive to set up if you’re not already demolishing half your house - in older homes you may have to rewire, the gas line to the kitchen needs to be removed, the induction cooktop itself is also quite expensive. We have a fancy one with integrated extractor and it cost much more than we ever thought we’d spend on that. Our previous gas range was €400 and it worked just fine. But I suppose it replaces two appliances and that’s why it costs the same as two appliances…
If you’re looking to reduce your energy bills but don’t want to spend thousands, Ikea also sells these: Portable induction hob, TILLREDA, 1 zone white - IKEA you can just plug them in a socket.
@Abbeeroad we did everything at the same time so we never have to do this again lol. There are quite a lot of subsidies for these kind of things where we live, such as no sales tax on solar panels and we paid for the electrification of our house through a subsidized, non-profit lending program. Our monthly energy savings are higher than what we pay back every month.
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I hate glass cooktops. That’s what this house came with & is the first thing we changed. Big bucks putting in a gas range but it’s the literal best for cooking & I love it even though it’s slowly poisoning us.
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Does it have a spark ignition instead of a pilot light, and do you have a hood vent? If yes, you’ve eliminated most of the health risks.
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I’m not in Oregon (I’m in Michigan) and the house I live in originally was all electric heat and the electric bills were impossible. I believe you can get information on what utilities cost is on average and maybe that information will help?
Over the years we switched from the electric heat (which is wonderful clean) to propane (which means monitoring the tank and scheduling refueling as well as furnace repairs and such) and eventually we were able to switch to natural gas. Electric grids do go down sometimes in winter. Having alternatives is useful!
I really wish we could switch to something non-fossil fuel.
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I spent my first 41 years in Oregon, in the Willamette Valley, in the suburbs of Portland or in Portland and I am surprised you are finding a lack of NG! The house I grew up in (built in 1972-3) had gas heat and water. The house my ex and I built in 1998-99 had gas for those and our cooktop. Apartments I lived in had electric only, but a early 1900s farmhouse we rented had propane for heat/water/range. The house I bought in 2005 that was built in the 1940s had gas heat/water. TheMisterT’s 1911 house had the same.
I can see that given the environmental concerns for the planet as well as for domestic conditions, that Oregon and the Willamette Valley in particular would be shifting to removing/replacing NG and not putting it in new construction. I also imagine that gas stuff for rental properties would be more expensive to insure.
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Almost all of the homes in our subdivsion now have electric heat and no gas…small propane tanks are allowed but no permanent larger tanks. I think here it is more about the potential for fires and explosions due to any hurricanes. It is a big safety risk to have gas lines break or get damaged.
I am seeing more and more people putting in solar panels because we sure do get lots of sun!
The evolution of appliances is so interesting…they are making things more energy efficient and yet not as sturdy or reliable like the older appliances. Seems like there are always trade offs no matter what our choices are…
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