Induction vs Gas Cooking

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Auspicious

. . . There is also confirmation bias. You may be underestimating the danger of fire despite statistics.

Agreed. That's why it's useful to probe these things and test beliefs. It's enormously helpful to have a smart person around who disagrees with you

Originally Posted by Auspicious

Everyone has a bubble tester. They may not know it, but they have one.

No, not soap bubbles. One of these:



Required in the UK in the Boat Safety Scheme; absolutely invaluable. You can't call yourself really careful without one of these.

Originally Posted by Auspicious

Be careful about alcohol. It’s expensive. The heat content is relatively low. It’s very difficult to see the flames which leads to accident, injury, and some fire.

Indeed. I think it's well established that alcohol cooking is by far the most fire hazardous. And least effective. What a combination! The worst possible way to cook on board.

[SVPP]

Induction is clean but expensive in terms of the infrastructure needed to supply the power.

Gas is efficient but promises a level danger that some find unacceptable. I think it stinks a bit also.

Pressurised metho smells and is complicated to start.This mode can be dangerous if the flame blows out and you don’t notice

Un pressurised metho is safe quick but has less heat it Also stinks

Kero heat is intense but smells a little less but needs metho to start it so it stinks somewhat and introduces more complication. But keto won’t blow out

The magma bbq that hangs off the back smells nice but needs to be fed expensive charcoal bricks. It also isn’t great if it is raining or you are at sea

The fire I often light on the beach is the best but when the ranger catches me, is often the most expensive solution of all

If it was easy, everyone would be doing it

Btw I have a kero oven with on kero burner on the top for when in harbour and one unpressurised metho burner for when at sea and everything comes out of one pot. On sunny days we use the magma and when we can go ashore we light a fire on the beach.

We also eat out of dog bowls but that’s another story

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by kmgiunta

If one looks at the issue from a purely practical perspective, Induction could be a viable alternative. For Chefs, as I am, gas wins. Always has, always will. The level of control that exists for gas is incomparable. For us, it's about the food and the art of preparing it, not what is convenient. But, each to his own.

That is not true; professional chefs don’t mind induction at all because it gives just as much control as gas does. You must be confusing it with regular electric cooking, with the delay and course adjustment steps. Good induction units have 100 steps (even some consumer grade), allow thermostat control etc.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

When electronics are linked, such as ganged inverters, a fault in one will sometimes take down both units. The other consideration is that a system fault condition such as a dead short will effect and can therefore damage both units.

Better reliability is achieved with two separate inverters. As inverters are available up to 5kw, a single inverter should be capable of running most systems on a cruising yacht (air conditioning is the possible exception). This dual system could be arranged on a changeover switch similar to the way dual autopilots are often configured. Alternatively (even better) they could be arranged to supply separate outlets.

The above would be a more expensive solution than a single large inverter, or two smaller inverters ganged together.

This focus on reliability and redundancy may seem like overkill, but especially when cruising remote places these qualities are important. The phrase “cruising is fixing things in exotic places” is often heard for good reason.

Completely separate systems such as propane and electric or diesel cooking are more reliable again than the above totally electric solutions.There is a slight reduction in safety, but I am not convinced this is of any practical consequence.

I like the idea of a single 5kw inverter and a backup 3k

Like Dockhead my existing Multiplus 3000/70/25 is getting on in years (installed 2008)

I had noticed back then, that all the new diesel ducks in Subic deliverd from China with twin multis in parallel had failures to both .

So I never let it manage shore power or parallel it with a 2nd and have had no failures.

Thanks for the idea

[StuM]

Originally Posted by kmgiunta

For Chefs, as I am, gas wins. Always has, always will.The level of control that exists for gas is incomparable.

The last statement is demonstrably false and shows that you have not really used induction.

Just a few alternative opinions quoting many top chefs who disagree with you.

https://eurokera.com/blog/profession...ou-should-too/
"Many of the world’s top chefs are induction cooking enthusiasts. Surprised? Professional cooks known for their mastery of the gas flame are adopting glass-ceramic induction cooktops, and not only because they are considered the environmentally friendly alternative to electric or gas stoves...."


https://www.treehugger.com/kitchen-d...ng-school.html
The day I was invited to a class at a French cooking school in Paris changed that for me. Imagine my surprise when our group was asked to gather around an induction stove!
The chef explained that the school opted for induction because it offers the same instantaneous control over heat delivery, with a passel of other advantages: safety, ease of cleaning, and less heating of the ambient environment in particular.




https://www.goodfood.com.au/good-liv...0170428-gvv914
"Now, the induction cooktop, for many years considered either out of reach or still second to gas, is becoming the preferred choice of many top chefs. Some of the biggest names in the Australian food industry, from Neil Perry to Tetsuya Wakuda and Shannon Bennett, have converted to induction cooking and are singing its praises from the, um, cooktops."

https://www.foodserviceandhospitalit...rant-kitchens/

"Induction cooktops are enjoying their time in the spotlight, and for good reason. Both chefs and manufacturers are endorsing this trendy new method, finding it to be a more efficient, more precise, safer and more flexible way to cook than conventional methods such as gas or electric."

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

. . . I had noticed back then, that all the new diesel ducks in Subic deliverd from China with twin multis in parallel had failures to both . . .

Yikes. That's not encouraging. I had a failure in mine years ago, a real PITA.


But it has been completely reliable since then so I've slowly regained confidence.


Letting it manage shore power is one of its best features. Why wouldn't you do that? It's true that if it goes down, you then lose shore power, but it is a 2 minutes job to wire around the failed inverter.


If you let it manage shore power, then you gain the current limiting function, and Power Boost. Terrifically useful with limited shore power connections, and a great way to protect your generator from being overloaded.


I derate my generator from 31 amps to 25 amps, using this function of the Multiplus. I am sure this will add life to the genset.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by StuM

The last statement is demonstrably false and shows that you have not really used induction.

Just a few alternative opinions quoting many top chefs who disagree with you.

https://eurokera.com/blog/profession...ou-should-too/
"Many of the world’s top chefs are induction cooking enthusiasts. Surprised? Professional cooks known for their mastery of the gas flame are adopting glass-ceramic induction cooktops, and not only because they are considered the environmentally friendly alternative to electric or gas stoves...."


https://www.treehugger.com/kitchen-d...ng-school.html
The day I was invited to a class at a French cooking school in Paris changed that for me. Imagine my surprise when our group was asked to gather around an induction stove!
The chef explained that the school opted for induction because it offers the same instantaneous control over heat delivery, with a passel of other advantages: safety, ease of cleaning, and less heating of the ambient environment in particular.




https://www.goodfood.com.au/good-liv...0170428-gvv914
"Now, the induction cooktop, for many years considered either out of reach or still second to gas, is becoming the preferred choice of many top chefs. Some of the biggest names in the Australian food industry, from Neil Perry to Tetsuya Wakuda and Shannon Bennett, have converted to induction cooking and are singing its praises from the, um, cooktops."

https://www.foodserviceandhospitalit...rant-kitchens/

"Induction cooktops are enjoying their time in the spotlight, and for good reason. Both chefs and manufacturers are endorsing this trendy new method, finding it to be a more efficient, more precise, safer and more flexible way to cook than conventional methods such as gas or electric."

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/7...induction-hobs

"Why London’s Top Chefs Are All Cooking on £99 Induction Hobs

“'I wouldn’t ever go back to gas.'”

"At P. Franco wine bar in London, an act of culinary sorcery is about to commence. Tim Spedding, former sous chef at the Michelin-starred Clove Club, is standing in front of two induction hobs. There's no pacojet, no sous vide bath, no army of chefs running the pass. Instead, it's just Spedding working two portable electric hobs with the adroitness of a DJ behind the decks."


I am not a Chef (capital "C", whatever that means). Nor am I a keen amateur like Auspicious. I like to cook but cannot claim to be any kind of artist. But I own a building with a bunch of restaurants. We designed the building with gas because we thought fine dining restaurants would need gas. But not a single one of the tenants wanted gas. My tenants tell me that none of the top chefs in Helsinki uses gas anymore. Just like this article says -- they say that even the €69 induction hobs is better than any gas range. I'm not qualified to give an opinion, but this lines up with my experience.


Safety and the ability to keeo multiple cheap backups are great, absence of combustion products in the cabin is fantastic, but the main reason why I prefer induction is the cooking experience, which for me is just totally superior. This is subjective, but I think not uncommon.

[tomsnrg]

Originally Posted by bensolomon

Is induction cooking a reasonable choice for a modest cruising boat of 37 feet? How much extra battery and dokarvwould be needed. I hate having CNG on board.

CNG would be much better since it is lighter than air. You have LPG aka Propane-Butane mix aka Autogas which is heavier than air and requires a safety venting installed at floor level in buildings.

[sv Stella Maris]

My gas system on my multi is safe and has never had trouble on a rainy day or during system maintenance periods. Both are great. During this recent fabricated crisis, hereafter 'The virus that shall not be named', we used only 5kg of cooking gas for 8 people in 10 weeks. Used our electric pressure cooker every day for everything. But in the morning even my 2.24kw solar array and 800ah 12v agm's dont agree with electric cooking...enter gas.

...and yes, I am installing more solar...another 620w goes up this week...

[Van Der Beek]

I recently bought a new boat and am in the process of a refit which includes new cooker, new engine, new genset and added dive compressor.

I will stick to a gas cooker (debated this prior to my decision to do so) the system has been around for a long time, is safe enough and works under all conditions.

As for what the majority of chefs prefer it's gas! Sure there are exceptions, but the majority prefer gas because they get better control over the heat, and they can (as pointed out in this thread) hear it, they get auditory feedback when changing the heat which is kind of important when cooking at that level.

It is not digital system but an analogue system thus it allows the chef to use ALL his senses (touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste) when cooking.

But I digress.


Edit
Quote Auspicious

"Adjusting heat on gas is something I can see and smell and hear. Induction, at least on the hobs I have used, means shifting mental gears and fiddling with buttons that someone thought were a good idea"

Spot on, one of the downsides with DIGITAL systems in a nutshell right there, the user is deprived of ONE of his senses.

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

No, not soap bubbles. One of these:

Interesting. That's something I haven't seen. Note the manual says if the detector shows a leak it's back to soap bubbles. *grin* I understand (now) how to use it. My question is how does it work?

Originally Posted by Dockhead

If you let it manage shore power, then you gain the current limiting function, and Power Boost. Terrifically useful with limited shore power connections, and a great way to protect your generator from being overloaded.

Those French 6A power outlets really had an effect on you, didn't they? *grin*

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by Van Der Beek

As for what the majority of chefs prefer it's gas! Sure there are exceptions, but the majority prefer gas because they get better control over the heat, and they can (as pointed out in this thread) hear it, they get auditory feedback when changing the heat which is kind of important when cooking at that level.

Keep in mind, most of those chefs are using far better gas stoves than typically found on a boat or even in most houses. A really good gas stove is great, but once you step down to a lower powered boat sized version, often with annoyingly imprecise controls where it's hard to make smooth, small adjustments to the flame, those advantages get a lot smaller.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Auspicious

Interesting. That's something I haven't seen. Note the manual says if the detector shows a leak it's back to soap bubbles. *grin* I understand (now) how to use it. My question is how does it work?



Those French 6A power outlets really had an effect on you, didn't they? *grin*

Gas has to pass through the liquid. So you instantly see if there's even a tiny leak. It means you can check daily whether there is any leak anywhere in the system.

To my mind this dramatically improves gas safety, much more than any alarms or solenoids.

Soap bubble is no substitute - you can only check individual joints. This thing checks the entire system at one glance, even the hidden parts.

What concerns power boost - this is incredibly useful, the only way to hard limit current on your gennie or shore power connection. It's so useful that you soon wonder how you lived without it. It protects the generator, and we hook up to all kinds of odd shore power since we are rarely in actual marinas, much more often in fishing ports, commercial harbours, town quays, and you may get anything, often a 10 amp Shuko socket. In the little municipal yacht harbours in Scandinavia you often get 8 amps or even 6. I think I've seen 4.

Last year I finally made up a converter for the 3 phase 380v sockets common in commercial harbours and that should eliminate some of those cases where we couldn't plug into those, and so were stuck with some utility socket.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Yikes. That's not encouraging. I had a failure in mine years ago, a real PITA.


But it has been completely reliable since then so I've slowly regained confidence.


Letting it manage shore power is one of its best features. Why wouldn't you do that? It's true that if it goes down, you then lose shore power, but it is a 2 minutes job to wire around the failed inverter.


If you let it manage shore power, then you gain the current limiting function, and Power Boost. Terrifically useful with limited shore power connections, and a great way to protect your generator from being overloaded.


I derate my generator from 31 amps to 25 amps, using this function of the Multiplus. I am sure this will add life to the genset.

It’s worse. When one of the units fails the system comes down but can be reconfigured for solo service... which then gives you limp mode because you may only have one 120V leg or similar trouble. That’s not where it ends because you will have to buy TWO new units as both must be the same hardware revision as well as firmware revision.

This is why my diagram, even though I like Victron, uses two units completely independent and can even use different brands. Resilience is more important. To get to the service I want, only a relatively cheap, light and ultra reliable auto transformer is needed so a no brainer from my pov

[seandepagnier]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Mmpared to induction! There will be no gas on my next boat!

I found my solar oven is the best way to cook anything for me, no burning, and convenience of not needing to cut anything or clean up.

https://www.ebay.com/i/312965086099

I was skeptical and thought it would take all day but it takes 1-2 hours in full sun, and 2-3 with partial overcast, and with complete overcast it still cooks but takes all day. I am able to use it 5-6 days a week and cook most of my food with it.

I baked bread rice etc, and for potatoes and corn you can just stick inside and it cooks perfect without burning, the taste from solar cooking is better.


Has anyone gotten a 12 volt induction working? I'm in the process of making a 12 volt cooker since my last one eventually burned out. I did this before and the cooker used 150 watts and took 45 minutes to boil 2 cups which makes 1 meal of various foods.

This is about 9ah to cook a meal using wool insulation, vacuum should do better. How does this compare to induction?