Induction Cooking Pot Hype vs. Reality
I needed a new induction cooking pot. So I searched Amazon and decided on one that seemed like it would do the job. It said “Induction Cooking Pot” right there in the title (screenshot below). The description reinforced that: “The simmer pot compatible with various cooktops, including gas, electric, ceramic, halogen, induction cooktops.” So I bought it.
I set it up to steam some broccoli after I washed it. Then I waited. And waited. And waited… It was doing something for sure. Just not much. It did make steam, but it take way longer to steam my broccoli than it should have.
Online reviews
So I went back to Amazon and looked at the reviews. This is one place where AI comes in handy. There’s a little summary of the many reviews for this pot, with some keywords reviewers used frequently. One of those words was induction, mentioned 49 time. So I clicked the word and got the screenshot you see below.
I wish I’d looked at that before buying. If I’d seen that only 17 of the 49 induction comments were positive and 32 were negative, I’d have kept looking. But I’ve grown skeptical of online product reviews…until now. I’ll definitely pay attention to the AI summary and keywords for help with future purchases.
A test of two induction cooking pots
After reading that summary of the induction comments in the reviews, I did another search on Amazon for an induction cooking pot that would work. The pot I settled on was this one from Tramontina.* (It seems to have gone up $50 since I bought it.) Naturally, I wanted to do a side-by-side test of the two pots to confirm that the first one really did have problems, so here’s my video of it.
Note that it took the Tramontina pot 4 minutes to boil 4 cups of water. Meanwhile, the other one still wasn’t at a full boil 16 minutes after I started. Both were turned on to 9 on the control knob. As with Nigel Tufnel’s amplifier, “These go to 11.” They don’t call the highest setting on my range 11, though. After 10, it says HI/Boost, but I think those engineers at LG had a nice chuckle with that little inside joke. Don’t you? (Rest in peace, Rob Reiner.)
The world is grey
We have a few lessons here. One is that the world is grey. Yeah, there’s a lot of black and white. Yet almost always that’s a full spectrum of shades of grey in between .
The second is how that perception applies to induction cooking. I wrote about Michael Faraday and the physics behind induction cooking a while back. It’s really cool, so go read that article for a fuller explanation. Basically, it’s an interaction of the electromagnetic fields between two ferromagnetic materials.
And that’s where the grey comes in. Not all ferromagnetic materials are created equal. The pot on the right in my test obviously has some ability for electromagnetic induction or it wouldn’t react at all. But there’s just not enough of the good stuff in that pot to make it a good induction cooking pot.
Finally, the third takeaway here is that you shouldn’t just believe what marketers say about their products. I got taken in by it this time, but now you don’t have to.
Allison A. Bailes III, PhD is a speaker, writer, building science consultant, and the founder of Energy Vanguard in Decatur, Georgia. He has a doctorate in physics and is the author of a bestselling book on building science. He also writes the Energy Vanguard Blog. For more updates, you can follow Allison on LinkedIn and subscribe to Energy Vanguard’s weekly newsletter and YouTube channel.
* This is an affiliate link. Energy Vanguard may get a small commission if you buy after clicking.
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When I finally convinced my wife to go induction she said “ok but you have to buy me some allclad pots” without telling me how expensive they were. But wow they are so fast on the boil!
Lloyd: I’m not familiar with that brand, but The Caraway pots and pans we have aren’t cheap either.
All-Clad was the first to develop tri-ply cookware. They sandwiched a layer of aluminum between two layers of stainless steel. Their patent expired about 20 yrs ago so there are a lot of copies (ex, Cuisinart, Costco brand, etc).
All-Clad had a website where they sell returns and such for cheap.
I have had All Clad for years, recommended to me by a chef friend, and I was relieved that they worked after switching from gas to induction. Didn’t have to buy anything new! (I’ve seen some reviews about how Caraway does not last long. I was tempted to buy some, lured by how attractive it is. Could you let us know if that ends up being the case with yours?)
“Kirecoo” – the first word in the description should have given you an idea of what you were getting! LOL!
Rich: Well, there’s all kinds of crazy brand names these days. I think the price ($30) was a better indicator.
Allison, those aren’t brand names, those are Chinese resellers. They come up with all sorts of random names, stringing random letters together so that they don’t mistakenly infringe on somebody’s trademark or copyright.
they’re basically buying the same junk you can buy on Alibaba for half the price, and then reselling it to fools who think Amazon still actually has name brand product.
Impulse Labs has an induction cooktop that has a battery built in and can be powered off of 110v. The battery is robust enough so you can cook when power goes out. It also provides a large kw push to ramp up power when you need a boost. It’s pricey but in my budget for the next house. Good luck.
Kory: Yeah, I’ve heard of those but haven’t investigated yet. Seems like a good way to get storage and reduce power draws.
All Clad pans. Buy once cry once. My 15 year set still looks new after I removed the staining from electric resistance. No stains either induction! Many commercial kitchens use them. Well worth the money and made in the USA.
Purchase direct from Al Clad. High quality and factory service. They do have deep discounts on sets and some individual items. Amazon is a scam.
I really like my cast iron on induction. The greater mass seems to even out the heat. Anyone compare the with Alclad?
I can; we have both. We prefer cast iron for most things because of, frankly, the emotions it evokes. Al Clad work great too. We use those for greens and tomato sauces and other acidic things that strip the seasoning off cast iron.
I’d been missing my old wok though. Costco had a deal on a large hexclad brand non-stick ceramic-stainless wok thing with a flat bottom. Works great too. We got the giant two handle one. Super pricey but worth it. So is the 36” Thermadore induction top….
Induction cooktop manufacturers are well aware of the differences between pans. The higher-end brands run demos of their products and these are a forum for sharing this knowledge and more.
I’ve been a fan of induction cooking for years – freakishly fast, superior heat control, and more efficient. Bonus in cooling-dominated climates – much less heat and humidity thrown off from cooking that the HVAC system then has to reject.
I have 1800 Watt (120V) and 3500 Watt (240V) countertop units and now a 36″ 5 “burner” cooktop.
Interestingly, among the most reliably induction ready cookware is my extremely old school fleet of cast iron pots and pans – old meets new in splendid harmony!
Oh and the horrible recaptcha tasks are back again…how can that be made to go away!
That said, buying induction cookware (and, lately, everything else) on Amazon has become quite a bit of a crap shoot – I call it “Temufication” or “enshitification”…two terms that describe the price and quality race to the bottom we have lately experienced.
Use a magnet to verify if a pan will work on an induction range.
I am guessing the positive Amazon reviews for those pans were people using them on conventional electric stoves who do not know the difference between conduction and induction.
I am not sure if you really needed AI to sort out the user reviewers. I am usually able to do that with my own intelligence 😉
Roy: Yeah, you may be right about reviewers not knowing what induction is. I always assume a fair number of those are paid reviewers. When there are hundreds or thousands of reviews, it can be hard to look at enough to get a feel for it so I find that having a summary of the results helps.
I always go to the negative reviews first and if I see reasonably sounding statements, I start to pay attention to them. That is RI (Roy Intelligence) 😉
About 2020, we got a relatively inexpensive GE Profile induction range. We had several skillets that we used with two previously owned NuWave induction hotplates. They all worked great with the new range. Then we got a Cuisinart stainless steel set from BB&Beyond for about $100 with coupon. everything has worked flawlessly!
It seems that induction cook top sales people have no ideas either on pots and pans. We recently purchased a Frigidaire branded Electrolux unit with great results. The salesman asked us to bring several of our current pots into the store for testing on the display unit. They would not work. However we found the IKEA has great units that are induction ready at great prices. A 9 inch fry pan at $27.00 was a great purchase. Also had to change the existing cooking units due to no reaction on the cooking surface.
We use our 18-25 year old Farberware and Wolfgang Puck sets from Sams. Works fine on induction but you are limited on what’s in the set.
I have a single burner induction unit on top of our gas stove as I rarely ever use the gas cooktop as the induction is so much better. That said for the oven I don’t ever want to go back to electric it doesn’t cook anywhere near as well and the gas.
Never used any of the halogen or other glass top units. Only the coil type. The one issue with induction or glass top units is safety. If something boils over or is spilled it’s headed toward you and the cabinets on either side as there is nowhere to catch spills.
If someone would make an induction top and gas oven that would be the best of both. But realistically we could do without a conventional oven in place of an induction burner and a decent sized toaster/convection/air fryer unit. Everything else is cooked on the grill outside.