this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
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Maybe it's a brand or quality difference; I can pretty finely control the flame on our range.
"Control" is the ability to adjust to a desired temp with fine accuracy, right? I can see the flame, and observe changes more rapidly, with gas. Isn't this finer-grained control?
A common residential electric range outputs a max 7,000 BTUs. A common gas stove outputs max 18,000 BTUs. Electric stoves are not hotter on the high end.
Gas stoves lose a majority of those BTUs to the air around your pot.
A 18,000 BTU stove should be equivalent to 5300W of electric heating, alas, my 1500W kettle boils water substantially faster than my gas stove
You’re eye-balling it, so you have good control over what your eyeball sees, but then that mental image has to lead to a judgement. Imagine if you were doing a scientific experiment where you need reproducible results and the amount of heat energy were important to the experiment. Would you write in the scientific paper “the flame looked like about 1cm with each sample tested”? You could meter the gas but the heat losses are higher as the flame grows because you’re heating increasingly more of the air around the pan.
Gas stoves probably lose half their energy by heating the air all around the pot so you have to account for that. With electric much more of the BTUs actually make it to the food (esp. induction). When I search around, articles out in the wild are all over the place.. some saying electric coils get hotter than gas and some saying the contrary. One article concurs with you, saying a gas burner reaches 1950°C and electric 900°C. I don’t see any articles mentioning electric burners that get into the four figures among those that actually give temperature figures so perhaps you’re right. But it’s worth noting that a pot of water boils faster on electric than gas.
You're right. I'm not a scientist. I'm not even a professional chef. What matters to me (and most American homeowners, which is who the article is the granular control available to me. I don't much care what's possible in a lab. It's at least part of the reason why, as the article states, many of us are unwilling to give up the control we get with gas.
I've seen that, too. I don't believe it's accurate (I'd like to see an unbiased verification of that 50% number), and it misses another advantage of gas: gas heats pots more evenly by distributing some heat up the sides. Elecric heats only the bottom directly, and sides are heated only through conduction. It also means that less of that heat is wasted: just because it isn't hitting the bottom of the pot doesn't mean it isn't doing useful work. This also only considers pots. Pans usually have greater coverage of tye heating surface, and less heat escapes around the sides. This is relevant especially where high heat matters, such as searing. Finally, there are pots like my wok, which has a base that entirely covers the grill. It has holes, so it breathes, but it captures nearly all of the heat. Woks are particularly bad on conventional ranges, and having an electric range essentially eliminates woks as a viable tool.
As I think more about this, the more disadvantages of electric I see. Sauteing is better on gas. You can manipulate a pan, lift and tilt, and have many more options than simply having or not having applied heat.
I can see having a range with a few induction spots; most dishes don't need the fine control; boiling water, cooking pasta, and steaming vegetables are all gross operations, but I'd still want at least one gas surface. It's just better for anything that isn't boiled food.
I'm not a scientist. I'm not even a professional chef. I’m an average American homeowner and when we replace our gas range and oven we’ll get an electric oven and an induction range.
Having used gas, electric and induction my experience has been that induction cook tops are the safest and provide the greatest temperature control of them all. The biggest drawback is the requirement of specialized pans but we switched to clad stainless a few years ago to get away from the non-stick chemicals risk.
I’d say this comes down to cost and familiarity. People are used to gas stoves and are likely wary of change. Combine that with the fact that many homes are setup for gas ovens, with no electrical plugs for a switch and you’ve got several costs to change. The new oven itself, getting an appropriate outlet wired in, and for induction, changing pans to something that will work.
The other consideration is that gas continues to work in an electrical outage, however, I’d imagine many ovens are electronically controlled. I know our gas stove will not work without electricity.
😄 Our oven is electric. It's the only thing I lament - it takes forever to come up to temp.
I'm in my mid-50's, and this is our first house that's had gas, so for me it's definitely not a case of familiarity. My whole life I've had electric, and having a gas range has been a game-changer for me.
That said, I've also never seen, and certaily never lived with, an induction range. I do miss the cleaning conveniance of a glass-top - cleaning a gas range is a PITA! And induction has as good immediate temp reduction response as gas, which is a large factor in control. As I mentioned earlier, I'd never willingly go back to conventional electric, but I might opt for induction just for the ease of cleaning. I can live with not being able to properly saute, but giving up the wok would be hard. Still, it's something to consider.
Two other things: except for our ovens (an odd omission), the rest of our house is gas. Water heaters, fireplace, clothes dryer, heat. None of it works without electricity, although in a pinch I can light the stove with a match. The fireplace can't be lit - there's a safety switch that needs current, which could be run with a battery-operated part we don't have. It's the most stupid thing about our house - we can't get any heat in a power outage, despite all the gas. So, of everything, running the stove in a blackout is funnily enough the least of my concerns.
Does your gas not run in an outage, or can you just not start it? If the gas runs, you should be able to light it with a match. OTOH, you can't run the ventilation fan, and that might put you off running it anyway.
I mostly meant the oven wouldn’t work in a power outage regardless of gas or electric.
Our gas range works in a power outage but so does our fireplace. The fireplace has a standing pilot so I’m guessing that’s why.
You should be able to “properly saute” on a gas, electric or induction range. Stir frying, which I suspect you meant, is a different story.