Cook dinner without cooking the cook
Written: Aug 12 '08 (Updated Aug 12 '08)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: "Cold heat" cooking technology in an affordable portable package.
Cons: Noise-conscious users might object to the cooling fan.
The Bottom Line: A pair of Max Burton induction cooktops might make you think twice about an expensive kitchen makeover.
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| JoeEkaitis's Full Review: Athena 6000 Max Burton Induction Cooker UL 110V |
You have to use the Max Burton Induction Cooktop to fully appreciate the induction cooking experience.
At your command are the power and instant response of an 11500 BTU gas burner without a natural gas line or a butane cylinder in sight. You're cooking with electricity, but unlike a hotplate, an induction cooktop doesn't emit a single degree of thermal energy. Switch it on without a pan in place and it just shuts itself off. Center a pot of water on the circles, crank the power up to the highest setting, and in minutes, the water's boiling like there's no tomorrow. Amazingly, you can rest your hand an eighth of an inch from the pan and the cooking surface is barely warm. At a half-inch, it's downright cool to the touch. In fact, about the only heat escaping into the room is from the steam itself. The cooking surface is producing NO heat of its own!
Don't believe me? Take the pot away, drop a paper napkin on the cooking surface and . . . nothing. No fireball, no billows of smoke, no glowing ashes flitting around the room. Yes, the surface is hot, but only because it absorbed some heat from the pot.
It's not magic. It's induction. Computer-controlled electromagnetic energy induces the bottom of the pot or pan to produce its own heat. It all seems so futuristic but in reality, it's been around since the previous century. As is true with all things electronic, the technology gets cheaper as it gets better. Today's countertop induction cookers are giving their built-in big brothers some real competition. Factor in portability and a small trade-off in power, and many folks are thinking twice about remodeling the kitchen. Just plug one or two of these into separate circuits, and your kitchen is ready for any season.
In the summer, use your induction cooker for stovetop cooking. And don't be afraid to crank up the A/C and turn the ceiling fan to High, even if you're simmering a delicate Hollandaise. There's no flame to blow out, so there's no danger of gassing up the kitchen.
In the winter, an induction cooktop becomes a handy keep-warm burner while the waste heat from conventional cooking warms up the kitchen. Of course, you already know you should NEVER use the stove or oven solely to heat the kitchen but when you're cooking in the dead of winter, that extra warmth won't go to waste.
Any time of year, induction is the method of choice for sustained low-heat cooking that would normally call for a double boiler.
And who says you have to keep it in the kitchen? I know folks who take their induction cookers out on the patio when the weather's nice or when they want to cook fish without smelling up the house for weeks. Max Burton even offers an induction-ready stovetop smoker. Truckers use high-wattage inverters to power their induction cooktops when they're on the road. Take it to work, find a vacant outlet in the break room, and wow your fellow cubicle-dwellers with one of your culinary specialties prepared on the spot, not reheated in the microwave oven. RV cookery no longer needs to feel like you're fixing dinner in a phone booth over a blast furnace. Remember: Electrical outlet + induction cooker = instant kitchen.
At 1600 watts, the Max Burton offers the most bang for the buck among 120-volt units. The next step up in power, 1800 watts (equivalent to 13000 BTU), is found mainly on commercial units that require beefier electrical circuits than are found in the average home. They also cost about five times the price! Maybe YOU have that kind of money to burn but I'd rather wait a little longer for my pasta water to come to a boil and pocket the difference.
The control panel is simple and uncluttered. If you're comfortable with the touchpad controls on a modern oven, you'll be right at home. The Function touchpad cycles through Power or Temperature cooking modes and a Timer mode. The Power mode provides 10 settings and the Temperature mode steps from 150 to 390 degrees Fahrenheit. Setting the timer is a little tricky because it counts up in 5-minute jumps but counts down 1 minute at a time, so to set 13 minutes, you push the up-arrow three times to get to 15 minutes, then the down-arrow twice to subtract two minutes.
Now, I can already hear your know-it-all friends warning "If you buy one of those, you'll have to replace EVERY POT AND PAN IN THE KITCHEN!" Not very likely. Line up all your pots and pans and pick out those with perfectly flat bottoms. Grab a magnet off the fridge and see if it clings to any of those bottoms. Chances are, it clings to quite a few, like Grandma's cast iron skillet and Aunt Sophie's enamelware Dutch oven. Hey, look, it clings to the bottom of that pressure cooker you picked up on your last trip to the Galleria and that stockpot you bought at WalTargMart! Well, whaddaya know! You DO have some induction-ready cookware!
If your kitchen has stainless steel counters or other metal work surfaces, they're off-limits because they can weaken the electromagnetic field. A small amount of energy radiates from the bottom of the cooktop and can make the surface below too hot to touch. Reserve a spot on a Formica, marble, granite or wooden countertop near an electrical outlet.
And, yes, it's true that every induction cooktop has a fan to keep the magnetic coils cool. The sound is more noticeable on a countertop unit than on a built-in but much quieter than a range hood exhaust fan or a microwave oven. If that's the sound of a cooler kitchen, it's music to my ear.
Recommended:
Yes
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JoeEkaitis
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Member: Joe Ekaitis
Location: Southern California, USA
Reviews written: 144
Trusted by: 16 members
About Me:
Joe Ekaitis is a business communications technician and a children's book author.
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