Burners & Hot Plates

Burners & Hot Plates

Consider extending your cooking capability with a portable cooktop, such as a hot plate, burner, or induction cooker. These portable cooking solutions commonly have a single or dual hot plate or burner to fit most household or traveling needs, but others with additional capacity are available. An induction cooker and a gas or an electric hot plate or burner cooktop are each designed to offer a variety of intuitive digital controls, temperatures, and safety options.

How does induction work?

Induction is when an electromagnetic field is produced between two magnetized objects to generate heat directly in ferrous metals, which are metals that contain iron such as cast iron or some stainless steels. This causes a quick temperature increase within the ferrous metal that will subsequently heat the intended object.

What is an induction cooktop?

  • An induction cooktop or hot plate is a small portable appliance used for cooking. Most often it will have a glass ceramic surface serving as the hot plate with a magnetic wire coil beneath.
  • All cookware with at least the base lined with a high content of magnetic stainless steel or ferrous metal will be compatible with induction cooktops.
  • Nonmagnetized pans can be used for induction hot plate cooking through the use of an induction interface disk that can be placed on the cooktop underneath the pan.

How does an induction cooker work?

As electricity runs through the wire coil in the cooktop, the fluctuating electromagnetic field that is produced is generated upwards towards the hot plate, and any ferrous metal placed in its path will trap the electric current generated. The burner itself will not heat unless a pan containing ferrous metal is placed on the burner in order to trap the current. The trapped current results in heat generated within the metal itself because they are poor conductors of these electric currents. The higher the electromagnetic field, meaning the higher the wattage of the induction cooktop, the faster the temperature of the cookware rises.

Can induction cookware be used on a gas or electric burner?

Almost all induction-compatible cookware is safe for use on a gas or electric hot plate or burner. Symbols or directions can be found on some packaging or cookware to indicate its compatibility with induction cooking, gas heating, or electric heating.

What is the difference between microwaves and induction hot plates?

  • An electric microwave oven uses high-energy radio waves to produce the heat it uses to cook the food.
  • A hot plate uses induction to create an electromagnetic field produced by the magnetized wire coil inside the cooktop and complementary cookware to generate heat to cook food.