[lstodd]

If I turn my old gorenje all out on four burners it'll output the likes of maybe 30kW give or take. The largest burner is I think about 15KW on full throttle and that does only acceptable wok or very smoky steak on cast iron ribbed pan.

For a couple of years I had nothing but a 3.7kW inductions while I lived elsewhere. Two of them melted and warped from the heat to the point of breaking the top glass and forget about wok or steaks.

If all you cook is ramen or oatmeal, induction is fine, yes.

[com2kid]

> If I turn my old gorenje all out on four burners it'll output the likes of maybe 30kW give or take. The largest burner is I think about 15KW on full throttle and that does only acceptable wok or very smoky steak on cast iron ribbed pan.

I have an American made dirt cheap entry level induction range. It is nearly a decade old. It gets used for wok cooking almost daily. During holidays I run all 4 burners non stop for hours on end.

Plenty of commercial kitchens are switching to induction as well, it dramatically reduces ventilation costs, and it provides better temperature control. For smaller kitchens, or when a lower cost build out is needed, induction is a huge win.

The technology is reliable, even if you unfortunately got stuck with bad implementations in the past.

[perching_aix]

OK, Gorenje, gas stove, wok use: https://international.gorenje.com/products/cooking-and-bakin...

The largest burner has an output of 3.5 kW (12K BTU).

Did a general pass before sending my previous comment anyhow, found much the same across the board. What you say reliably checks out with the unit corrected to BTU on the gas side, but not otherwise.

Are you sure you're not mixing BTU and watts?

> If all you cook is ramen or oatmeal, induction is fine, yes.

No, I cook full on meals. Stews, soups, what have you. Power never even remotely came up as a concern. Quite the contrary in fact.

I indeed never used a wok or cooked any steaks though, and probably never will either, so I can't say much about that stuff.

[lstodd]

What I have is from 2008 or so, I can't even find the exact model. I guess it's now politically incorrect to even list it.

Plus side: works as new, even the original thermal pair shutoffs were never swapped and that's basically the only thing that fails in them.

Soups i can see. Stews.. unless we completely misunderstand each other they're better done in the stove, inside. Not to mention baking some bread. With which an induction top will not help either. To be honest, baking and stewing imo depend more on thermal mass that brings very stable temperature, for which even gas ovens are meh, you're better off with true wood-fueled brick stove, or the result is not even close. One can maybe make an electrically-heated brick stove, but for some reason I haven't seen one. Maybe it's because it'll be slow as hell to heat up. And no authentic crunchy charcoal in your fresh pizza.

[Marsymars]

Breville makes a small electric pizza oven that's actually quite good - not quite as hot as gas but reaches 750F in about 20 minutes, and then with time to reheat if you've got your prep done you can pump out a 12-inch pizza every 5 minutes.

[perching_aix]

> What I have is from 2008 or so, I can't even find the exact model. I guess it's now politically incorrect to even list it.

I did check for older models as well. Even dug up some stove catalogues from the 70s and 80s to be extra sure. I just genuinely cannot confirm your numbers. I'm about as confident in my unit confusion hypothesis as I can reasonably be.

I'm sure you had the experiences you're recounting, but as far as the numbers go, they do not seem to explain them. Especially since these are the burner ratings, before the heat transfer losses.

If I do accept the unit confusion on your behalf:

15K BTU (your biggest gas burner) -> 55% efficiency (optimistic) -> 8250 BTU reaching the pan

3.6 kW (cheap plug-in induction stove) -> 80% efficiency (pessimistic) -> 10045 BTU reaching the pan

It just doesn't compute.

[lstodd]

I'm not at home or I would've sent you a photo.

the main burner is two-row high somewhat like

https://www.hallsintl.com/heavy-duty-gas-stove-2-burners-15k...

[perching_aix]

That's more like it, although that is a commercial-use unit. Maybe you have something particularly beefy?

If you do get the chance to figure out the exact model you have at home, please do let me know here. Won't blame you if you don't though, I appreciate this is a chore.

[lstodd]

won't be "home" until september.

never looked into gorenje genealogy, and yes, this kind of burner is nowadays rare on a "common" top, maybe it's been relegated to "profi" tops. (a shame, this limits what one can attempt to do and learn)

cooking is even more in hacking spirit than hacking itself.