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Comment by onlyrealcuzzo | Hacker News Reader

Pretty much any induction stove is going to have less hot spots than a Viking, at a fraction of the price.

Pan quality is still going to matter.

But you don't need $50k in kitchen gadgets to properly caramelize onions...

Really? Our induction stove very clearly has two concentric circles of different radii that get hot, and nothing else. If you use cast iron and vary the power slowly you won't notice, but it's very obvious with thinner pots and when you control heat quickly (which is a delight to be able to do in the first place -- yay induction.)

Are you sure that's an induction element? Induction elements don't get hot, only the pan does. Easy way to tell is - does the element switch only turn on when a pan is on top of it?

Clumsy wording. I mean the pan gets hot in two concentric rings.

One minor clarification because it is important: the elements do get hot, but that isn't the mechanism which they use to transfer heat. The element gets hot because it is touching a super hot pan which will transfer some of its heat.

If you want to know how I found this out: I wasn't using my brain and touched the element after spilling something on it. I received a fairly bad burn as a result. I am saying this because saying "the element doesn't get hot" can put the wrong idea in someone's head.

> Really? Our induction stove very clearly has two concentric circles of different radii that get hot, and nothing else.

Either you have an electric stove - not an induction stove, or you have a VERY bad pan (for an induction stove).

It's induction, not electric. This happens with all my cast iron pans. Easiest way to see it is to boil a thin layer of water mixed with a little hand dishwashing liquid in it. There are clearly two rings where cavities are formed more easily, thus there are two circles of peaking foam.

Oh neat. I have a thermador star burner gas range that makes a wonderful five point star shape oil pattern on a cast iron using a similar technique. I can produce this effect by applying a very thin sheen of high smoke oil point at high heat.

No idea if that’s better for cooking than concentric rings, but it looks really cool.

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