Induction hob opinions please

Stilernin2

I am planning on replacing a gas hob with an induction hob and as the oven is a Neff I thought I would look at the Neff induction hobs, well, to start with.  There are a couple priced at the £300 mark and then they go up to £600 and I don't know enough about them to judge why the difference and if it would be worth it to me.

Could you say what the essential functions are for you and the 'nice to have'?   Also, I've been using a freestanding single induction hob which has cracked.  Has any one had a full sized induction hob crack and do you know why?

Thanks for any information, it will all help.

Misslayed

I've had mine for 12 years, still 'as good as new', bar some scratches. It came from IKEA, not sure of the make. It has four cooking zones, each takes any sized pan. Quite wide 900mm. The timer works independently for each 'ring', very useful. It turns down very, very low, so I can use it as a slow cooker. A dream to clean! Superfast to heat up with the Boost function - boils 1 litre water faster than our kettle, also instantly switches off - like gas. I'd hate to be without mine now. 

DullGreyGuy

Check the power of each ring/zone and the total power the device can handle... I've seen some people buy a cheaper unit because it operates off a standard 13amp plug but then you can only have the four rings running at low/medium at the same time; if you turn one to high two of the others go off/turn to low. 

Ours after 2 years looks like new still, no scratches, cracks or anything else. Ours can have all 4 zones on the high setting and can have two zones on boost, try putting a third zone on boost and the fourth will turn down. 

We've a long cast iron skillet thats good for searing large batches of meat and so our hob having a "bridge" mode where two rings act as one I thought would have been useful but in reality it just saves having to set both to whatever level you want which isn't really much of a saving at all. 

Coming from gas, I'd look at the number of output settings the hob has. Gas is effectively infinite and so you can really dial in the heat whereas some induction have only 6 settings or such meaning it can be hard to find the perfect simmer level. Certainly of the opinion that more is better for finer control. Ours in principle is 9 but the sub menu allows you to increase it to 16 which we use. 

Some you can get it to go to a temp rather than heat level (eg for frying, boiling, jam making etc), ours doesn't, it sounded like it could be useful but I've heard you need to spend a lot if you want one that holds very close to that temp... most osolate above/below by a fair way (same way ovens do) so not so good for ensuring sugar doesn't burn etc. 

grumbler

Stilernin2 said:

Could you say what the essential functions are for you and the 'nice to have'?   

Slider touch controls.
Frameless bevelled edges.
And, of course, a timer - independent for all rings and working just like timer (signal).
I like AEG

ka7e

Look for one with a "bridging" function or large enough zones so that a big pan can be used. My zones struggle to evenly heat a 28cm saute pan. A hard-wired hob is preferable to a plug-in one if you plan to use several zones at the same time. Many cycle power between them if you use 2 or more zones and I think this is more noticeable with the plug-in versions.

Eldi_Dos

Do not like the timer function on ours, never use it and it can inadvertently be set when cleaning hob.

Everything else is great and would recommend,especially the the ability to simmer without causing condensation.

bex2012

I love my timer function, I use it all the time. The cheaper Neff inductions are ‘plug and play’, which means they are plugged in rather than wired. However this means you cant run two rings on max power, it will split the power across both rings. Im on the hunt for a new induction hob and ive been looking at Bosch, Neff and Aeg (bosch and neff are from the same manufacturing family, so a lot of the functions are the same).

daveyjp

If you are used to gas a switch to induction may be a mistake.  I've only ever used gas and whenever I rent a property with any form of electric hob I know it will be a pain.  The one in our cottage in the summer was a brand new NEFF induction hob and it was good at boiling and burning!

FreeBear

daveyjp said: The one in our cottage in the summer was a brand new NEFF induction hob and it was good at boiling and burning!

You must have been using it wrong (or it was seriously faulty). I've had an induction hob here for six years now and have never managed to burn anything aside from some rice that got left too long (but that would happen with any type of stove). A slow simmer at the lowest setting is about the only gripe I have, although that might just be the brand/model - At low settings, the zone pulses rather than being gently heated. A thicker heavy pan would probably smooth out the pulses so that the contents don't bubble over..

On the odd occasion that I have a burnt deposit on the bottom of a pan, a short soak is enough to soften it up. With other hobs, a burnt deposit often required heavy scrubbing & scraping to get rid of it.

The only real downside to an induction hob is the pans used - You need to be selective about which ones you use. So no aluminium, glass or copper bottoms.

littleteapot

We've had a standalone hard-wired cooker with induction hobs for nearly ten years now. We love it. It wasn't an expensive one - just a 'Valor' branded one which was on special offer in a local electrical store when I got fed up of repairing our old cooker.

Has 10 levels on each of the 4 hobs, has no problem with any size from a small milk pot to a 30cm frying pan. Have used all types of hob before including gas hobs and find induction the cleanest, fastest and safest (especially now we have two little children - there's almost no risk of them burning themselves once the pots/pans are removed).

Never had any of the issues that other people have mentioned in this thread such as burning stuff. Another benefit is you don't get any wasted heat in the room, or condensation from the burning of gas.

Gas is probably still the cheapest to use, but the benefits of induction far outweigh the slight cost disadvantage.

jon81uk

daveyjp said:

If you are used to gas a switch to induction may be a mistake.  I've only ever used gas and whenever I rent a property with any form of electric hob I know it will be a pain.  The one in our cottage in the summer was a brand new NEFF induction hob and it was good at boiling and burning!

I switched gas to induction three years ago and it works perfectly, I don't burn any more things than I did with gas and its possible to get a much lower simmer on induction than I got on gas so I've had less issues with rice boiling over. Are you sure it was induction and not just electric?

We've got an AEG, each zone has 14 settings plus boost, setting 10-12 gets used most when sauteing or frying onion etc to start a sauce, then down to 8 to simmer with a lid on. Rice once up to the boil will be set down to setting 5 to simmer with the lid on. Our 24cm saute pan is perfect on the largest "ring".