How Induction cooking Works

An induction cooktop looks pretty much the same as a ceramic cooktop with distinct zones, where you can place your pots and pans. Inside the cooking zone there is a tightly wound coil of metal. When the power is turned on, there is an alternate current that flows through the coil which produces an invisible high frequency alternating magnetic field all around it. Without a pan on the burner, the burner will not heat: the cooking zone remains cool. The reason we need high frequency is because your home power supply alternates at about 50-60 Hz(50-60 times per second), an induction cooktop boosts this by 500-1000 times (typically to 20-40Hz). Since this is well above the range that most of us can hear, it stops any annoying, audible buzzing that prevents magnetic forces from moving the pan around on the cooktop. When you put the pan on the cooking zone and the magnetic field produced by the coil penetrates the iron inside it. The alternating magnetic field makes a whirling (eddy) currents inside the pan, turning it into a heater. Magnetic hysteresis ( energy loss during the repeated cycle of magnetizing and demagnetizing) also help to heat the pan. The heat flows directly into the food or water that is inside the pan (by induction). Induction cooking is much faster than regular cooking and because the burner never gets hot it is a lot safer to use. Especially great if you have young kids running around.

Cost used to be a drawback, but the price of an induction range has dropped tremendously in the last few years. It is now very similar to that of regular ceramic range. Another drawback could be that Induction cooking only works properly with stainless steel cooking pans containing iron. Iron is the only practical metal that efficiently produces electrical (eddy) currents and has enough resistance to generate heat as they circulate. Copper and aluminum pans also produce eddy currents and conduct electricity very well, but that also means they have much lower resistance. Meaning they don’t generate useful heat in the same way. Glass doesn’t conduct electricity, so it doesn’t work at all. There are lots of different induction pots and pans on the market today, so I guess the only drawback would be if you love your old pots and pans and don’t want to buy new ones!  I will tell you it is amazing the heat is instant and it is so easy to control the temperature.