Yeah, I hear people say this all the time. And maybe before I actually was forced to use electric for a year or two, I also would’ve said the same. But no, I would never go back at this point. The electric experience is plain better. Literally the only downside is you have to use the broiler to char a pepper or warm a tortilla rather than doing it directly on the fire, and that’s hardly a sacrifice – the broiler does a better job evenly charring stuff anyway.
Highly encourage you to try a dedicated induction wok burner appliance. The type with a concave base. They’re wildly more popular in wok-loving parts of the world for home cooking over gas for good reason.
You aren’t getting wok hei with a gas range, period. They also simply cannot get the wok hot enough, and they distribute the heat in a crown midway up the pan instead of in the bottom where it belongs. Using a wok on a traditional gas range is just an over-complicated saute pan. And I agree, no typical electric range can do it either. Nothing gets a pan hotter than induction, but a typical induction range doesn’t interface properly with a wok to make it happen. Only a dedicated wok cooker does the job. That means either one of those insane commercial jet engine 120k BTU cookers like they have in the serious wok restaurants, a backyard stovepipe-style coal wok cooker, or a dedicated wok appliance.
Better, they aren’t that expensive. If you really enjoy using a wok, one of them will change your life. They actually apply the heat the correct way: extreme heat concentrated in the bottom of the pan.
So the truth is, it’s not even a gas range you care about. It’s a completely different specialty appliance. Which kind of goes back to my point that electric ranges are flat better than gas ranges – you, a self-avowed gas-lover, still needed to design a custom appliance to cook the way you wanted to because your gas range couldn’t do it.
And that’s the short of it. Electric ranges are hugely easier to clean, have better temperature stability, heat pans hotter and do it faster, and don’t heat the room or fuck with air quality. And that’s not even getting into the unequivocal superiority of electric ovens over gas ones.
Still, you should try an induction wok hob if you get the chance. Sounds a lot safer than your solution.
Yeah, I hear people say this all the time. And maybe before I actually was forced to use electric for a year or two, I also would’ve said the same. But no, I would never go back at this point. The electric experience is plain better. Literally the only downside is you have to use the broiler to char a pepper or warm a tortilla rather than doing it directly on the fire, and that’s hardly a sacrifice – the broiler does a better job evenly charring stuff anyway.
Highly encourage you to try a dedicated induction wok burner appliance. The type with a concave base. They’re wildly more popular in wok-loving parts of the world for home cooking over gas for good reason.
You aren’t getting wok hei with a gas range, period. They also simply cannot get the wok hot enough, and they distribute the heat in a crown midway up the pan instead of in the bottom where it belongs. Using a wok on a traditional gas range is just an over-complicated saute pan. And I agree, no typical electric range can do it either. Nothing gets a pan hotter than induction, but a typical induction range doesn’t interface properly with a wok to make it happen. Only a dedicated wok cooker does the job. That means either one of those insane commercial jet engine 120k BTU cookers like they have in the serious wok restaurants, a backyard stovepipe-style coal wok cooker, or a dedicated wok appliance.
Better, they aren’t that expensive. If you really enjoy using a wok, one of them will change your life. They actually apply the heat the correct way: extreme heat concentrated in the bottom of the pan.
I just modified my forge burner to use it.
Hot enough to weld steel is more than hot enough to make a good stir fry.
Annoying when it rains though
So the truth is, it’s not even a gas range you care about. It’s a completely different specialty appliance. Which kind of goes back to my point that electric ranges are flat better than gas ranges – you, a self-avowed gas-lover, still needed to design a custom appliance to cook the way you wanted to because your gas range couldn’t do it.
And that’s the short of it. Electric ranges are hugely easier to clean, have better temperature stability, heat pans hotter and do it faster, and don’t heat the room or fuck with air quality. And that’s not even getting into the unequivocal superiority of electric ovens over gas ones.
Still, you should try an induction wok hob if you get the chance. Sounds a lot safer than your solution.
I don’t have a gas stove friend, I rent.
I had no option but to rig one up. lol
I still disagree with you about gas stoves, I much prefer them and their instant response.
I might just not have had a good electric range yet.
I do have an induction hot plate though and it is infinitely better than my 220v stove, other than needing special pans.
At the end of the day, what I care about most is not telling people what they have to do though.
Edit: there to their