Does anyone use a halogen tabletop oven?

@Pantheist Thanks. It appears to be sold at Lowes, on casual visual appears to be the same but I haven’t compared model numbers.

@baqui63 It could also be that it’s got multiple heating elements (electric oven) and one of 'em blew out.

@JerseyFrank True; I had not considered that. You’d think it would eventually get hot enough tho, unless the surroundings are fairly cool.

@baqui63 Nope, can’t keep up. Probably varies by oven, but we had a few days of unbaked goods before we realized what was up.

@compunaut I recently replaced my old toaster oven with this one. At first I wasn’t sure about it, but I’m getting comfortable with it and really like how it browns and crisps stuff without needing the broil setting, aka carbon ahoy!

@compunaut my mom was looking for a replacement countertop oven and did not want it to take up a lot of space - after research we selected this Panasonic. Having the controls below the door does two things:

1. Less horizontal space required.
2. Allows you to leave a plate on the counter in front of it without the door banging into it.

Not sure if you were implying it is no longer imported but it is readily available. The price fluctuates quite a bit both direct from Panasonic and on Amazon, so patience is good.

The one thing we wondered about - since it lights up your kitchen like the sun, can it be efficient as an oven?

@RedOak There was a time when it wasn’t available, and it was popular enough that prices on the used market went thru the roof. We found out about it from a friend shortly after Panasonic made it available again and have had one ever since.

The absolute best at browning & reheating; not sure whether it can handle any baking

@Shrdlu Oster makes an extra-large countertop model, too - about 30% taller inside. Whole roast chicken fits in that one.
It’s on the ‘wish-list’ for our retirement place; thinking to skip full-size appliances.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@Shrdlu I have a regular toaster oven that I use pretty much daily.

@moondrake
Dunno your budget but I’ve seen some combo Convection-conventional-microwave ovens that did a pretty good job.

@Shrdlu I’m not really shopping for an oven, just trying to decide what to do about the one I was given. I’ve gone 30 years with this disfunctional one, I just do all my cooking using the stovetop, toaster oven, and microwave. Any additional item is going to present space and storage problems in my tiny kitchen.

@moondrake

That’s the reason for the combo being nice. Counter space. But yeah don’t spend $ you don’t need to spend.

@moondrake If you already have one, no sense getting another one. :-} In fact, if you already have one, I’d trade that Halogen one for credit at Lowe’s. You can always find other useful things, later on. No worries.

@daveinwarsh Yes. I don’t use it at home much but I borrowed a 1500W induction cooktop from my dad once to brown sausage at a gumbo cookoff. It worked so well that when my sister needed that one I bought one for myself (we do at least one cookoff a year). I bought the $50 Farberware one at Walmart. The temperature control is not as finely adjustable as the one my dad bought but it does well enough. It does come out on the counter when I need more burners than my stove has.

As long as your cookware is magnetic it is great. It works really well with a cast iron skillet. I considered induction as an option for my full stove when we were house shopping and looking at houses with electric kitchens, but I wound up scoring with a nice gas kitchen on the house we bought so that’s not necessary. I would have replaced an electric stove with induction in a heartbeat, though.

@daveinwarsh Take a look at this reply in @jbartus’ Fridges thread: https://meh.com/forum/topics/fridges#587061119bce1f0294114fbc and the conversation after it.

We kinda meandered into induction burners there and I’ve done a bunch of testing of various pots on the one I picked up last Summer. It is an Avanti (this model which I got from PC Richard for $49.99 sans box and manual in new condition).

BTW- The whole thing about any magnetic pan will work with induction is bullshit (sorry @djslack). I have magnetic (as in a magnet sticks to it) cast iron pans that do not heat, and non-magnetic (as in a magnet does not stick) pots that do. In fact, my 8 gallon non-magnetic brew pot made from cheap thin stainless steel is the most efficient pot I have in terms of heat transfer from the cooktop (it is also the pot for which I initially purchased my induction burner).

FWIW, the material has to have some magnetic content, so that eddy currents are generated within it by the high frequency induction coils, and must also have a fairly high electric resistance, so that those currents are converted into heat within the material.

Induction is definitely the best way to get controlled heat into your food rather than the environment around your food. I don’t have the numbers handy, but I recall it being up to 84% efficient for energy transfer into pot/pan vs something like 30% for gas, with the fast response that gas has (perhaps even faster). While resistive coils can be more efficient than gas, they suck more than just about anything else in the kitchen* for controlling heat.

*With the possible exception of a dull knife, tho heating a dull knife to 1000 degrees might make it slightly useful.

@baqui63 All good, thanks for the correction. That was the information as I understood it, and am glad to know more.

@baqui63

Re induction: never used one. What might work?

All-Clad w stainless core?
All-Clad w aluminum core?
All-Clad w copper core?

Copper (lined w tin or stainless)?
Cast iron?
Carbon steel?

@djslack Yeah, it is a common misunderstanding given things like this and this. (Well, technically she didn’t lie, since you can “put a magnet to” just about anything, including say a kitten and I’m 99.99% certain that using a kitten on an induction cooktop would not be a very useful way to cook food.)

I have two magnetic cast iron pans (a 12" frying pan and a 7 quart dutch oven) neither of which works. The frying pan does get warmish, but not so hot that I cannot hold my hand against the pan’s bottom. The dutch oven barely even gets warmish.

@f00l Stainless steel is not the best conductor of heat, so I doubt there is such a thing as stainless core (but hey, we have tons of bs products that people swear by, so anything is possible).

Most “cored” cookware has a durable but relatively poor heat conductor (say stainless steel) wrapped around something that is a good heat conductor (copper, aluminium). The idea being that the core spreads the heat more betterer so the pot/pan heats more evenly.

With induction, the heat is by eddy currents in the material making heat in about the same way that a resistive coil burner does, except INSIDE the material of the pot/pan. I doubt that either copper or aluminium will create eddy currents in a magnetic field (or at least not as well as a magnetic material).

The best thing if you are buying cookware is to make sure that it claims to be induction compatible.

@baqui63
All-Clad claims to have “stainless-core cookware” among other designs - I think I saw some in Amazon. I don’t get the point of it, but I don’t make or test cookware so … I don’t own any and didn’t read the details, so perhaps I don’t understand its design.

I wonder if cast iron doesn’t as work well w induction b/c the surface is less perfectly smooth, so less contact with the induction surface.

@f00l Shouldn’t technically need contact for it to work - it’s switching the polarity of a magnetic field really fast - but you do want to be as close to the coil (surface) as possible. In theory you could cook with a thin Teflon/silicon mat under the pan. Maybe mass is a factor? Some cast iron cookware is REALLY heavy…

@compunaut

I know how heavy cast iron can be. Dropped a (cold) skillet on my foot once, decades ago. Memory of that moment is still very very fresh.

@f00l Ouch! The new Lodge pans are so heavy!

My old Griswold and Wagner pans are much lighter, but still don’t drop one on your foot.

Thanks everyone for the great info above. I need to just pick & buy an induction burner to see how it works.

@f00l I believe the full name of that cookware line is Stainless Copper-Core (meaning stainless on the outside (and inside) of the pot with a layer of copper in the bottom, tho this seems to say it is actually five layers, stainless, aluminum, copper, aluminum and more stainless).

My 12" cast iron woot! skillet (a Lodge under the woot! “label”) has a lip and thus the bottom of the pan sits 1-2 mm above the induction surface. It is magnetic and heats very well. The three Macy’s brand cast iron skillets that appear identical (except for size) all sit directly on the surface with no gap. Two heat well, the third (12") does not.

Note also that the induction surface itself is glass (or a glass-like material) and ~4 mm thick.

An induction cooktop is a coil of many many turns of very fine copper wire that is driven by a fairly high frequency A/C current (I recall reading 24KHz). The magnetic field created by said coil certainly extends above the coil for a bit and apparently by more than 6 mm. I’d guess it falls off based on an inverse square law (ie. power = some-value divided by the distance squared) but I don’t know and really need to sleep so I’ll leave it as an exercise for our readers.

@baqui63

I own some All-Clad copper core and All-Clad aluminum core cookware.

Yesterday when I was tooling around Amazon I thought I saw some that said “stainless steel core”. I went “huh?” I had always thought Stainless was a terrible heat conductor. But I didn’t click thru the search results to read the description. So perhaps I misunderstood the design.

Thx for explaining how induction cooktops work. Never used one. I had never bothered to read up. That’s a cool idea.

I also own some Lodge. And Walmart has some sort of house brand of cast iron that’s pretty good. I like cast iron just fine as long as I don’t drop it in myself or another. I have to use 2 hands to lift some of it.

If I bothered to cook much, I would be prob be using mostly the cast iron, also and the microwave wave for steaming.

This is the cookware I covet.

https://www.amazon.com/Mauviel-Mheritage-9-piece-Cookware-Handles/dp/B00KI0FG9W/ref=sr_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1484321945&sr=1-1&keywords=mauviel+m250

Only $1500-1600 for a full set. Sigh. (Or something else similar from France.)

But it’s a vanity desire, because that cookware is so perfect and so beautiful. I don’t cook enough to have a real rationale, even if it fit my budget.

@f00l My paternal grandparents died just after I was born and left my dad and mom at 20 and 19 years of age to raise his teenaged brother and sisters along with their own newborn. The cast iron skillet I have is one my mom found buried in the back yard of their house in Massachusetts. No one knows how long it was there or how that came about. I used to do a lot of camping with my medieval club, so I bought a full set of cast iron pots and pans and this enormous cast iron pot that will hold stew for couple dozen people. It’s too big for my stovetop so I haven’t used it in forever, but it was awesome with a fire under it.

@moondrake

That one looks like the ones the chow wagons used. Made almost everything in them - coffee, sourdough biscuits, chili, stew.

And skillets for the eggs and fried stuff.

Boiled coffee doesn’t taste so damned bad after a few days of hard activity well away from a kitchen.

@2palms We love our Breville 800XL after a painful experience with a Kitchenaid and use it like crazy as well. Well worth the extra $.

But I’ll admit it is not the ideal toaster (and likely a waste of energy/overkill) so we use a traditional toaster as well.

The full-size oven rarely gets used, especially in the hot summer.