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.

@TechConnectify the only complaint I’ve ever had about my ceramic cooktop is that it can at times be frustrating to clean. But BKF is a miracle worker for most set in stains it gets over time.

@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.

@TechConnectify @sass The problem with sliding can be solved with induction stoves: we have a silicone mat on top of the stove that stops pots from sliding, keeps spillage to a smaller area and, according to the manufacturer, saves energy by insulating the pots from the stove surface.
@Habrok42
Wait, you can rest something between an induction stove top and your pot? Thought contact with the pot was essential.
(Future induction range owner here)
@bettybarcode @Habrok42 Yes, you can!
Proximity between cookware and stovetop is needed so it shouldn't be too thick. Also good for the material to be heat resistant. :)
@bettybarcode Contact and thermal conductivity aren't necessary, since induction directly heats the bottom of the pot, but the electromagnetic field has to reach the bottom of the pot as undisturbed as possible. So, thin, non-conductive and heat-resistant objects work just fine.
@Habrok42 @TechConnectify @sass Thanks for mentioning these mats, we want to switch to an induction stove, but use cast iron and carbon steel pans for nonstick cooking, and I have been assuming we were going to end up with scratched stove tops no matter how careful we are with the pans. I’ve looked for metal protectors with no luck, but these silicone protectors look like they’ll work which is great. Thanks again!
@Habrok42 @TechConnectify @sass induction stoves are so expensive though, even just the stovetop and not an oven combo unit 

@TechConnectify @sass

Scraping with a razor also helps.