Openzone induction

Aruffell · 25 Apr 2017 at 20:42

always wanted an induction hob to suit my lovely WMF pans but have a few questions.

Are all frying pans suitable? I've got some vogue pans and I'm on the understanding that they should be fine on induction?

The other thing is is that a few years back I saw an open zone induction hob from Gaggenau and thought it was amazing that you could move the pan anywhere and it would find it and carry on heating on. It's also £4000 from what I can see which I'm not prepared to pay so does anyone else do anything cheaper?

I've seen that neff and Miele have flex zones but these aren't true free open zone from what I've seen.

Thanks in advanced,

Andy

SoliD · 26 Apr 2017 at 20:59

Stick a magnet on the pans to test them.

Can't help with the flex zone stuff sorry.

Martynt74 · 27 Apr 2017 at 11:18

NO, you need to look for pans with the little squiggly line to denote they're suitable for induction.

robj20 · 28 Apr 2017 at 07:16

Not all pans will have the symbol. Best use a magnet like SoliD says. For instance an ancient cast iron pan wont have the symbol but will work.

jpaul · 28 Apr 2017 at 08:09

I have not looked - but is there a good reference on appropriate pans (sounds as though it could be a serious eats endeavor)
Since I guess it is a compromise, you want copper/aluminium for conduction and avoiding heat spots from the induction rings, but you need
ferrous material for the induction to work, and that is heavy(neighbour cracked a hob), and creates heat capacity in the pan so the delicate control is lost
(stopping a boiling pan of milk)

Quite like some of the hybrid gas/induction hobs now (the only innovation ?) so that you could keep wok/griddle capability and also benfit from induction
(extensive earlier oc thread on induction too)

Participant · 29 Apr 2017 at 07:20

We just replaced the very few pans we had that didn't work with our induction hob. You can however buy adapters for not very much that sit between the pan and the hob.

Ours is Siemens and I'm sure they had an open zone one, though we didn't go for it cause it was significantly more expensive and seemed to somehow have less usable area for some reason.