OK, time for a short* thread** about gas stoves. At this point, I have been *thoroughly* disillusioned and don't know how I ever thought they were any good. I never want one again***
* I hope
** Please read the whole thing (I'll mark the end) before replying, as I might be touching on your thought!
*** Wok-users and enjoyers, boy do I have some interesting news for you about plug-in induction woks and how they're getting fairly cheap
For reasons which are personal and too complicated to get into anyway, I've been living out of two places for like five years. That's coming to an end in fairly short order but the upshot is that I've been regularly switching back and forth between a high-end KitchenAid gas stove and a Whirlpool radiant (not induction!) electric stove.
Now, aside from the energy source, they are essentially the same model. The Whirlpool is just the more budget-focused option.
I had the KitchenAid gas stove first - I was able to pick out my appliances in my new home, regrettably everything was gas but at that point in time I legitimately still thought I preferred cooking with gas so I just went with it.
Lived with that stove for about a year and, aside from the back burners being utterly useless for anything other than simmering, thought I liked it.
Then, about a year later, I installed a range circuit at Place 2 to ditch its gas stove for air quality concerns.
That's the Whirlpool, and it marked the first time I was using an electric stove day-to-day since my childhood.
And ever since then, I've hated the KitchenAid stove at home more and more. It takes the oven much longer to preheat. It makes the kitchen hot as hell in the summer, and smelly whenever I use it - unless I have the vent fan blasting, that is.
The front-right burner makes the microwave handle above too hot to touch in a matter of minutes, and even worse? It's SLOW.
My folks were over for Christmas and we had some potatoes O'Brien for breakfast - just a frozen mix you do up in a frying pan.
It was taking AGES. I could have sped it up moving over to the mega burner, but that would have made the searing heat coming around the sides of the pan even worse! It was damn-near painful to stir that stuff around with a wooden spoon, and it took like 20 minutes to fry up nicely.
They're not fast, folks! They just react quickly. That's it.
So, since I'll be spending less time at Place 2, I've made the decision - I'm ditching the stove at home.
I've made arrangements to have a range circuit installed, and I'll (eventually) be getting the electric version of the same KitchenAid stove (which is nearly functionally identical to the Whirlpool). I'm a sucker for those knurled handles with the red, what can I say?
And guess what? I'm not even going to go with induction. I like glass-top ceramic just fine.
And to make this anecdote EVEN MORE FUN - I reached out to a neighbor offering them my old stove. They, too, want to switch to electric!
They had an electric stove in the previous home, now have gas, and don't like it as well!
I almost feel hoodwinked. So many of the things I thought were "better" about gas just... aren't.
OK, you can light it with a match when the power's out. Great.
But they make the kitchen hot as hell, are painful to use, and aren't even fast. WTF.
And to those Wok people - I bought an induction wok for $199 just the other day. Round-bottom wok and everything. I have virtually no cooking experience with a wok but would like to try it - and I'll probably be making a video about it, just as a PSA if nothing else.
Woks come up again and again as a sticking point in the gas stove discussion. There are multiple solutions out there.
Now, will I make a main channel video about the stove situation? Not sure. It will invite a lot of stupid comments, for sure.
But I can repeat the same experiments I did with the first stove rodeo, do it a little better, and it will (probably) be a swap to the SAME MODEL but electric rather than gas.
I'll definitely do more water-boiling timing, oven pre-heat time (I already know the electric will crush it) etc. at least for Connextras.
I used the word hoodwinked earlier - perhaps gaslit would have been better!
But that's really what it feels like. How did I ever think I like the smelly, fumy, hot-AF cooking experience more? Why did I think electric stoves were so slow? How did these thoughts get in my head, and stay so pervasive?
And that's the end of the thread. You do you, I'm sure some folks out there still want gas stoves. I won't judge you - but my mind has been changed, and HARD.
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Most of the people who were confused about me getting an electric stove were people who while never having cooked on gas were convinced of it being better and confused why me as someone who cooks constantly wouldn't get gas.
I used one occasionally when cooking for a catering company and I mostly noticed it burns stuff on the sides of the pan and makes handles impossible to touch. I have little desire to ever cook on gas. Also I love pasta and they are slow.
@TechConnectify I saw something a while ago about the campaign to sell gas stoves. People were rightly very skeptical. But now here we are.
I donโt know if people think the alternative is coil burners. I hated those, never level and hard to clean.
Iโm with you the flat top glass electric ranges are great. Iโve never tried induction, but Iโm quite happy.
@foobarsoft @TechConnectify I'm convinced this is part of it -- the coil burners are cheap, so if you've been renting all your life they're most of what you've come into contact with. I know people who didn't know electric stovetops came in any other form, they thought options are that, gas, and induction.
Thirding that the glass-top electric ranges are the bee's knees
@mek @TechConnectify That was my experience. I had coils on my apartment, my parents had gas. No contest.
Then my parents moved and had a flat electric range. I knew (very expensive) induction existed, Iโm not sure I knew about simple flat electric.
When my complex updated appliances and move us off could I was thrilled.
@TechConnectify It's definitely used for marketing in the real estate world. The very fanciest kitchens have professional/commercial grade appliances*, and having gas of any kind is a differentiator.
* Pro-grade kitchen appliances are not a good choice for any home kitchen. They're designed for something completely different.
@TechConnectify So much this. The reaction time is super important to me but that is literally the only thing gas is better about. That and maybe showing that it's on, not that it stops me from leaving it on by accident.
I know that my old apartment electric stove, with its wonky burner and un-level coils left a sour taste in my mouth, but that's so much more about it being a cheap as hell apartment grade thing. I think we're all reacting to the 1980s in so many ways: things have moved on and gotten a lot better and we're still doing last decade's activism. (I think this pattern is playing out a lot lately)
@sass The key is to keep on top of it. Lots of folks seem to be under the impression that they inevitably become permanently stained, but my folks have a glass-top from ~2007 that looks perfect to this day thanks to their regular cleaning with Cermabryte.
And I've seen demos where a drill with a buffing pad will clean up even the most horribly-neglected cooktops just fine! The surface is surprisingly resiliant.
My only real complaint is how stuff slides around easily, but that's minor.
Scraping with a razor also helps.
@TechConnectify Two things:
1. I went from an apartment with a landlord special curly cue electric, to a house with a cheap, but name brand, gas stove. It is SOOOOO SLOOW especially with the bonus condition that is altitude. I had it on full blast and it barely got hot enough for caramel. Ugh. Also I don't have a hood exhaust, and the igniters aren't fully working. Totally replacing it at some point in the future.
2. Why didn't you go with induction? Price? Replacing all your pots?
@DasGanon I have several reasons for sticking with conventional - mainly, we're still in the same situation as before - I want a double-oven range and there are scant options with induction cooktops.
But my current cookware is a factor, as is repairability. A duty-cycle control for a big resistor is a lot simpler than whatever voodoo is going on with induction, and I'm still a little leery of the long-term reliability of the tech.
@tryst @TechConnectify Stoves, unfortunately, are quite expensive to just swap out and "try a few technologies" with. ๐
Unless one has the luxury of owning one's own home, and the income to afford to just swap out, most people are gonna have to make do with whatever's already installed.
@tryst @TechConnectify While there's obviously a subjective aspect to which is "better", there's also just a LOT of pros to induction and not that many for gas.
Since I've switched basically the only thing I like about gas is it more evenly heats big pans. My induction stove on the other hand knocks it out of the park on speed and control. I cannot overstate how nice it is to not need to monitor boiling something because you just know from experience the exact setting to keep the boil going.
>> and will depend entirely on the preferences of the cook
My preferences changed. Radically, about two years ago.
My girlfriend wasn't well, she asked me to cook for her. I have cooked on gas all my life, this was my first experience with cooking on induction.
By the time I warmed up a pan of soup I was converted to induction. Took about half the time compared to cooking on gas.
๐
Re induction stovetops: One thing to be aware of (no idea if fixed in recent years) is that they are apparently not strong enough to support typical home-canning stovetop equipment.
My friend who does home canning learned this the hard way. ๐ฌ (Regular radiant or gas seems fine).
May not be relevant to you but could be relevant to others'.
PS: Always love your work, thank you for sharing! โค๏ธ
Glad to hear that! ๐
The friend that told me of the problem was horribly disappointed that their new apartment wasn't compatible with their hobby. I don't know the make/model/year of induction stovetop, just that it definitely was not adequate.
Thanks for the info. ๐ I'll let my friend know.
We're in Canada, which I'm told is sort of like the midwest except actually west. And north. ๐
@TechConnectify Might have to look into one of those when I get a place of my own.
The wok I've got is a flat bottom one made for American stoves, which isn't particularly great at times! I'd like a round-bottomed wok and a portable plug-in stove that it can nestle into!
@jernej__s The thing is I've got a portable burner which gives me these features (aside from a power boost since it's limited to 1800w) and I've found that in most cases (for me, anyway) it's a nice-to-have and not a must-have.
And, I mean, I have it anyway! I'm fine to keep the main stove conventional (still have a lotta cookware that isn't induction-compatible) and use the TILLREDA thing when I really want that control.
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