response 26 of 60:

Sep 21 16:47 UTC 2001

When I take my teakettle of the (electric) burner because the water is
boiling, the burner stays red-hot for a couple minutes after I've turned the
burner off.  That's wasted heat.

response 28 of 60:

Sep 23 14:41 UTC 2001

I don't like electric stoves.  An electric frying pan or an electric 
crock pot or wok or bread machine can be very handy, but gas is best 
for ordinary stovetop cooking, at least for my money.

response 30 of 60:

Sep 29 23:08 UTC 2001

All kinds of stuff.  One thing that makes gas better is that you can 
turn it down instantly.  Roaring flame to nothing in less than a 
second.  No pasta boilovers, for example.  Also, there are infinite 
gradations of adjustment, all visible to the eye merely by looking 
under the pot or pan.  I can tell by the way the olive oil smells 
whether the heat needs to be adjusted a tiny bit up or down.  The 
difference between tender golden bits of garlic at the end of cooking 
the veal medallions, and darker overcooked bits mixed in with the 
medallions might be a slight reduction of the flame.  You sort of look 
at it and nod.  If you have any kind of cooperation at all going on 
between hand and eye and nose and brain, all this is essential.  (Also, 
when the power goes out, I'm still cooking.)

I understand that some people are inexplicably married to electricity.  
They are welcome to their obsession.  I wouldn't think of trying to 
convert them.

response 32 of 60:

Sep 30 16:44 UTC 2001

What we usually cook requires either the highest possible heat (pressure
cooker brought to pressure) or the lowest possible heat (simmering the
stir-fry) which electric seems to do okay.  I solve the boil-over problem by
removing the pot from the burner.  The gas stoves that I have used at friends'
houses don't get as hot or as cool - maybe yours is much better quality.
I agree that it is nice to be able to adjust instantly, but the range of
temperatures on these gas stoves is not as great as on electric.  My primary
objection to gas is the need to breathe methane and carbon monoxide.
We have one thermostatted burner on one of our stoves that claims to offer
lots of fine adjustments but unfortunately it is one of those solid burners,
meaning it takes a lot longer to heat up or cool down.  The electric frying
pan  offers the same control, but faster.  
        I cooked one year on a completely non-adjustable alcohol burner.  Took
a bit of getting used to, but still a lot easier than cooking over a wood
fire.  It did not provide a very hot flame but you could fry an egg on it.
The fuel was much cheaper and more readily available than camping fuel. It
had the added advantage of putting a little heat in my unheated drafty room.
        Has anyone tried cooking on a woodstove?

response 34 of 60:

Apr 30 11:48 UTC 2002

From my understanding, as was said earlier, yes, gas stoves are 
superior in heat control, and so its obvious strength is in sauteing 
and the like.

However, you can't can fruits and vegetables with a gas stove-- 
something I suspect not many Grexers do (and md doesn't sound like one 
of them-- resp:30).  I forget precisely why this is, but perhaps it's 
because of what Sindi said in resp:23 in that you're heating the pot 
directly.  Anyway, a friend of mine just told me that you need an 
electric stove for things like that, which probably means steam 
juicing is out, too.

I don't have to worry here in Washington, where we have 
hydroelectric.  This has been a new reminder that Michigan is gas-
powered. 

response 36 of 60:

Apr 30 14:14 UTC 2002

I dont have any trouble getting a good rolling boil in large pots of 
water on my gas stove (which is one of the cheaper models) but it does 
take longer than 5 minutes. It helps to keep the pot covered when 
bringing the water to boil *shrug* 

response 38 of 60:

Apr 30 15:56 UTC 2002

First priority is roof, then plumbing.  After that we can start on the
kitchen.  Floor has to be replaced, window as well from the water damage from
roof leaks.  Then all the old cabinets and counters go.  Stove will come in
about the time the new cabinets do so that they can be planned around it. 
Since it is commercial quality I don't anticipate any problems with boiling
anything.  The slowest (the simmer) burner is something like 15,000 BTUs. 
I think the wok burner is about 24,000.  Ovens are both conventional and
convection.

response 40 of 60:

May 1 13:13 UTC 2002

Have canned on both using both open kettle and pressure.  No problems with
either.

The biggest problem with a gas stove is low temp cooking.  I have what is
known as "waterless" cooking pots.  Bring the pot to temp then turn to lowest
temp possible to finish.  Gas stove can't hold that low a temp without going
out.

response 42 of 60:

Nov 11 23:58 UTC 2002

I just acquired a 7-heat electric stove, meaning you can set it to 7 different
wattages (with a dial numbers Simmer 6 5 4 3 2 High Off), and this is
accomplished by connecting up either of the two coils (inner and outer) or
both, at 115 or 230.  HIgh is both at 230 volts.  This stove heats things up
a lot faster than did my newer one, which uses a different temperature control
method (it cycles on and off - but starts at a cycle instead of constant on).
I don't know why they switched to the newer technology.  It is slower and 7
heats are plenty.  I get a nice range of lows.  The oven has only one element,
which serves a broiler below it, and an oven above it (shielded by a sheet
of metal so you do not need to put a cookie sheet on the bottom rack).  Apart
from burners burning out not much to go wrong - no clocks, or timers, or even
bulbs.  No gasket but since I rarely bake who cares.  It has two more
advantages - a pull-out tray under all the burners so you don't need to stick
your arm inside the stove to clean up spillovers, and front controls so you
can use the back burners without burning yourself on hot pots adjusting the
controls.  Seems like as soon as someone perfects any equipment, everyone
rushes to change it to something less useful and more flashy.

There are also 3-heat and 5-heat burners, the first of which I had on a
hotplate and the second probably on my push-button stoves, and I have a
portable oven with two heats, high and low, achieved by plugging the plug onto
middle-plus-right or middle-plus-left plug.  Nothing to wear out or get stuck.

We found two books, dated 1974 and 1964, explaining how home appliances work.
By 1964 there were already smoothtop ranges and by 1984 microwave ovens.

response 44 of 60:

Nov 12 21:02 UTC 2002

Two of our three 5-heat push-button stoves have three of these 5-heat burners,
and also one infinitely adjustable burner for cases like yours.

I use a stove mainly for bringing pressure cookers to a boil on high and
turning it off, ditto for oatmeal water (add oats, turn off, cover) and for
stir fry I turn it to medium and then down to near simmer.  When do you need
to keep something at a near boil?  My 7-heat works perfectly and has lots of
settings at the low end.  

One of the pushbutton stoves has one burner that is switchable between inner
coil only (6") and both coils (8").  I have never found a use for 3 6"
burners.  My mother's push-button stove also had a 4" setting (3 coils).

Our outlet does not work - Jim will fix it when he replaces the burner, which
may be hard to find.  It is 2-prong (ungrounded) which implies that the 7-heat
dial type stoves predated the 5-heat pushbutton models (3-prong grounded).
Odd that they should replace something good with something less good, but that
is fashion.  8 buttons was probably too much to fit on the back of the stove
easily.  Buttons were all the rage in the sixties - blenders could have 10
of them.  'Just push a button'.  Washing machines had rows of square buttons.
What else had buttons instead of dials?

THe newer washing machines appear to have round buttons instead of dials.

Of our three 6-button burner stoves:

1.  Double oven, large button on top of the backsplash, one burner infinitely
adjustable and 6 or 8", window in one oven and stainless lining, two outlets
of which one is timed (nice when you are plugging in an electric appliance).

2.  24" model with small buttons all on the front.

3.  Stainless rangetop only with small buttons on a stickup panel near the
back between the two pairs of burners.  

All three designs make it less likely you will burn yourself adjusting the
controls while you are cooking on the back burners.  All the new electric
stoves I have seen have controls in back on the vertical surface.

My current receiver has buttons for speaker selection, and tuning, and
tuner-tape-aux-phono.  My older one has buttons for all of these.  Both have
a dial for Volume but it seems to be more fashionable to use buttons for that
too (a lot less convenient in my opinion).

What functions are best done using dials, and what functions with buttons?

response 46 of 60:

Nov 12 22:24 UTC 2002

Yeah, for maintaining a simmer on a stove, having a dial is best.

What really surprises me, keesan, is that you stir-fry on medium.  I like it
as hot as possible, and cook as quickly as possible -- especially for
vegetables.

response 48 of 60:

Nov 13 01:55 UTC 2002

I guess I just steam vegetables with a coating of oil under them.
The newer stoves seem  to all have combination oven-broilers (the electric
ones, anyway).  THe bottom element is used for baking, the top for broiling,
and sometimes both for preheat.  Ovens used to often have them separate for
people who wanted to bake a pie and broil a chicken at the same time.  Now
people have two ovens instead, I guess.  Or a broiler oven.  My mother used
to broil all her meat.  I have never broiled anything - does one broil
vegetables?  Seems sort of wasteful leaving the door open.  Some stoves are
designed so the broiler element won't stay on unless you do that.

The continuous-level stoves do in fact stay on continuously for high.  But
mine heated things up much more slowly than the 7-heat model.  Either it is
lower wattage, or the thicker coil element takes longer to heat.  Jim's
solid-coil (Euro) design is extremely slow.

He was explaining how the infinite-control models work with thermostats in
them that are heated by a special little heater in them to bend the bimetallic
strip so that the burner goes off when its insides reach a certain
temperature.  In the special elements like Scott has, that keep the pot
(rather than the inside of the burner) at a specific temperature, this
thermostat is connected to the pot itself in the little round part that stick
up in the middle and is pushed up bya spring.

I had no idea so much design work goes into ovens.  Some have removable
bottoms, and or sides.  THere are various ways to strenghthen the places that
the racks slide onto in case people try to bake something heavy.  (Not having
baked anything heavier than rice pudding I never thought of the problems of
the turkey crowd).  There are various ways to adjust oven temperature.  One
older gas stove let you adjust flame size but most use thermostats somehow
- how would you cycle on and off an oven in which you had to light the pilot
light every time you used it like we used to have?  THere were long match
holders that helped you stick the match in the hole to light them after you
turned on the gas.  Some electric ovens have different wattages dependending
on whether they are on preheat, bake1 or bake2 (have not seen this type).
Sometimes they have two dials - one for on off bake broil preheat and the
other for temperature.  My little 'new' one has one (no broil - same element
does it all, just put the food under instead of over it).  The model of
simplicity.  Set to 550 and open the door and it is sure to stay on.

The book from 1964 says broilers on the bottom are not good, they make you
bend over.  Poor housewife!  It also says that adults need 15 gal of hot water
a day and children 25 gallons.  I wonder how much they 'need' this year.