Ceramic Cooktops, Question for the Chefs of the house!

[Dreamscape]

My wife and I are having a battle over cooktop surfaces. How hard are they to clean?

I do cook once in a blue moon, so this is important to me!

We fulltime and I want to get this right. You know the old saying about a Happy Wife, well now's the time to make me look good!

Paul

[luvrbus]

Paul, you need to take the little ladies advice on this one or you may become a mirowave chef.
Have her call Sonja about the ceramic cook top ( she hates the thing)to long to heat and to long to cool down so she says.
FWIW shes loves the induction cooking, pans are a little pricey but as long as I don't have to do the cooking it is ok with me lol 


good luck

[muddog16]

Paul, Ok.......I'll own up to it......." I do the majority of the cooking here"  the wife hasn't retired yet, so I do many (not all) of the chores around the house!   That said, I put a ceramic cook top in about 5 years ago  shiny black surface looked great when it was new.......after 5 years......there are a few small scratches but they aren't noticeable unless you are a quality control guy working the line at a Toyota assembly line!  About once a month I use the ceramic cleaner and polish the top it takes about 5 minutes.......presto!........Yes, I would buy another one!   I'm sure there are opinions just the opposite of mine!........Beat it with a hammer and it will look like crap.....! But this is just my humble opinion!  

Pat

[bevans6]

In my experience, the closer you are to a "chef" quality cook, the more important the range top is.  Good cooks tend to prefer a gas cooktop, for instant control of heat.  But they  have to be the hardest to keep clean.  For cooking ease and happiness equal to a gas range top, the new induction cooktops are the thing to have.  Many top restaurant kitchens are going to induction cooktops, instant control of heat and total safety - if it isn't magnetic it doesn't get hot.  And total ease of cleaning.  Each burner takes between 2 KW and up to 3.5 KW of power to run at full wack, so judge your electricity requirements thusly.  Ceramic cooktops share the ease of cleaning, are more fragile and do scratch, mostly from rough use of cookware than anything else, latest generation is better than the early ones for that, but are the slowest to react to heat change.  

We have gas in both house and bus, and have only read about induction, not personally tried it.  We have used ceramic, and wouldn't own it for our own use, but some people have a thing about gas.

That's our take on it anyway.

Edit:  I thought about it for a second, and it struck me that induction cooktops are a lot faster than gas, or traditional electric, so even though they use the watts, they use them for less time so they would actually be more energy efficient.  Also, 120 volt units are certainly available and pretty popular, and they are obviously available in wattage below 2,000, I have seen them from 1400 to 1800 watts for a single burner.

Brian

[cody]

Paul, call trina at RV Surplus, last time we were there libby was drooling over a bunch of different cooking systems she had on the shelfs, all kinds of great stuff, but I don't have a clue what it was, she had rangetops that were tied to microwave looking things that mounted above, induction cooktops that looked like black glass mirrors, all kinds of different types and she was pointing out to libby, one of them she pointed out ran well over a grand but she had it marked down to 250, I know this isn't much of a help but a call to her would be a lot better than any help I could give lol.

[bobofthenorth]

They may have got better Paul but I lived with my grandmother when I was going to university and she had a ceramic cooktop - granted it may have been serial #1.  It was the most colossal PITA in a host of ways.  I would never consider one for a bus and probably not even for a house.  It was hard to clean and you had to use the special ($$$) cleaner or you would scratch it.  And you had to turn it on the night before if you wanted bacon for breakfast.

[cody]

Wow bob, back when you were in college those were the earlier versions of the cooktops did they have a woodstove base? lol  I couldn't resist lol.

[Dreamscape]

Cody, Do you have a phone number or URL?

I found a 240 volt two burner induction with cookware for 500 bucks. We're plugged into a 50 amp service 99.5 percent of the time anyway, so it would work, at least for us.

The induction is a lot more money than the standard, but it heats much faster than gas according to what I've read anyway.

Wonder how easy it is to clean the glass surface.

BOTN, that's whay I'm asking. Gotta keep the boss happy!

Decisions, decisions!

[Jerry32]

I have the induction cooktop and love it but don't get 240 volt cause all 50 amp service is not 240 volt. Where I am at it is only 120 paralell to both sides.   Jerry

[DaveG]

I have a Bosch ceramic cooktop and I hate it. Takes forever to heat up, and difficult to control temperature once it does. However, it is easy to keep clean and looks nice...just doesn't cook well. Also, you do need cookware that is FLAT on the bottom, so that trusty old cast iron skillet you have is out.

I would not do electric cooktop again.

[luvrbus]

Paul. the wife says they are very easy to clean because you don't have the heat baking stuff on.Why not go with 2 of hob induction and build those in.
Fred has a neat setup with his induction tops they are in a drawer when you open the drawer the hobs pop up or you can build the hobs in all I have saw have a 3/8 in lip for that purpose, fwiw Kevin's are mounted on the counter top looks neat too.



good luck

[cody]

Paul, the number is 574-264-5575 ask for trina, shes the final word on everything and she is the one that determines the discount and how deep it goes lol, the url is   http://www.rvsurplus.net/.  on feb 3rd, I'm heading for saginaw to the horsepistal there, they think my stent may be failing so they are thinking I might be better off cut in half and bypassed in a few places, after they get done playing i may run down to trinas and bontrangers to drool, I can check and see whats available then too.

[Just Dallas]

Removed

[Christyhicks]

There is a HUGE difference between the standard electric ceramic cooktops and the induction, so you can't compare the two at all.  The standard ones have electric heating coils placed under the glass, which means they take a very long time to heat up and cool down, and stay hot for a long time after being shut off.  Personally, I wouldn't have one, although my mom has so many years of experience using hers that she doesn't mind a bit.

The induction cooktops use a type of heat called magnetic induction, and therefore, you must use a pot to which a magnet will stick.  The more "magnet stick" the better it works.  Not all stainless steel cookware has enough steel in it to work well, so make sure if you buy cookware, you buy cookware that guarantees it will work on induction.  This is definitely one time that spending a little more is well worth it.  The better quality cookware has more layers and more steel for more even cooking, which really shows w/induction cooking.

Induction cooking is faster and cleaner than gas, or even a microwave, it is the safest type of cooking, as the cooktop ONLY heats up from the transfer of heat from the pan to the surface, it cools down much quicker, and there are usually safety features built in such as overheat, or if you remove the pan the burner will shut off, etc.  If you have a boil over, you can lift the pan, wipe up the mess, and set the pan back down without a problem.  Many of the better ones have timers just like your microwave which shut the burner off after the timer shuts off.  Nothing cooks at a lower temperature than induction cooking. . . you can melt chocolate in a pan rather than having to use a double boiler!  Most burners will automatically adjust themselves to the size of the pan, which is also pretty cool, and they do recognise the difference between a kettle and a metal spatula or your bracelet.

The only "residue" you get from induction cooking is anything that is carried by the fumes of the food itself, unlike gas, which, over time, will leave residue on the walls and celing of an enclosed area like your coach..  As previously stated, the drawback would be that most of the better cooktops are true 220v, and the individual 120v hobs usually do not get as hot as nor have as many features as full cooktops.  OTOH, that is quickly changing.

My induction cooktop would be the very last item in my kitchen that I would give up, and you'd have to hold me down and pry every single fingertip loose to get that thing from me!  Come on, MAKE MY DAY   Christy Hicks

[Dreamscape]

OK, now what does HOB mean? Hard On Budget?

Thanks Cody!

Dallas, is it an induction or regular ceramic type?

Christy, That's why I'm asking!