ceramic, halogen or magnetic hob?

Re: ceramic, halogen or magnetic hob?

De Dietrich – avoid. It’s the expensive brand owned by Brandt/Fagor and the spares are ludicrous prices, technical backup even for the trade is practically zero. Needless to say we don’t like them much. 😉

I really wantto test an induction hob (that’s the magnetic ones) as they are supposed to be excellent, far better than halogen or ceramic, but I haven’t used one to cook with so I can’t comment as yet.

What I can tell you is that they mostly all need to have air around them, too much heat near the electronics doesn’t seem to do them any favours at all so an oven under it needs lots of clearance and ventilation. But even better, no oven underneath.

Also watch as Whirlpool (amongst others) supply the electronics complete internally if it ever fails which costs an absolute fortune, sometimes more than a replacement appliance. So much for environmentally friendly.

Also to cook with induction you made need pans with special bases.

K.

Re: ceramic, halogen or magnetic hob?

Induction is far better than any other cooking surface, lower temperature on the glass, so a lot safer. And very fast at heating up.
The Zanussi ZKT651D, has seperate electronics for each zone, so this could make it a more reasonable repair if needed.
To check if your pans are suitable for induction, place a fridge magnet on the outside base of the cookware, if it sticks all well & good, if not, new pans for an induction.

Re: ceramic, halogen or magnetic hob?

Hi – I’ve just had a Siemens induction hob – it is absolutely brilliant. Would never have gas again. Much quicker than gas and just as controllable. The siemens has a timer that you can set on the individual cooking zones and turns itself off when the time is up! this is a great feature – for instance when boiling eggs, or setting a time to cook vegetables so they don’t overcook.

Another great plus is that the induction hob is dead easy to clean as it doesn’t get hot and so nothing burns on it. All I use are Ecloths and water – I’ve never had to spray any chemicals on it yet and it comes up like new. My mum has a halogen hob and she says it’s quite difficult to keep it clean.

Re: ceramic, halogen or magnetic hob?

macladd wrote:Im a little confused here, when you refer to “ceramic” do you actually mean a solid hotplate?

Your confusion got me also trying to figure out why the hell the whitegoods industry refer to them as “ceramic hobs” when in fact they are made out of glass????

ceramic
• adjective 1 made of clay that is permanently hardened by heat. 2 relating to ceramic articles.
• noun (ceramics) 1 ceramic articles. 2 usu. treated as sing. the art of making ceramics.

— DERIVATIVES ceramicist noun.

— ORIGIN Greek keramikos, from keramos ‘pottery’.

:con:

Re: ceramic, halogen or magnetic hob?

Hi Claudia,
I too am thinking of buying an induction Hobb. Have always had gas till now but totally remodelling kitchen and with 4 children want something easier to clean. I do a lot of stir frys in wok type pan and am not sure if an induction hobb lends itself to this type of cooking. If it doesn’t then I won’t bother as its a very vital part of my fairly limited cooking repetoire!

can anyone advise me on this?

I found the advice given here on repairs and isolated cooking zones very useful and I will now find out which makes have this, like Zanussi, for example.Miele would be my preferred choice but it is much more expensive than the others and frankly apart from reliability they all do much the same thing- assuming one is comparing like with like re. functions and power etc.

On a purely practical note, I am having the hob inlaid on black granite and whilst the frameless black induction hobs look very cool and seamless I wonder if the stainless steel framed ones are more practical in terms of dirt build up and cleaning round the edges. This applies to all electric hobs i suppose but I would very much welcome anyones advice on this, from experience.

Regards
Clementine