Venting is the same--if you're wok cooking, make it good!

You'll need to get used to a flat-bottomed wok (maybe you already have one for your current cooktop?) but otherwise, induction works pretty well for wokking.

The good news is that most traditional woks (either carbon steel or cast iron) are ferromagnetic so they the material is good for induction. The main problem with using a wok on induction is curved vs flat surface. If you are a serious wok cook, I'd expect you want the inside surface of the wok to be curved. Most typical woks are of course curved on the outside as well as the inside so the "contact" point with your induction hob will be very small. It's possible that the "smarts" of the burner will shut it down because it thinks you don't have a pan on it or the pan you're using is too small for the burner. Thus, you'll have to get use to a normal flat bottom wok or a special wok (typically cast iron) wok with a flat exterior surface but a round interior. These tend to be much pricier than standard ones.

If you're building your kitchen from scratch, you can consider a wok induction hob which has a concave surface for the wok to rest in. Then you can use your favorite standard hand hammered or pressed wok. Obviously, you'd have to work this into your overall design and it's not cheap. They run from about $1500 to over $3000 for the wok unit. If I ever go induction, I'd get one of these plus a 24" or 30" standard induction unit to replace my current 36" gas cooktop.

Here is a link that might be useful: example of an induction hob for woks

We have a Gaggenau single hob induction cooktop. Gaggenau sells a wok stand accessory with curved bottom wok, but we skipped that in favor of a cast iron flat bottomed wok that works great. We chose a flat cooktop rather than curved so we could use it for all kinds of pots & pans, not just a wok. Our Gagg induction is capable of much more power (the equivalent of 32,000 BTUs) than our pro-style DCS range burner (17,500 BTUs).

There are also a few woks out there that are flat on the outside and curved on the inside.

One big difference is the lifting and shaking. If you lift the wok more than about a quarter inch from the induction you're not getting any heating. A quarter inch or so should be enough to shake the contents, but it's a different motion than the more traditional tossing. Over an open fire, lifting adjusts the temperature as well as flipping the contents. This doesn't happen on induction, though it'll stop a boil or smoking oil if you have an emergency situation. Just not great for cooking method. Be aware that some units will turn off almost instantly if you remove the pan, whereas others will give you three seconds or even longer. Almost all have pan detectors, however, and stop when there's no pan.

Reports here have said that a standard wok stand won't work with a regular wok because of the contact issues. There's another one as well, which is the amount of wok area that's in contact. Most units require at least 4" in diameter to be within that quarter inch. The flat outside, round inside pans have a small but good sized base for that contact. These are heavier pans, however. Cast iron or heavy stainless. I haven't seen a carbon steel one like that.

Another alternative is the Demeyere induction wok. It's clad stainless, with a round bottom, but three ball feet which I think are to give the inductor something to react with. They look like the feet on the Gaggenau's wok ring.

I use the cooktek induction wok hob with the Kuppersbusch wok. It's fantastic. The cooktek wok is thin, flimsy, with exposed rivets. The Kuppersbusch wok is made in Germany by Spring. I purchased the larger wok and it fits perfectly.

jylu:

If I don't like the performance of the Cooktek wok when I finally get to use it, I may need to know more details about the Kuppersbusch/Spring wok. Woks didn't leap out at me when I visited the Kuppersbusch's web site, and Spring seems to make a few models. Can you provide a part number or link?

Thanks

kas

If you go to the Kuppersbusch induction cooktop section, select the induction wok. Go to the red "Product Details" tab and you will see all the woks at the page bottom. ACC 760 and ACC 762 (9 and 5 L, resp.) They also make a nonstick. Order through a dealer after that.

One of the flaws in the induction technology (to date) has been wok cooking. Of course, wok coooking on a gas cooktop is nothing to write home about either. To properly perform wok cooking on a gas burner you need at least 30,000 BTU's--and preferably 60,000, otherwise you end up doing mostly high heat steaming, unless you just cook very small quantities.

I have used my DIVA DPP-5 induction cooktop under very high heat--about 30,000 + BTU's for stir frying, but you can't use the roundish bottom of a true wok to do this properly, as inuction requires constant contact with the cooking surface. This leads me to another minor flaw with induction cooking, which is that you can't take a pan and shake it around above the surface (as you can with a gas burner and still get some heat).

What I generally do when wok cooking is use the gas burner I have out on my deck, a 60,000 BTU unit that is attached to a very expensive Kalamazoo gas grill. The advantage of this is I now have the proper heat and I don't get any splattering indoors or other issues I don't want in my house.

I know a couple of people that have really gilded the lily and installed a 60,000 BTU hob next to their gas or induction cooktop. But not many people want the extra expense or to relinquish the extra counter space to this extra hob. This also means you'd have to get a wider and more powerful venting fan.

Greg

Greg,

Good points. I do think a lot of the enthusiasm in Asia for wok cooking on induction is for the bowl shaped induction units and also for making small quantities of food (for famllies of four or five at most, often for two or three). Also, there's a difference between what people want for ordinary home cookery, and what they want for fancy cuisine. It may be that for daily meals they're happy enough with what you're calling high heat steaming.

Does everyone in Asia actually have 30,000 BTU? jeepers. That explains Beijing's smog problem.

Hi Jylu! What type of venting do you use with your Kuppersbusch induction cooktop? Is it on an island or set against a wall? Thanks in advance!

>>Does everyone in Asia actually have 30,000 BTU? >>
Actually, home cooks are often using LP or butane with about 10K BTU. It's one of those misunderstandings about Asian cuisine that everybody woks, when in reality the vast majority of Asian cuisine, regardless of country, is not stir-fried.

All you need to do is think about the idea of traditional cooking using wood fires (Asia has almost completely denuded its landscape of forests in the same way Europeans and Americans have), scavenging kindling (not to mention hauling clean water every day) to realize that nobody made great big roaring fires for stir-frying three meals a day, in every single household.

Also, recipes were deliberately salty so that people would eat a lot of rice and very little of the meat dish. So you didn't make large quantities of stir-fried beef/pork/chicken, anyway. You made large quantities of salty, flavorful gravy which tasted good with two or three bowlfuls of rice!

Ask an Asian what their favorite home-cooked meal was and quite often it's a steamed or casserole dish - and an induction with its quick heat/low simmer would make a fabulous Crystal Chicken or Five Spiced Beef. My Hong-Kong born MIL's favorite dish is Oxtails Stewed in Claypot, for example.

Sure, lots of Chinese cooking is done without high heat wok cooking. Most is done with low to medium heat cooking inside a wok, but these dishes aren't the classics most people are familiar with in the local Chinese restaurants and take-out places. There you will find large woks over enormous gas jets with BTU's of between 60,000 to 120,000 BTU's.

Greg

What is Crystal Chicken? I once had a carbon steel wok that I used on my old flat top electric stove. The burner tended to cycle on and off when I was using it. Eventually, it rusted and I just chucked it. Plus, even though it was a "flat bottomed" wok -- it eventually warped and rocked on the burner.

Frankly, I find very little difference in the final product (stir fry) if it's done in a saute pan or a wok.

This was one of the two pans that we had to buy when we switched to induction. After much research including a clip from America cooks on stir frying, we decided to stick with our saute pan which has a larger flat space to work with. And I guess that I should be calling this cooking style... stir fry/steam then instead!

I am thinking of getting the new 36" Thermador which has the largest (13" diameter) and the most powerful (4,600 watts) round burner on the market. The 4,600 watts is almost equal to 45,000- 50,000 BTU's, which is certainly far more than any residential or commercial gas rangetop, except for those commercial gas burners in Chinese wok cooking restaurants.

Greg

We have done several stir fry/steams in our saute pan. Last night I had the pan up so high that the sauces were browning the bottom of the pan. And I still had a three more buttons higher that I could have been using. It does take a few minutes to pre-heat the pan to have it be sizzle temperature for that first batch, but after that it goes very fast.

Highly recommend that you have everything ready to go before you start stirring!