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Pete, I learned to do that quite a while ago. When my late husband and I bought the home in which I currently live, the stunad subcontractor installed the smoke detector at the top of the vaulted ceiling, above the kitchen. Needles to say, it is impossible to broil anything without setting it off. I found that using countertop appliances such as air fryers and my trusty George Forman, can give off enough smoke when frying or broiling steaks or porkchops, to set it off. Putting the appliances on the stovetop under the smoke hood and turning on its fan solved the problem.
 
We used to have smoke detector that was very sensitive in our previous home. Whenever I was cooking something that I knew would set it off I used to put a plastic shower cap over the smoke detector until I was finished with the cooking and then took it off. Problem solved.

Eddie
 
HD Under-$2000.00 Price Update

 

Frigidaire and Samsung tied for second cheapest.  Samsung lacks convection and Air Fry but has "burner" knobs favored by gas loyalists.  Lowest-priced color options.

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Hi Eddie! I would love to be able to put a shower cap over my offending smoke detector. Malheureusement, the detector is 20 feet up on a vaulted ceiling, so it's a bit inconvenient to easily reach when I fry or broil.
 
To anyone with a gas cooktop: When bringing water to a boil over high heat, hold your hands around the sides of the pot or pan with the thumbs and middle fingers making a circle with the palm side facing down and see how long you can hold them there in the torrent of heat rising up from the burner. Then try it with a properly sized electric element under the pan.
 
I wonder if an induction stove would work with a wok.

 

I like cooking with gas.

 

I do not enjoy cooking with an electric element.

 

Induction, with the right cookware, might be OK.

 

Another wrinkle with electric cooking: Currently I'm getting a decent enough discount on electricity usage by not using it as much between the hours of 4 pm and 9 pm, each day. So if I have to cook during those times, the gas cooktop is the answer. Currently don't have a gas oven, but I'm working on that. Someday.

 
 
Woks with induction

You can use a stir fry pan with a flat bottom on an induction cooktop. The pan must be magnetic, such as carbon steel or tri-ply. There are special induction units for round bottom woks - Vollrath has a nice one if you have plenty of money, $3000+ including the wok pan.
 
You can also buy induction units with a bowl-shaped cooking area that will accommodate the shape of the wok. Since genuine woks are made of carbon steel, they work fine with induction. Cook Tek is one manufacturer of such a unit. With 3 to 5 thousand watts of power, they provide plenty of heat for wok cooking and unlike a gas range style of burner, they concentrate the heat near the base of the wok to provide the appropriate heat gradations as the cook moves food from the hot base up the side of the pan during the cooking process.
 
Also, according to what I've gleaned from CR and elsewhere, an induction cooktop is only about 10% more energy efficient than a resistance type electric cooktop.

 

Furthermore, I coudn't find anything about an "induction oven". My suspicion is that ovens in induction ranges are similar to those in regular electric ranges. That is, there's a resistance element or two at the botton/top of the oven, which heats the air inside the oven.

 

I still prefer gas.
 
Induction cooking

Hi Rich, yes, there’s no such thing as an induction oven. They just are regular electric ovens resistance heated when you have induction burners on top.

It is true that induction cooking is often little more efficient than resistance, electric cooking the process of converting electricity to magnetic energy is only about 90% efficient at best,

Interesting Lewis but I don’t think you can really compare induction cooking to microwave ovens but you might be able to, microwave ovens are only about 50% efficient in converting the electric power. They consume into actual microwave energy so it’s way different there alone

I do find all the excitement about induction cooking, which I love, to be a little bit funny because regular electric resistance elements are actually wonderful to cook on and truly superior to gas for their ability to have speedy cooking and better heat control with a much wider range of temperatures than gas anyway.

John.
 
Everybody can

Do what they want, but im not standing near a giant electromagnet!! Its my personal opinion it cant be good, I can cook on gas electric or wood, yes i know how to fire a wood stove and hold a even oven temp, Personally nothing bakes like a old gas stove with a modulating flame control, moist heat makes for moist cakes,
 
This Sunday my local newspaper had a two and a half page article on induction cooking in restaurants. One of these restaurants is located in the city of Sonoma. When the owner bought the restaurant the planning dept was going to require several thousands of dollars in modifications to the building in order to allow gas stoves for cooking. Consequently he chose to install several induction burners instead along with a convection oven.

The main problem that they’ve experienced with the induction burners is that they don’t last very long. He needs to keep spares in stock so they can continue cooking when one of these units gives up the ghost. And the main reason for the failure of these unit is the touch control switches for lowering and raising the temps don’t hold up to constant use. Seems like it would be much better to install dial temp controls on these units.

The other complaint was that the natural instinct for most professional chefs is to lift the pans off of the burners during many cooking procedures, especially while sautéing, and then there is no heat at all as there is no longer contact with the induction magnet when the pan is off the burner. This kind of didn’t make sense to me as the reason for lifting the pan off the burner would be for the reduction of the heat by removing contact with the gas flame on a gas stove. Anyway it was an interesting article.

Eddie
 
Eddie,

 

That's VERY interesting about the short lifespan of induction cooking elements. Something I've never heard of before. Is it because of the heavier usage a restaurant puts a range to? Or is it a problem that home cooks also will encounter,  also, I wonder?

 

Surely your local paper has a website that you can link to?

 

 
 

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