[unpythonic]

The claim: reduces CO₂e emissions by up to 80%*

The asterisk: water boiling phase excluded

When I boil pasta, I use full heat to get the water boiling, drop in the pasta, then let it come back up to a boil, then drop the temperature as low as possible to keep a slow boil going--about medium-low.

Guesstimating that the boil takes about as long as the time to cook the pasta, I'd say that the pasta cooking portion only takes up about 1/3 of the energy of the total (cold pot to cooked pasta).

The 80% savings only covers the pasta cooking phase, so overall, it's only saving 4/15 or 27% (roughly). If you use a lot more water, then that initial boil time further reduces your savings.

[jiggawatts]

A better way to save energy is to use an electric kettle to get the water up to boiling.

This is about three times as energy-efficient as a gas hob. Combined with passive cooking it could save real money…

Technology Connections on YouTube has a good video about how electric kettles are the superior way to boil water: https://youtu.be/_yMMTVVJI4c

[AaronFriel]

Alec, of the Technology Connections YouTube channel, shows it's not just energy saving, but faster and cleaner. Even with US outlet power limits a kettle will boil a volume of water much more quickly than a gas stovetop, and my indoor CO2 sensor won't spike by hundreds to a thousand PPM of CO2.

While the time savings is modest, if you have an electric kettle it's a no brainer to prefer that over gas.

Though induction stovetops can be faster yet, and just as clean.

[amluto]

Your gas stove will likely dramatically outperform an 1800W electric heater if you use a proper pot:

https://turbopot.com/

I would still rather use a nice induction range, but it is possible to get decent efficiency out of gas.

[modriano]

What efficiency (in terms of energy transfer to the intended material vs to the environment) is observed with gas? IIRC, gas achieves maybe 35-50% efficiency (depending on the surface area and material of the pan) compared with ~80% for electric resistance heating and >90% for induction.

Adam Ragusea did a water boiling comparison and the gas stove was dumping so much energy into the air around the pot that his thermometer melted [0]. I just don't see how any pan geometry could extract much of the energy from the quickly rising hot gas produced by combustion.

[0] https://youtu.be/Xn1LUo5ra_A?t=249

[stephen_g]

The claim on the site is that the heat exchanger base boosts efficiency up to 60%.

You still of course do have the problem that home rangehoods usually aren't powerful enough to create enough air-flow to properly deal with the NOx and SOx produced by burning gas, which turns out to be a big health risk...

[amluto]

Most home range hoods are too powerful. Go to any site that calculates commercial range hood requirements, enter in your parameters, and then try to find a nice range hood that matches. Those 700 cfm or 1000 cfm beasts the appliance stores sell are entirely inappropriate.

There may well be a problem with a poorly designed range hood and exhaust that inevitably isn’t captured. And people might not like using the hoods all the time.

[heisenbit]

Comparing gas with electrical efficiency is not representing realistic end-to-end efficiencies wrt. co2 as long as the vas majority of electricity is generated from primary energy. Power plants tend to have efficiencies lower 50%.

[zwirbl]

The gas end-to-end "efficiency" will not improve drastically ever, while for an electrical stove it is tied to energy production. Arguing with end-to-end efficiencies and power plants is misleading, as I can power my induction stove from my solar panels

[crooked-v]

There's still a huge amount of energy that gets dumped out into the kitchen by any non-induction cooktop, no matter what pot you use.

[nerdponx]

I always wanted some kind of "collar" that I could put around a burner to try to direct that excess heat back into the pan/pot.

[socialismisok]

The problem is you need airflow or you generate carbon monoxide instead of carbon dioxide. So simple solutions can get more heat but also kill you.

[bch]

There used to be (still is?) a sort of vertical chute/collar available to put around camp pots. Think mountaineering applications. The idea was that they would capture heat energy escaping off the bottom of the pot that would rise/disperse into the environment, and channel it close to the side of the pot where it would heat the vessel as it rose. Think of wrapping a section of corrugated cardboard around the outside wall of a pot. Now a birds-eye view down the cardboard should reveal the energy capturing channels that will allow the sides of your pot to heat the pot contents. Adjust your material and tune the sizing and you’ve got a camping gadget.

[AdamN]

Old cast iron skillets had a collar under them to better fit on the pot belly stovetop.

[namuol]

I have a gas stove in my studio apartment. I still use an electric kettle to get water boiling before dumping it into a preheated pan to cook noodles/whatever. Highly recommend this approach if you are stuck with gas.

[vineyardmike]

> Highly recommend this approach if you are stuck with gas.

My partner, who cooks more, bemoans that our new apartment has electric. Grew up using gas and claims that it’s better for cooking. I prefer not to intentionally dump gas into our house and welcome the minor benefit of energy efficiency.

Funny how different people see the world (and technology).

[diordiderot]

Watch this video about how the idea that gas was better for cooking was a marketing ploy with no basis in reality and how they used lobbyist to force has connections into building codes

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hX2aZUav-54

[kergonath]

Induction is much better than gas about 90% of the time. Because the heat can be set much lower than a flame’s temperature, and because heat transfer happens through the whole bottom surface of the pan, it’s much better to keep a low-ish temperature for any length of time, which opens a lot of possibilities. For high heat, the larger contact area makes it much quicker to heat up evenly the whole pan. It pairs very nicely with a cast iron pan as well.

And that’s just from a practical, cooking point of view, without mentioning all the health benefits.

It was not our choice when we got an induction cooktop the first time, but now it would be.

[Schroedingersat]

Get a (high power) portable induction hob. If you have an outlet that can supply a 1.8-3kW one, it's better than gas unless you're using a wok or simar.

[kkfx]

> claims that it’s better for cooking

It's not really "better" it's simply easier keep a constant heat. Most electrical cooking stuff works on intermittent on-and-off cycles. An electric oven power up, then start cycling it's internal resistences let's say 10" powerd 5" off, then again 10" powerd etc. Some users here show me in a video an induction plate who use "mini-coils" who seems rotating constantly nearly nullifying such cycle effects on food cooking, but most other electric gears choose a "simpler" approach for their OEM.

Personally I'm all electric since around 8/10 years or so, I've made a habit and not a professional cook (while remaining a professional eater) but I understand those who dislike the initial impact...

Beside that: most actual tech is developed in crappy ways, most product explicitly made not to last and not to ensure evolution with plugged-in recycling but simply ensure a constant buy of new gears who are just crappy like the ones they substitute. Now most people might not realize that as well as a techie but anyone feel that. So...

[AdamN]

If you can afford it, a high end induction stove might be an upgrade you both enjoy without needing gas. Higher end ones have more precision and consistency and easier controls.

[namuol]

I cook a lot. I enjoy cooking with gas and I appreciate it’s benefits, but I avoid/minimize it because it is so plainly inefficient and frankly more hazardous than a modern electric or induction burner.

[nephanth]

I generally heat half the water in the pot, and half in the electric kettle (adjust proportions depending on the relative power of your appliances) Quickest way to heat up the required amount of water

[koliber]

Assuming you have a four-burner stove, you could split your water five-way, and use four pots and your electric tea kettle.

If you want to push, you could improve the efficiency even more. That would require a capital investment into additional stoves and/or electric kettles. You'd probably need something like kubernetes for orchestration as well.

[carabiner]

Crazy. Like a Jetboil for your home stove.

[jeffbee]

Buying cookware that works better on gas but is specifically incompatible with induction cooking seems a bit like rigging your Ram to roll coal, at this point in time.

[marssaxman]

How's that? Most people who have serviceable gas ranges are not going to rip them out and replace them with induction any time soon.

Someone who wants to go electric badly enough to spend thousands of dollars installing a high-current power outlet is not likely to balk at the cost of new pans.

[thaumasiotes]

> While the time savings is modest, if you have an electric kettle it's a no brainer to prefer that over gas.

Not quite. Water is heavy and boiling water is dangerous; if you're boiling your water in a teakettle you then have to transfer it to a pot on the stove without scalding yourself.

(This isn't the exact problem I'd experience if I adopted your advice. I have an electric teakettle, but it is low volume and is also sharply limited in the rate at which you can pour out water from it. That's fine if you want to prepare individual servings of tea. It's unworkable if you want to prepare a bunch of boiling water to boil stuff in. But fixing that problem will immediately cause the "boiling water is dangerous" problem.)

[SECProto]

Presumably you mean you have a gooseneck kettle, which I agree is not well suited to this task (though if it takes 30s to pour out the kettle, it's not really a big deal). Regardless, pouring boiling water out of a kettle is far less dangerous than pouring the cooked pasta + boiling water out of the pot and into a strainer.

If I'm looking to boil say 2 litres of water, I'll put 1.5 l in the electric kettle, 0.5l in the pot on the gas stove with a lid on. Generally the kettle boils first.

[thaumasiotes]

> Regardless, pouring boiling water out of a kettle is far less dangerous than pouring the cooked pasta + boiling water out of the pot and into a strainer.

I don't think this is true. The mechanics are essentially the same. But the colander receiving the pasta + boiling water is situated inside the sink, which will catch the water that is in that case intended to spill out.

The pot is situated on the stove, which is a raised platform that can't catch water at all. Any spill there will splash all over.

[SECProto]

Well, with my sample size of one, I've splashed boiling water on the floor when trying to drain pasta or potatoes, but never while pouring out a kettle. Perhaps related, a kettle has a cold base in addition to a cold handle oriented more appropriately for pouring.

[ReptileMan]

>Though induction stovetops can be faster yet, and just as clean.

You have the mother of all hotspots on the pan (less relevant for boiling) where the induction ring itself is and getting simmer right is harder. Induction as implemented right now is on/off with full blast for the duration and just increased downtime. It is not the same as low constant output.

[kergonath]

> You have the mother of all hotspots on the pan (less relevant for boiling) where the induction ring itself is and getting simmer right is harder.

Not at all. There is no significant hot spot as heat is actually produced by the bottom of the pan and not the coils themselves.

> Induction as implemented right now is on/off with full blast for the duration and just increased downtime. It is not the same as low constant output.

Again, not at all. All the devices I have used were perfectly fine generating a low, constant heat. what you describe may be the case for bargain basement ones, and it was the case for most resistive cooktops, but is definitely not the case for inductions ones.

[masklinn]

I guess you could have a hot spot on the pan if the coils are ill-designed or you’re putting a large pan on a small burner?

The pan will only heat up near the coil, so if the coil covers only the center third of the pan, only that will heat up (though some pans have a heat-spreading layer to mitigate this, and sometimes to add some more inertia depending on the pan’s purpose).

[kergonath]

> I guess you could have a hot spot on the pan if the coils are ill-designed or you’re putting a large pan on a small burner?

Yes, but then it’s hardly a problem with the technology if you put a large pan on a small burner.

As for the rest, in all cookers I have seen, the coils cover the whole surface, except for a small spot in the centre. Besides, induced current does not happen only where the cookware is closest to the coil. The magnetic field is more spread out than that and the heating surface is larger than just the surface of “contact” (there is no real contact, but anyway).

I assume there could be an exceptionally badly designed induction cooktop with hot spots (it’d have to have a very weird geometry, though), but that would take some effort.

[newaccount74]

> All the devices I have used were perfectly fine generating a low, constant heat

I have never seen an induction cooktop that could generate low, constant heat. Even pretty pricy ones (eg. a 3000€ Bora hob with integrated extraction) showed a clear on/off cycle at the lowest heat settings. But maybe tech has improved in recent years, and there are hobs now that have constant low power output?

Maybe the effect also just depends on your cookware? On pots with a heavy bottom with aluminium or copper core you probably won't see the coil patterns and the on/off effect will be less pronounced. If you have a pot with a thin stainless steel bottom, you will definitely see uneven heat, the power from an induction coil is not completely homogenous.

[ants_a]

All of the cheap tabletop cooktop I have seen have terrible cycling at lower powers, there seems to be two power levels and when you need something below the lower one, it cycles power at ~10s frequency. In contrast a Bosch integrated cooktop from a couple of years ago also does cycling, but seems to have more power levels available and the cycling is faster, around 1Hz or so. At least for me that is good enough.

My issues with it are more about inaccurate placement causing hot and cold spots and if you move a pot it can triggers cookware detection, which then clicks different coils on and off for 5-10s before it is satisfied with the new configuration. Both of those issues are probably exacerbated by the "FlexInduction" system that promises one large automatic cook area.

I'm hoping that power electronics development for electric cars creates some innovation in this area, but it's really hard to tell because there are no useful review sites and there aren't any places that let you take a cooktop for a testdrive.

[sltkr]

> This is about three times as energy-efficient as a gas hob.

I sincerely doubt this figure in cases where electricity is generated from fossil fuels in the first place.

For example, I lived in the Netherlands where 80% of electricity is still produced by fossil fuels, mostly in gas-fired power plants. As I understand it, generating electricity from gas has an efficiency of only about 50%. That means you lose a lot of energy before it even arrives in your home.

An electric kettle has an efficiency of about 80%, with gas stove around 40%. Assuming the cost of transportation is approximately equal for gas and electricity, that means using the gas stove is about as efficient as using the electric kettle, if you assume (most of) the electricity comes from a gas-fired plant.

In the winter, the gas stove will be more efficient since all the heat that doesn't go into your food, heats up the room (heating is typically also based on gas in the Netherlands, so this is basically free energy).

> Combined with passive cooking it could save real money

Again, I don't think this is true. Currently the energy market is fucked up because of the Ukraine war, but up to recently a cubic meter of gas cost around 1 euro, which produces roughly 10 kWh of energy, versus a kWh of electricity cost around 40 cents. That means that on a per-kWh basis, gas costs only a quarter of electricity. So even if the electric kettle is twice as efficient as the gas stove, it is still twice as expensive.

In countries where most electricity is generated by burning coal (like Poland, for example) there is also an environmental cost, since coal-fired plants emit more CO2 per joule than gas-fired plants.

YMMV based on local energy prices obviously, but I don't think it's straightforwardly true that electric kettles are always more efficient or more environmentally friendly than gas stoves, if you look at it holistically.

[stephen_g]

The kettle might come out around the same for particularly dirty grids, but my understanding is that induction stoves are efficient enough (and gas stoves so poor efficiency) that it's basically always better CO₂-wise to use the induction hob.

Your assumption that "the cost of transportation is approximately equal for gas and electricity" is probably not accurate, given that while the infrastructure costs are probably similar, the cost of the energy used in the compressors to pipe the gas around is likely quite a bit higher than transmission losses (around me at least, the service fees on the bill if you have gas were at least 50% higher than electricity last I heard).

You really don't want to be getting much of your heating from a gas stove (or unflued gas heater) not just because of the possibility of carbon monoxide formation, but because NOx and SOx produced by burning gas is actually a health risk (primarily asthma for kids, cardiovascular for adults).

[Moru]

And the gas pipes looses gas in transmission which does a lot more damage to the environment than lost electricity.

[armada651]

> In the winter, the gas stove will be more efficient since all the heat that doesn't go into your food, heats up the room (heating is typically also based on gas in the Netherlands, so this is basically free energy).

The efficiency loss of the electric kettle also gets converted into heat that heats up your home, energy doesn't just disappear.

[maxerickson]

Not the waste heat from the power plant.

[kalleboo]

As with everything in this discussion, this also depends on where you live as district heating is a thing

[benj111]

An electric kettle is ~90% efficient, the rest is lost to the surroundings but the electricity generation (assuming gas) is ~60% so the entire process, gas to hot water is ~60% and most of the waste you don't get the benefit of.

And gas stove kettle is ~40% efficient but you get the other 60% back as heat in the surroundings, so the entire process is ~100% efficient.

Assuming you need that waste heat of course. In the summer that 60% inefficiency really is an inefficiency.

[adql]

Well the heating with gas is cheaper than with electrics in most places.

So it is "heat your house by X at price of the gas heating" vs "heat your house by X at price of electric heating". And the price of old school resistive heating, not the more efficient heat pump.

[p1necone]

I imagine part of the efficiency of electric kettles is due to the heating element actually being submerged in the water, or at least directly adjacent to it.

Compare to a stovetop where there's a big heavy pot between the element and the water, and it's not in complete contact with it. Also often the heating element is underneath a piece of glass.

[kergonath]

> Compare to a stovetop where there's a big heavy pot between the element and the water, and it's not in complete contact with it.

You’re describing resistive stovetops, not induction ones where the heating element is the bottom of the pot itself.

> Also often the heating element is underneath a piece of glass.

These things under the glass do not heat anything. They are there to induce some electric current in the bottom of the pan you put on top, which actually does the heating.

[kalleboo]

> These things under the glass do not heat anything

Glass infrared cookers also exist, my parents had one back in the 90's before induction was much of a thing. It was touted as easy to clean (and looks cool)

[kergonath]

Yes, you’re right, I forgot about those!

They are mostly historical curiosities now, right? Not as cheap as simple resistive cookers, and worse in about all respects than induction ones.

[dragonwriter]

With an induction cooktop the pot is the heating element.

[FPGAhacker]

Damn, 40 per kWh electricity.

My last energy bill (including taxes and fees) is showing $0.124 per kWh electricity, and $0.62 per cubic meter of gas.

[sltkr]

With those prices, gas is still twice as expensive as electricity, so even if the gas stove is half as efficient, you still break even.

And yes, electricity prices in Europe are crazy right now. You can see some graphs here that show how enormous the spikes are compared to years of relative stability (no need to read the text; the graphs speak for themselves, and the y-axis starts at 0!)

Electricity: https://www.overstappen.nl/energie/stroomprijs/

Gas: https://www.overstappen.nl/energie/gasprijzen/

So apparently I slightly misremembered the prices; those graphs show that in 2020 the average gas price was about 84 cents per m3 (or about 8.4 cents per kWh assuming 10 kWh per m3), or 23 cents per kWh of electricity. That's closer to 1:3 than 1:4 on a per-kWh basis, but the general argument still holds that it seems like cooking on gas is cheaper than cooking on electricity.

[habnds]

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/5/7/21247602...

[askvictor]

Americans don't really do electric kettles, largely on account of using 110V mains, which limits power to around 1100W, making it a lot slower than ~2000W electric kettles in the 200+V world.

[vel0city]

Americans largely don't use electric kettles because Americans largely don't drink tea at home and thus don't use kettles as often as the rest of the world.

Most households I know don't even own a kettle. Not a stovetop one, not an electric one.

If you were to ask most Americans why they don't have an electric kettle at home they won't say "because I only have 120V outlets in the kitchen." They'll say it is because they don't need a kettle.

[bmitc]

Once introduced, it's hard to downplay the usefulness of an electric kettle.

[killjoywashere]

I'm American and learned about electric kettles during trips to Asia. They are definitely handy, even at 110V. We make our daily coffee in a French press, so the electric kettle is a no-brainer.

[rad_gruchalski]

> We make our daily coffee in a French press

Moka pots are much better. Your French press will start letting the coffee powder through at some point. I use these: https://www.rommelsbacher.de/en/coffee-tea-co/espresso-maker....

[christophilus]

Agreed. Someone gave us ours as a wedding gift. I thought, “Great. More clutter I don’t need.”

I use it daily for tea and coffee (Aeropress). And now, thanks to this thread, I may use it to speed up my pasta water boiling.

[vel0city]

I have a pretty nice electric kettle. You can set it to a number of common tea temperatures and it'll hold that temp for up to a half hour. I got it as a wedding gift. I use it about weekly.

If it broke tonight I don't know that I'd bother replacing it tomorrow. I'd probably go a while before I got another kettle. It might even take someone gifting me one before I bother getting one.

Sure, it's marginally faster boiling water than my stove. It's about as fast as my microwave (which is insane at 1650W). It's definitely more efficient, but the break even on that is measured in years probably for even a cheap kettle and decades for this fancy one I have.

I just don't really drink many hot drinks and my microwave does just about as good of a job for getting things hot.

https://www.cuisinart.com/shopping/appliances/tea_kettles/cp...

[wintermutestwin]

While traveling through Europe, most AirBnBs had electric kettles and they all had gross scale deposits in them so I ended up boiling water in a pot.

[ErikCorry]

It's calcium. It won't hurt you, and you can't taste it.

[Avicebron]

Adding a little vinegar and water and boiling it will often remove most of the scale. Maybe hard when you're travelling, but at home it works fine.

[AdmiralAsshat]

I'd gladly take an electric kettle over what I had to use the last time I was in an American hotel room to heat water, which was the bedside drip coffee maker. Water heated through that still tasted like bad coffee.

[arrosenberg]

You clean that by boiling vinegar and water, takes 3 minutes.

[dopidopHN]

Throw some white vinegar. Boil. Rince. Clean.

[dopidopHN]

It’s part of my bug out bag. You can cook with that thing and one bowl.

[sltkr]

I know it's heresy to the British, but you can heat water for tea in the microwave just fine. And at least in my European imagination, every American has a microwave in their home.

[Fezzik]

Anecdote of one: I am an American that does not own a microwave and does own an electric kettle. We are legion.

[wintermutestwin]

>every American has a microwave in their home

Of course we do! Europeans don't all have microwave ovens? How do you warm up leftovers?

And yes, I drink tea daily with microwaved water.

[asveikau]

I'm American, and I often heat up leftovers with a toaster oven or on the stove. For some foods it gets better results.

[a2tech]

I don't heat up leftovers, I just eat them cold. But we do have a microwave (we bought it at the beginning of the pandemic so we could heat up frozen meals--we didn't have one before). I had cold leftover pasta for lunch today. My wife turns up her nose at cold leftovers but I'm not picky.

[drdrey]

Isn’t it problematic to heat water in a microwave?

[chillwaves]

You can end up superheating the water that way and scalding yourself. I also prefer to control the temperature of my water which you cannot do in a microwave.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/boil-on-troubled-waters/

[sltkr]

It's something to be aware of, but in practice it's very difficult to superheat water at home.

For superheating to occur, you need very pure water in a smooth container with no imperfections. Tap water in most places cannot be superheated because it contains too many minerals, and most ceramic cups aren't smooth enough to prevent boiling.

If you're making tea, an easy way to prevent superheating is to drop the bag in the water before you heat it. Another way is to put a wooden stirrer in the cup.

There's a mythbuster video here where they show water being superheated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_OXM4mr_i0, but note that they use distilled water (which nobody drinks) in a Pyrex container (which nobody uses). And they actually use a mug of tap water as a control.

[benj111]

You can burn yourself with an oven or a hob. In fact a kitchen is full of ways to maim yourself. So why single out the microwave? A microwave is a tool, tools can be unsafe if used improperly.

[aidenn0]

It's really easy to control the temperature of the water; boil it, ten wait for it to cool to the correct temperature.

For a fixed amount of water, you can learn the time and not have to pull out your instant-read thermometer.

[rsynnott]

But that's partially because 1100W kettles are less _useful_.

I'm mostly a coffee drinker, and use a bean to cup machine for that. But I still use my kettle a good bit, because it's quicker to boil the kettle and then pour into the pan and bring back to the boil than bringing cold water to the boil in the pan. I've got a 3kW kettle, though, if I had a 1100W one I wouldn't do that because it _wouldn't_ be quicker.

[gomox]

Unless you have some sort of thunder-wok burner the 110V kettle is still way faster than the stove.

Source: have a 110V kettle and a gas cooktop with very large burners, still use the aforementioned trick.

[jounker]

Hi end gas ranges will beat a good electric kettle in the USA. (kettle 7min, range <6 min). My wife picked up a used thermidor this last summer and it beats any kettle we’ve had in the USA so far by at least a minute. That said, the kettle is more convenient overall (auto shutoff, auto start, pour from same container), so we end up using it.

In the other hand the US kettle beat the crap out of our old gas range, and even the good range is not nearly as fast as a crappy electric kettle in germany, which clocks in at 4 min.

[jefftk]

I timed mine (1kW kettle vs glass topped electric stove, not induction) and the kettle was only a bit faster: https://www.jefftk.com/p/electric-kettle-vs-stove

[Iwan-Zotow]

did you try french press?

[wnolens]

Strange.. every household and even hotel room I've ever been in North America had a kettle.

I only went to an Airbnb once that didn't have a kettle, so I Amazon'd one and just left it there.

[vel0city]

If you did it must not have been in the United States, or you got lucky.

I've been in over a hundred different hotels in the United States. East coast, West coast, Midwest, Rockies, deep South, South Atlantic coast, pretty much every region. I've probably only had a kettle a handful of times. Nearly universally a drip coffee maker, but practically never a kettle.

Note I'm not talking about the machine with the glass carafe on a small burner with a basket above it. That's a coffee maker in US terms, not an electric kettle.

[wnolens]

Oh yea ok I think you're right about the hotels.

It's a pretty universal item in any Canadian home and possibly even dorm room.

[mbreese]

In the hotels, that’s not a kettle. It’s a coffee maker. If you choose to not put coffee in it, that’s up to you.

(Us Americans tend to optimize for coffee over tea. If something also works for tea, that’s a happy coincidence, but not intentional.)

[rando14775]

You sure? Germany is a (shit) coffee country and everybody has had electric kettles since the 90s.

[vel0city]

Lots of Americans drink kind of shit coffee as well, they just largely drink it from drip coffee makers. Alternative brewing methods like french press, aero press, pour over, etc. is starting to become more popular but is definitely still not a predominant way of doing it. And even then, the really bougie people will just have an instant boiler tap in their kitchen instead of taking up counter space with something that takes longer to get hot water.

[p1necone]

In my experience drip coffee in a halfway decent machine from halfway decent beans is miles better than most/all instant. Just because drip coffee is convenient doesn't necessarily mean it's bad.

The beans you use are more important than the brewing method - if you use a giant tub of stale Folgers it probably won't be great. But grind you own decent beans and a drip machine can be fantastic.

[piva00]

Drip coffee is pretty good, good taste and caffeine content while being pretty simple to brew, a decent machine is cheap as well. It's just a method, the beans you use are what actually count.

[int_19h]

> an instant boiler tap in their kitchen instead of taking up counter space with something that takes longer to get hot water.

These things usually serve "near-boiling" water, somewhere around 95 C. This is fine for some cases - e.g. making ramen - but not appropriate for many kinds of tea.

I have such a tap, and I also have an electric kettle. The tap is mostly used to prefill pots with near-boiling water for cooking, so as to not wait for so long for the stove to do it. The kettle is used for tea and coffee.

[doublesocket]

It was weird how before that they only ever had wall mounted Wasserkocher (water boiler) and then en-masse discovered kettles.

[fuckstick]

What do they use the kettles for? For most non tea drinking households in the US there is no essential use for a kettle.

They do sell them here, people buy them, they are usually tea drinkers.

[heffer]

German in Canada here. I used mine to cook water for pasta as it's usually faster and more efficient than my electric cooktop. Bought one in Canada and it's close to useless for that purpose. My German kettle would bring 1.7L of tap water to a rolling boil in about 4 minutes. My Canadian one needs about 10 minutes to achieve the same.

[BurningFrog]

To perhaps state the obvious, I use mine mainly for coffee. And the occasional tea cup.

[dragonwriter]

Tea.

French press coffee.

Instant coffee, hot cider, hot chocolate, etc.

Heating water for instant soups, etc.

[Iwan-Zotow]

> there is no essential use for a kettle

electric kettle

french press for coffee

tea kettle for tea

[benj111]

European here that doesn't drink tea yet still has a kettle.

> they won't say "because I only have 120V outlets in the kitchen." They'll say it is because they don't need a kettle.

Well no they wouldn't say that, unless they have experience of 240v perhaps.

They might reasonably say that it's too slow. Or maybe they're aware that kettles are 'just slow' and so arrange their lives so that they don't need a kettle, in which case they would say "I don't need a kettle".

[ridgeguy]

My wife drinks tea, I drink coffee. Both of us grudge the time needed to heat water in our 120V American electric kettle compared to European 240V kettles. I^2 makes a big difference.

[scruple]

We use a hot water pot at home, a Zojirushi. Never have to bother with hot water, it's always available and the thing uses a negligible amount of electricity (we're almost entirely on solar anyway, so it's a moot point for our family) comparable to all of our other appliances.

[beezle]

I own a stove top kettle. Only used for hot chocolate or aeropress coffee (but I usually use drip maker)

[glandium]

Japan is on 100V mains, and electric kettles are everywhere.

[askvictor]

Good point. What's the typical kitchen set-up in a Japanese apartment?

[AaronFriel]

I'd be very surprised to see a standard US gas range capable of boiling water faster than an electric kettle.

[vel0city]

Yeah, even for a 1200W kettle heating a liter of water can be faster in the kettle than an average gas stove and pot.

[jeffbee]

Yeah it's just not. I have one of those ridiculous bazillion-BTU gas burners and I still prefer to boil water using a combination of a 120V tea kettle (1L) and an 120V portable induction cooker. An installed 240V range is even faster, but I don't have one of those.

[kenneth]

I'm a European who finds kettles stupid. I own one because someone didn't appreciate my house's lack of kettle and got one despite my protestations. I own (1) a induction stovetop, (2) a microwave… both will perfectly boil water just as fast. Why do I want to waste counter space on a kettle. My kitchen is tiny.

I have the same complaint about a ricecooker. It's perfectly easy to cook rice in a pot. Sure it's convenient to use the automated device, but it's wasteful.

[hoseja]

I've never owned a rice cooker but I'm led to believe the rice they make is superior to anything you can reasonably achieve in a simple pot.

[dontlaugh]

It's far easier to achieve consistent results, for sure. We have a small one and it's the best rice we can make at home without significant effort.

[kenneth]

Cooking perfect rice in a pot takes technique, for sure. But it's not that hard, and if you do it right it comes out perfect just like a rice cooker.

Wash your rice. Throw in cold pot with 1:1 ratio of rice to water, + a bit extra to account for evaporation[1]. Bring to a full boil. As soon as it's boiling, drop the heat to the lowest setting and cover your pot as tight as you can and let it steam itself until ready. When ready, fluff it immediately.

[1]: the precise amount extra depends on your setup, tbh… how tight your lid seal is, how much surface area your saucepan exposes, etc. but usually an extra 25% will be about right

[fomine3]

Dedicated appliance worth to have if it used frequently. As a Japanese who uses ricecooker and kettle, it must have.

[300bps]

which limits power to around 1100W

All those 1800+ watt hair dryers that are used very commonly in the U.S. are wondering where you got your wattage limit from.

https://news.energysage.com/how-many-watts-does-a-hair-dryer...

[XorNot]

Continuous vs noncontinuous overcurrent rating.[1] Depending how you get your appliance approved, you can draw more. The actual requirement is 3 hours, but like all regulations you have to look at intended usage:

[1] https://www.csemag.com/articles/understanding-overcurrent-pr...

[300bps]

The comment I replied to said the U.S. was limited to around 1100W which is why The U.S. doesn't use tea kettles.

I reply with a very commonly used device that uses over 63% more power than 1100W showing that obviously isn't the reason the U.S. doesn't use tea kettles.

And you reply with essentially, "Oh, but that's because the hair dryer isn't used continuously for 3 hours". Did you think a tea kettle is used for 3 hours continuously?

[XorNot]

Please actually read what I said: there are differences in the appliance approval process which determines how much continuous power you can draw from an electrical circuit.

Why would a manufacturer bother trying to prove discontinuous draw when they can just current limit, use the same element they do everywhere else with the same resistance, and not worry about it?

[dragonwriter]

> Americans don't really do electric kettles, largely on account of using 110V mains, which limits power to around 1100W

Most sources I can find indicate the usual (but not maximum) draw of US electric kettles 1500W, and checking a few popular models confirms that 1500W is common.

[rootusrootus]

I don't have a kettle because I have a hot water tap that gives me water at more than 200F. If I need it boiling, it takes a very short period of time on the range to get it there. Those are relatively common, almost every one of my friends and family have one too.

[soegaard]

Technology Experiments tried it.

https://youtu.be/_yMMTVVJI4c?t=232

[refurb]

Most kettles I've had in the US are 1500W, similar to a space heater.

It does take longer to boil, but it's like 2 min compared to 1 min.

I survive.

[sailfast]

FWIW in my American experience most everyone I know has one and uses it, so your mileage may vary.

[dragonwriter]

In my experience, electric kettles are reasonably common in America.

[ar_lan]

I wonder how I’m making my Chemex every morning…

[fuckstick]

It’s not that slow. 1. They sell plenty of kettles in the US (touch grass and go to Target sometime or something) - a large portion of those sales are probably to Asian households. It is simply that if you have a drip coffee maker and don’t drink much tea why do you need a kettle.

No idea where this dumb myth comes from - kettles are not hard to find in the US, they work fine - there is a ton of demand it is just relatively miniscule.

[jrmg]

No idea where this dumb myth comes from

I think it’s a hangover from when it was true - fairly recently in a human-lifespan timescale. I moved to the SF Bay Area from the UK 20 years ago, and had to buy a weird kettle from Amazon. None of the nearby stores had a decent one. That’s definitely not true now though.

[nerdponx]

I had an electric kettle growing up, but nobody else I knew/know has one. I don't know why, they're extremely practical, don't take up much space, and don't cost much money unless you get a fancy temperature-controlled one.

[sgtnoodle]

They're found in most college dorm rooms.

[mrfumier]

No it's not.

The most efficient (and fastest) way is an induction hob with copper disc pan. Something that Technology Connections didn't include in his video.

See some test here: https://youtu.be/EBlyuahlplI

[the-smug-one]

Where's the energy loss from the kettle that's not present in your proposed method? Legit asking, I don't see it. Just heat radiating from the body of the kettle for longer cuz of longer time to make it boil?

[audunw]

> Where's the energy loss from the kettle that's not present in your proposed method?

You're not heating the water directly, you're heating it through a piece of metal. The wasted energy is heating that piece of metal up to more than 100 deg C. A surprising amount of energy lost there.

If you use the induction hob you're only heating the metal that you actually need to heat to do the cooking.

For us in northern climates, none of this energy is really wasted during winter. But many of us now have heat pumps, which are more efficient than resistive heating.

[puffoflogic]

The claim seems dubious in Europe, but in North America the stove has access to twice the voltage potential as the kettle, so can heat faster. Then with equal losses the stove wins.

[im-a-baby]

Europeans use 220V for everything.

[eru]

Well, Germans like to use three-phase power for their electric ovens.

(Still nominally at 230 Volt, but it's not quite the same as two-phase power.)

[puffoflogic]

So in Europe the phenomenon of a stove heating faster than a kettle would not be observed. Isn't that what I said?

[moogly]

I have a modern induction stove. I think it's great. But not for bringing water to boil. It's about as fast as a kettle for 500-750 ml. But over a liter and it'll be much slower than a kettle (yes, boost function). I do not use it for bringing pasta water to boil.

[jp0d]

This is not just efficient but also saves a lot of time. I do this with rice/pasta or anything that requires boiling. Also, using a pressure cooker can save a lot of time/energy with foods like legumes/meats etc.

[grvdrm]

+1 for pressure cooker. I use mine twice a week or so. For just about anything since there are so many recipes online. And less clean up!

[dragonwriter]

> A better way to save energy is to use an electric kettle to get the water up to boiling.

An even better way (and one that also saves cleanup) is to use an electric pressure cooker like an InstantPot to cook the pasta

[EricE]

or an induction stove. I had an induction cooktop, moved and ended up with a gas cooktop again - I was astonished at how much slower and overall worse it was than induction. I quickly replaced the gas with induction and am now enjoying it once again. The only downside for induction is you have to have induction ready cookware - but really it's not that hard these days. Cookware and more has all-clad seconds and if you sign up for their email newsletter they run a sale - buy one, get a second 50% off - it's how I built my collection. Made In is a medium quality alternative - made in Italy. For affordability, Tramontina is surprisingly good. You can find it at Walmart, Costco and other places. It's not quite as dense as Made In or All Clad but any clad cookware is way better than anything with a damn disk in it.

[jve]

Speaking about electrical kettle: why aren't there insulated kettles that would help me save energy when I re-boil water after 20 minutes?

EDIT: Ah, there are some: https://www.amazon.com/DASH-Insulated-Electric-Kettle-Cordle...

[flipbrad]

I just have a thermos flask next to the kettle. The excess ALWAYS gets put to good use: extra cups of tea (without reboiling), cooking, dishes in the sink, or even the kids' bath.

[justsomehnguy]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_cosy

[benj111]

If you're reboiling water aren't you already doing it wrong.

Ideally you should only be boiling the water you need.

[jve]

I don't have reverse-osmoze filters, so I get pretty much residue (lime) which I rather leave in the kettle.

Moreover I sometimes want to add extra hot water to my 0,5L cup of tea. When boiling water, I already add the extra water I'll need so I get it just-in-time (except it has already lost much heat thus why I'll try to get insulated kettle). My wife may or may not want to drink tea, but I get ready water anyways (yeah, this could be organized better)

[MrFantastic]

Throw a kitchen towel over the kettle after you pour off your first drink.

[Schroedingersat]

Unless the electricity came from gas or coal. Then it's a wash.

Induction hobs are about as good as a kettle (and you lose less energy because you're not heating up the glass/plastic/metal of the kettle).

[nanomonkey]

My housemate makes pasta nearly every night, so we decided to optimize the process. We found that bringing the water to boil in a borosilicate flask in the microwave, adding the pasta and then returning it to the microwave with a pyrex bowl of the sauce and meatballs was the fastest and most economical method. I think from start to finish it takes 9 minutes total, 7 to bring the water to a boil and another 2 to reheat the sauce and cook the pasta. Something like 150 watts of power usage in a 1kW microwave.

[jgalt212]

Doesn't this seem crazy counter-intuitive. Turn gas into heat, water to steam energy to electricity, then transmit the electricity, then turn the electricity back into heat. Versus turn gas into heat, water to steam?

[benj111]

Unless it's winter where you're heating your house anyway, in which case the gas hob is more efficient.

But gas is a lot cheaper than electric anyway so I wouldn't expect a kettle to be much cheaper.

[manojlds]

Isn't this a thing? This is how I have been cooking for a long time - bring water to boil in kettle and use it to cook.

[thefounder]

For some reasons I thought most of the people switched to electric induction cooktops.

[askvictor]

After installing an induction stove, I did a side-by-side test on boiling water on it vs kettle. The kettle won, both on power consumption and time. This is for a ~2000W kettle.

[milkey_mouse]

There are a lot of resistive electric ranges, and around 40% of Americans still use gas stoves.

[x0x0]

You can also use a lot less water than is standard: just enough to cover the noodles. Kenji Lopez-Alt has written about this a bunch [1]. Noodles cooked that way were indistinguishable in his testing. He's also discussed it on his cooking youtube channel, which I recommend to anyone. For example, a 3-ingredient macaroni and cheese [2] in which he discusses the noodles at 0:40-ish.

[1] https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-cook-pasta-salt-water-boi...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWge-2jT9ZQ

[wbeckler]

Kenji's 3-ingredient mac and cheese is a masterpiece. It's become the go-to meal for my kids. It also has to be the peak in energy efficiency for pasta.

The idea is that by minimizing the water you can maximize the starchiness of the water, which creates a great emulsifier for the cheese sauce, along with evaporated milk. The combo is truly creamy mac and cheese, with no grittiness or separation of oils. It tastes great, it's faster than Kraft, it's energy efficient, it's easy to learn (literally 3 ingredients plus water).

It also has easy-to remember-units (6 oz pasta, 6 oz cheese, 6 fl oz evap milk). The evap milk amount perfectly divides the USA standard 12 fl oz evap milk can.

Kenji has tweaked the ergonomics of scratch mac and cheese light years ahead of where it was.

[SamBam]

We use the recipe all the time too, but I can't understand it being given in 6oz proportions. None of the ingredients, except maybe some cheeses, come in 6oz sizes standard.

I do a 16oz box of pasta, 12 oz can of evaporated milk, and 16oz bag of shredded cheese. I put the milk and cheese in while there's a bit more water still in the pan, and have never missed the extra bit of evaporated milk.

[nephanth]

And you even get pasta water way more concentrated in starch, which is useful if you're using it to make a sauce

[ghayes]

The claim is weird, though. If they said “just add to boiling water and turn off immediately” then they would claim it’s 100% more efficient*.

If you turn off your water right before it’s boiling and cook your pasta, then Barilla is an energy generator*.

[selcuka]

Actually reverse cycle air conditioners are said to have a heating efficiency of over 100%, but what they really do is to move the heat from one point to another. It's all about definitions; if you define the system as your room, it will be more than 100% efficient. If your system is the universe, then it's always 100%.

By the same logic, yes, your hypothetical statement can be rephrased as "if you already have boiling water, cooking pasta doesn't require any energy".

[hn_throwaway_99]

But the whole point is that Barilla's definition is ludicrous. The only definition that really makes sense is how much energy did it take to get the pasta from the box to my plate, and Barilla is excluding the vast majority of that energy in their 80% number for the sole purpose of inflating it to make it look better.

[selcuka]

Barilla's definition is ludicrous, and I'm playing the Devil's advocate.

> The only definition that really makes sense is how much energy did it take to get the pasta from the box to my plate

Including the energy required (and the carbon footprint) to manufacture the pasta in the first place, yes? Or no?

[harg]

no, because we're only comparing the energy required to cook the pasta; not the whole lifecycle.

[simondotau]

If your definition of efficiency encompasses change within the entire universe, you could say that everything has an efficiency of 0% because matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Back in reality, the purpose of a heat pump is to heat/cool an enclosed space. Its efficiency is rated by comparing it to a direct conversion from electricity to heat. So long as what occurs outside doesn't affect what occurs inside, it isn't relevant to the question of efficiency.

[danpalmer]

Except that would not cook the pasta.

I haven’t tried this technique yet, but one of the aims is to still cook the pasta effectively. I know from experience that your hypothetical won’t cook most dried pasta.

[KennyBlanken]

You "know" incorrectly. Pasta "cooking" is mostly rehydration, and that happens at temperatures well, well below boiling.

https://www.seriouseats.com/tips-for-better-easier-pasta

Getting the water to a boil is probably just a way for Barilla to make the instructions foolproof- after adding the pasta, the water will still be hot enough to rehydrate said pasta.

[justsomehnguy]

> instructions foolproof

and allows a leeway for a different pots, stoves, fried off power cables...

I use this technique when I don't want to bother running a second stove top and making a sauce or something for the pasta.

It takes more time, though.

[p1necone]

This is a bizarre thing to put in the fine print. They're literally just excluding most of the cooking process from their calculation and I can't see any reason why other than to artificially inflate the efficiency stat.

[ephbit]

> When I boil pasta, I use full heat to get the water boiling, drop in the pasta, then let it come back up to a boil, then drop the temperature as low as possible to keep a slow boil going--about medium-low.

Do you put a lid on the pot?

If not, you're running a reboiler. If you were to do that in a region of the earth and season of the year where you have to heat your place you'd probably be wasting double. Because the additional moisture from evaporation has to be removed from your place later through ventilation.

It always baffles me how many people don't care/know just how much less energy they could use to achieve the exact same result, just by putting a lid on.

[jansan]

Guesstimating that the boil takes about as long as the time to cook the pasta,

You need an new stove. Edit: or a new pot

[wcarron]

Bringing 5+ quarts of water to a boil takes a lot of energy. Hell, it takes my jetboil 90s-120s to boil low-temp water in like...1 quart quantities. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that a large pot of water takes 8-10 minutes to bring to a rolling boil.

[denton-scratch]

More than a gallon? That's a big batch of spaghetti - it stands to reason that if you're feeding a great multitude, there's going to be a cost in cooking fuel.

[CrazyStat]

You don't need to cook pasta in a lot of water. Just enough to cover the pasta is fine.

[Cupertino95014]

Right. And in fact, it's better that way. There's more starch in the water, which makes it more useful when you add some to the sauce in your sauce pan.

What, you don't finish your pasta by heating it with the sauce??? Hang your head in shame.

[froh]

no. they shamelessly pan fry pasta. (and rinse them briefly with fresh water to get rid of the starch and stop the cooking for bite. also works just perfect with a low amount of water)

[VectorLock]

Or just cook your pasta in the sauce.

[seized]

Or he is stuck with an electric coil stove that he can't replace. Those suck.

[sirnicolaz]

You can actually really turn off the stove after the water starts boiling again. As long as you of course keep the lit on. That's how I have been doing it for a while, no dramatic difference in the end result (and yeah I am Italian, so I tend to complain about the details in food related matters).

[ekianjo]

The claim smelled bullshit from the get go. Boiling water takes much longer than cooking the pasta.

[quickthrower2]

The asterisk always means bullshit.

[pkulak]

Also probably assuming gas. Induction would take another 90% off.

[nephanth]

Actually since they're using percentage, it doesn't matter