The cooktop is the focal point of your kitchen, it’s where you’ll prepare your family’s favorite meals. There are many types of cooktop brands, styles, and prices on the market today, but there are three major categories: gas, electric coil, and induction. Each type has its distinct advantages and disadvantages. Here are a few tips to understand what is the right cooktop for your kitchen.
Gas Cooktops
Gas cooktops can produce up to 30,000 BTUs. It heats with natural gas or propane and produces quick, intense heat. Gas cooktops are typically cheaper than electric cooktops and they provide the best heat control. With electric cooktops, you can’t adjust the heat as precisely as you can with gas. But gas cooktops require venting, which means that it needs to be installed in an area where there’s sufficient room for vents to be placed. Gas is also more expensive than electricity, so if your energy minded this is something to consider.
What are the Benefits of Gas Cooktops?
Gas cooktops are the most popular type for professional chefs. They use natural gas or propane to heat water, which is then circulated through a coil to produce very high temperatures.
The benefits of gas cooktops are that they provide instant-on heating and the flame can be easily adjusted as opposed to an electric cooktop. You can also use them in an outdoor kitchen.
What are the disadvantages of gas cooktops?
Gas cooktops outsell electric cooktops making them the most popular. They’re great for cooking large recipes but also have disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage is the cost to purchase and install a gas line. It can be expensive, which is certainly something to consider before purchasing this type of cooktop. Also, gas cooktops might not be ideal for someone who cooks with children or guests in the house because of safety concerns. For example, it’s considered more difficult to regulate the heat on gas cooktops than with other types of cooktops.
Electric Cooktops
Electric cooktops are the most energy-efficient. Unfortunately, an electric cooktop takes up more space than the other two types, and they can be expensive depending upon what features your choose. Electric coil cooktops are excellent if you need a stove that can handle high-volume cooking. They have a long lifespan and are inexpensive to maintain because they’re easy to clean. They’re also very durable because the coils are sealed into ceramic or metal surfaces. Flexibility can be an issue with induction cooktops because they only work with magnetic materials. This means that certain cooking utensils won’t work on them, but induction cooktops are typically more responsive than gas or electric cooktops so you’ll have better control over your cooking process.
What are the benefits of electric cooktops?
If you’re looking to replace your cooktop, electric coil cooktops are an excellent choice. They come in a variety of different sizes and work well for smaller homes or apartments. The coils can be hidden behind the stove’s surface, which makes the overall appearance more streamlined.
Electric coil cooktops also offer two advantages that gas models don’t: they are easier to clean and their performance is evenly distributed. While electric coil cooktops are convenient, they do have one major downside: if there is a power outage, these stovetops will not work.
Induction Cooktops
Induction cooktops are relatively new to North America, first to market in the early to mid-2000s. Interestingly, their market share is still quite small compared to electric and gas stoves. We believe timing to market was an issue (just before the housing bubble of 2007) as well as they simply seem to fall short in terms of how or lack of marketing from manufacturers. So how do they work? Induction cooktops use electromagnetic waves to heat the pan instead of the stovetop itself, so it’s easy to control temperature precisely. The cookware has a magnetic bottom that allows it to heat up quickly and evenly on the stovetop without needing much attention from you. This is ideal for people who want to spend more time cooking instead of constantly monitoring their cooking pan’s temperature. We all know that some foods take longer than others to prepare, so an induction cooktop offers more freedom for multitasking with your stovetop space.
What are the benefits of induction cooktops?
Induction cooktops are a great option for those who want a burner with good heat distribution. This type of cooktop is more efficient than a coil burner, and the heat is spread evenly over the cooking surface. Induction cooktops also have a lower risk of scratching or damaging pans that you use on them. There’s no need to worry about scraping your cookware against the hot coils. Additionally, induction cooktops won’t get as hot as their counterparts, so this is an excellent choice if you have small children in the home. Finally, induction cooktops are easy to clean because there aren’t any coils to scrub. They typically come with a glass panel that can be wiped down with ease.
What are the disadvantages of induction cooktops?
One of the disadvantages of induction cooktops is their inability to work with all types of pans. In some cases, you may need to purchase cookware that has been manufactured specifically for use on an induction cooktop. In addition, induction cooktops can be more expensive than those with other types of cooktops. This is because they require a special magnetic coil that will run underneath the surface, which can be costly to install and maintain. One of the biggest disadvantages of an induction cooktop is its inability to function as a traditional stovetop burner. If you have an electric stovetop but want to switch over to an induction cooktop, you will need a kitchen to remodel so that this type of coil can be installed into your existing stovetop burners or a new installation of a new tabletop cooking surface.
Conclusion
If you’re thinking about buying a new cooktop, it can be hard to know where to start. Different cooktops have different features and you might not know which one is right for your kitchen.
In this article, we’ve gone over the very basics of the different types of cooktops and what they have to offer—plus some things that need to be considered before you buy one. In future posts, we’ll be getting into more detail with each type of cooktop as well as the best brands to consider.
