To recap: I grew up with a gas stove and have installed one in almost every home I have ever lived in. This is the selling point of our current home. It’s familiar and simple, and I love cooking on gas. The heat is stable, turns on and off instantly, and you can see what’s going on just by looking under the pot. But lately there has been a lot of talk in the media about the health effects of gas stoves and poor indoor air quality. More and more cities are banning gas appliances in new buildings for health and climate change reasons. So when I started reading about the impact, I was concerned. I really do not want to switch to “traditional” electro. Few serious chefs do this. But induction cookers seem to be a lot of fun. Most of the benefits of cooking on gas without worrying about safety or climate change (depending on where the electricity comes from). So when I had the opportunity to get familiar with the Amzchef 2 induction hob, I jumped in.
Amzchef’s 2 burner induction cooker is a two burner tabletop induction cooker that has a maximum output of 1800W, which means most household sockets can handle it.
The most striking part of the design of the Amzchef 2 Burner induction cooktop is that the entire cooktop is a large piece of glass. It is completely flat, with touch buttons under the glass. There are two hobs connected together, each with the same set of controls. The unique feature of this hob is that you can adjust the power (wattage) or temperature. In the center of each hob is a temperature sensor that measures the temperature of the cookware. To use the hob, simply press the power button for the burner you want to use, select the power or temperature setting, and use the up or down buttons to select the desired level. The pan heats up instantly. There is a timer up to 3 hours, which will turn off the stove after the selected time. There is also a child lock to prevent accidental opening of the device.
The total maximum power of the two burners is 1800 watts. This means it can go up to 1800W if you only use one burner. But if two are used, the total power consumption of the two burners cannot exceed 1800 watts. The two burners of an Amzchef two-burner induction cooker appear to be independent, but they are actually connected together and will not exceed the total power consumption. Interestingly, the product’s website shows a display configuration that is actually not possible – at least not in the US. The photos on the website show the burner on the left at 2000W and the burner on the right at 1500W for a total of 3500W, or 1700W more than the total system power. The Amazon image shows a similar situation.
In order to understand how an Amzchef induction cooker works, it is helpful to understand how an induction cooker works. Most hobs generate heat from a flame (gas) or resistance in a coil (traditional electricity), and the heat is transferred to the stove by conduction. Induction cooking uses electricity to heat dishes directly through magnetic induction. Your pot becomes a heating element. Now, for this to work, your pan must either respond to a magnet or be made of iron (iron or steel). Aluminum, ceramic, glass and copper utensils will not work. But most of my cookware is made of stainless steel or cast iron, so I’m in great shape. I’ve tested the copper plated pan with no success.
In short, the Amzchef 2-burner induction cooktop works great. I was immediately impressed. One of my favorite meals is a 3 egg omelet in the morning. Usually when I’m cooking on my gas stove, I put a frying pan on the stove, put some butter in, and when the butter melts, I beat the eggs into an omelet. I tried the same process on an Amzchef induction cooker but didn’t realize that the cooker would immediately release heat. My butter was burnt by the time I was about to put in the eggs. Therefore, it heats up quickly, which makes sense if you remember that the heating element was a frying pan. The adjustments are also instantaneous, which is a big disadvantage of traditional electric hobs.
Another nice thing is that the stove itself does not heat up. This means that when you spill some sauce from the pan and hit the cooktop, you simply wipe it up. Don’t worry about cooked food or melted sponges. And because it’s a piece of glass, it’s actually pretty easy to clean. It’s a little streaky (it’s glass!), so a good cleaner will help, but I’m a messy cook and everything gets wiped clean.
The Amzchef 2 burner induction cooker is light and easy to move, weighing less than 10 pounds. It also seems durable. I once hit a cast iron skillet so hard that I thought I must have broken the glass, but that’s okay.
One of the first complaints about induction hobs was that they were loud – making dull sounds. I have not experienced anything like this on this device, but it is not silent. Under each hotplate there is a fan that turns on during operation and a minute after operation. The fans are not loud and definitely quieter than the range hoods I recently used when using a gas stove to remove any gas that could be contributing to indoor air quality.
The perfectly flat glass surface is beautiful and the touch buttons are very responsive. In fact, they reacted too quickly. When cleaning the hob, I often turn it on with a damp sponge. One day I took a baked cookie out of the oven, put it on the stove and it popped open. The advantage of an induction cooker is that it does not produce detergent unless there is a pot on it, so accidentally opening it while cleaning surfaces is not a big deal. But my cookie sheet is steel, so it starts to get hot, and it might be messy if I didn’t notice. Luckily, the system beeps every time the button is pressed. However, the same beep can be a bit annoying. Whenever the pot is lifted off the hob, the device will beep to let you know that the connection has been lost. This can become a little difficult if you lift the pan a lot during cooking, such as when stirring the food in the pan.
One thing that most people regularly use on their stoves is boiling water. The amount of food you can cook with just boiling water is amazing. So how fast does this water boil? I did an experiment. I compared the Amzchef cooktop with my standard gas stove. I use the same pot with the same amount of water (2°C, 473 ml) at the same starting temperature (60°F, 15.6°C). To be honest, I was surprised by the results. The Amzchef 2-burner induction cooker boils water in 2:26. The gas stove ran more than twice as long and didn’t boil until 5:40. This may be partly due to the fact that with induction cooking, all the energy goes into the pot. When cooking with gas, a lot of energy is wasted as it flows over the pan. Whatever the reason, induction cookers definitely boil faster.
Induction cooking seems to have matured to the point where gas hobs are obsolete. The Amzchef 2 induction cooker is powerful, compact, light and handy. This is fantastic for a secondary kitchen without built-in appliances. I’m using it now on our patio, next to our grill. Camping where you have access to energy is also a good option. The flexibility of the Amzchef induction hob is almost limitless and now I want to replace my gas hob with a built-in induction model.
Price: $166.99 Where to buy: Amzchef or Amazon. Source: Sample for this review provided by Amzchef.
The “clicking”, “creaking”, “ringing”, “popping” sounds that some people hear are usually associated with bad cookware. Pots and pans with damaged (non-smooth) surfaces or uneven distribution of impurities with non-uniform bottom surfaces. This is usually not a problem with any well-maintained and decent utensils.
Unfortunately, I was injured by an induction cooker in 1987 when I was 8 years old. We have moved here and are looking for a new home. We went to a house in the Woodward Park area of Fresno, California (yes, I remember it well) and the house was very pretty and had a big kitchen (at least for my 8 year old me). This real estate lady put a kettle on the stove to showcase the trendy new induction cooktop. She told us that “you won’t burn yourself” in the induction range, which is the safest option for kids. I told her I didn’t believe her because it was a damn stove. The woman simply grabbed my hand, picked up the kettle and stroked my hand on the stove. you know? $#@%#$% are fucking hot. No, I didn’t have any burn marks or scars, but it wasn’t cool at all. Then she yelled at me for being dramatic. I am now 43 years old and 35+ years later I still hate this woman.
@Andrew I hope your people don’t use that stupid realtor! But now we know in part that you come from your — interesting — personality.
Post time: Oct-15-2022