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- Verified Buyer
There might be another person looking at this for the same reason I did, to keep a stainless kettle of liquid boiling at a constant rate so the vapors can be collected and condensed. It works brilliantly for that, much better than the similar form factor resistive hob I started with that even on max would pulse on and off leading to bursts of boiling. It also stops boiling almost instantaneously if you turn it off, which is handy for this purpose. If you're looking for something to do hot pot in that's a very similar task and it's pretty much perfect for it.Beyond what I bought it for I'm pretty impressed with where induction cooking has gotten to, this thing can dump some power into a piece of metal, and does it in a more constant way than the slow pulsing on and off of almost all resistive burners. The perception I used to have of these was finicky and niche and more than anything an expensive piece of exotica for the Sharper Image type of yuppie, but now that the price has gone down and solid state switching has gotten so robust this seems like it's the best of both worlds of gas and electric in terms of the combination of power with fairly fine grained control.There are of course some physics based limitations but almost all the pots and pans I have around are either ferrous or have a ferrous induction plate despite that never being something I considered when I was buying. The only exceptions are a couple of commercial kitchen stamped aluminum sauce pans I bought from a restaurant supply.It's got a fan and sounds like a computer, but the boiling of the kettle itself is louder. Might be slightly annoying if you're doing a slow simmering hot pot in a very quiet room, but in the kitchen it doesn't bother me at all.No idea how long it will last, but based on previous experience with random "cheapest X on Amazon" mostly electronics-based products, if it works out of the box it's probably not going to die for at least a couple years. Electronics in general have gotten very reliable, even when everything is built to a price, and this thing is more or less a solid state high frequency switching power supply.The ability to precisely set and maintain cooking temperature is amazing.Wanted something basic and easy to operate have to adjust time way to much, starts at 30 min, so many temp hard to find what I want. Is nice for people who cook differently from meI was a skeptic. I kept reading about various problems with induction cooktops, everything from annoying buzzing sounds, rattling cookware, loud fans, inadequate simmer, etc.Well, I'm here to say I am SOLD on induction and love my Bonsenkitchen unit. It is easy to use, heats up fast, has good simmer, is very efficient on power usage and is attractive. A few tips & hints from my usage so far:1) I use cast iron and find it works perfectly. While other cookware can and does work well, cast iron is solid metal with strong magnetic attraction.2) I read about issues with scratching the glass cooktop with cast iron which can tend to have rough bottom surfaces. One solution is to use a piece of parchment paper, which I did at first. Then I stumbled on using a silicone baking mat (I currently use a rectangular one which hangs off the edges, but have a square one on order). It not only prevents scratches, but provides a soft surface to put the pots & pans on.3) I only use the power cooking mode, not temperature mode. I think that the temperature mode is a source of frustration for many users of induction cookware. The unit is only able to estimate the temperature at the bottom of the pot and this is prone to error. With the power mode, you are in full control, and since it heats up / cools down so quickly, it is as easy as tapping + / - as needed. Also, I tend to only use the lower power modes (P6 and below), as I find it heats things up quickly enough and uses a bit less power.4) As I was curious, I hooked up a watt-meter to see how the power was used. At lower settings, it cycles on and off so that the average usage is whatever the power is set to, for example at P1 (100 watts), it will cycle a few hundred watts on and off, though this is undetectable in practice.Closing thoughts: My main cooking source has been a propane stove/oven, but I am enjoying this cooktop so much that I've gone to only using the oven on propane, all stovetop cooking has moved to the Bonsenkitchen induction cooktop.Temperature is confined to the preset temps, cannot be adjusted to your precise desired temperature.It is very easy to use, and you can tell immediately how efficient it is when water boils in half the time using only medium setting. Perfect for countertops. I love it.Heavyduty induction cooker easy to use good price and the fan is very quite.. i'm so happy i bought this induction cookerLoved it !Because I am a cheapo - i had a burner fail on my glass top stove top. It will take GE like 2 months and $400 just to fix the one burner. So I thought it would be clever of me to instead dip the 'ole toe into induction and didn't do a TON of research.The BIGGEST LESSON I've taken away is that for this particular model there is a huge gap between the 180F setpoint and the 260F setpoint. With 7 qt stockpot for what I had wanted to be a slow simmer the 180F setpoint wont get nothing going and the 260F setpoint is a fast boil. If I did this again I would specifically search for something with more fine grained controls around the ever important 200 band.Also - if this is your first introduction into induction, we've learned that induction cooking is very different and we're still trying to figure things out. Cooking steaks on cast iron is still a little mysterious - the crust is different (not worse - just different). WE tried cast iron cookware with the wear ring and with a flat bottom and noticed no difference (we worried that the cook ring raising the bottom off of the burner would change things - but it didn't see to for us.)it will boil water like a boss..
