Do you have an opinion(or better experience!) on using induction stove in the matter of canning and all the operations involved in it - like using big pots, cooking jams, sterilizing and so on…
I had electric glass top before, I had to replace it with regular electric coil, after two burners went out of business when syrup ran away and caramelized on hot surface causing crack . Coil has it is own issues, especially bad leveling, difficulty to clean and burning food on the bottom. I am thinking about induction stove now, even bought one burner cook top to try it - arrived today. Most of my pots and my beloved cast iron work on it. But speed is not that impressive as advertised. But what I read usually says that big stove is always better then portable cook top. I want to collect as much information as possible before I decided to buy the stove as it is a really big investment. Please share!
I don’t have one but I want one. I’ve got a glass top electric and I hate it, but at least it’s easy to clean and the oven is OK. Never did care for coil, especially after I flipped an omelet badly and had to clean the coil …
My sister bought one and loves it. They are said to behave a lot like gas which would have been my old first choice. I’m glad to hear that your cast iron works on it.
Not cheap- but you’d think they’d be coming down in time as the “new” wears off.
Gas .
@marknmt, Yes, I am holding my self tight at least until Black Friday this year 
@mrsg47, I wish! There is no gas line on our street. And no space to store big gas canisters… And kitchen is not up to code for gas…
I have a glass top and love it, esp cleaning it. Love to come to my clean and shiny cook top and start cooking - but that is my thing.
Most my cookware is stainless and may not work on an induction top depending on the core. My pressure canner is aluminum - won’t work on induction. I use a large stainless soup pot for water bath canning - which also won’t work on an induction and neither will my glass cookware. I understand that the induction tops are more energy efficient. Had a friend who wanted to borrow my canner until he realized it wouldn’t work on his induction top. So there are tradeoffs like everything.
I used induction stove and love it. It has different power level you can choose from, can set timer to automatically cook, the surface is not hot, some has power booster features which can cook something in a hurry etc… The biggest feature I love about is the automatically turn off safety feature . I found myself more forgetting things like turn off the stove before leaving the house, leaving the kitchen, etc. With this automatically turn off feature, I don’t have to wonder if my stove is off when I leave house for work or go shopping. The downside of induction stove is you have to use stainless steel , or iron/steel cookware. most household cookware nowadays are made with aluminum alloy.
BTW, I think European company made induction stove are better than American company 's. What IKEA carries just as good as other well known American brand and you pay half the price
If you just want one element portable induction stove, you can get one for $50~$100 online which is very affordable and you don’t have to cook in the kitchen fighting counter space with your wife.
At least 1500 watt or higher . However, watch your circuit breaker, 1500watt can use regular 1.5A circuit breaker, if higher wattage,you probably should upgrade your circuit breaker to 2A. just a thought, you need check product Spec.first
I already got one element , but this is just trial for the big one, Thanks for IKEA tip!
Actually, I just boiled water in aluminum pot on my induction cook top! I have cast iron heat diffuser I use on my coil when I want to cook something on low even heat. So I placed it on induction cook top, and pot on top of it. Not rocket fast, but it worked. Anyway, I only use it for cooking grains in milk( Kasha), so i need it slow anyway.
what you did is to use induction to heat piece of iron and let that piece of iron to transfer heat to aluminum pot to cook. Many ways to skin the cat, but your way waste a lot of energy. Induction stove is very energy efficient, it excites iron in the cookware /pot to generate heat to cook what’s in the pot.
I realize, that I use induction to heat the diffuser. But because aluminum is super heat transferring, I don’t think I loose a lot of energy this way. Diffuser is smaller than the pot, so no much heat loss. When I removed diffuser from cook top the surface of the cook top was not more hot, than when I used compatible pot. So I guess, even it is less efficient, the loss is not great. Believe me, I loose much more when I use this diffuser on the coil, that is wider then the diffuser. And when you better use correct cookware, you still could use that unique pot you have and used to.
Darn…
I haven’t really heard of them. Our electric stove uses the old coil heating elements. Our 8in element, that we do our pressure and water bath canning on, gave up the ghost last week. Got a replacement element for $30 at Lowe’s.
I imagine it was the original element, so it lasted about 14 years, altho we’ve only lived here for the last 3 or so. This was the fourth canning season on it.
We just canned 7qt of Honey Select corn on it, and we water bathed 9 pints of pepper rings yesterday with the older bigger canner. So, it seems that it’s working OK.
@JustAnne4, by glass top, do you mean ceramic stove top? I didn’t think you could use a big pressure canner on a ceramic stovetop.
Hmmmm. News to me. I’ve been doing it several years now without issues. I wonder what problem could it pose?
I use an induction single pan stove for many meals and love it! Nothing I’ve found beats my propane stove for canning and preserving. I like the heat it puts out. When you toast breads to give them that cooked on the flames taste nothing is better than propane. Many cook tortillas on the burners by flipping them on the open flames.
I have been using (ok, mostly my wife but me too on occasion ;)) an Induction Cooktop (by Summit Appliance) for 5+ years and it works great. So much better than any other type of electric stove/cooktop. It’s efficient, easy to clean, very elegant looking. Sorry, no experience with canning with it. However, we cook a lot with a pressure cooker and had absolutely no problem.
Thanks all!
Something about 1) dangers of reflected heat from a canner damaging the area around the burner; 2) the weight of a fully loaded canner maybe damaging the glass; or, 3) not being able to get flush contact with the bottom of the canner, which tend not to be totally flat on the bottom, or; 4) the cycling of the heating element not keeping a constant temp. How 'bout that for a run-on sentence?
Here is one link I found, there are others. But, some folks say they don’t have any issues with it, including you, so it may not matter.
http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/nchfp/factsheets/smoothtops.html
The induction stove will not have most of that issues. It doesn’t care much about contact, waves will heat pot if it is compatible anyway if it close enough (tried on cast iron pan with heat ring), heat is even.