I bought a Max Burton Induction unit from Amazon to use during my kitchen renovation. It came the day I moved back in. But it's now on the counter next to my new gas range. I like it a lot. My 1963 West Bend cookware all works. I'm happy enough with it that rather than keep drooling over the $3,000 slide in, if I think I have to have more, I will order one or more of the portables. Too bad the center landing space on my range isn't a bit wider. I could set the Max Burton right on the stove! I think mine is 1800 watt. The most watts I could get at the time.

How the heat is ultimately distributed will depend on the thermal conductivity of the pan bottom. A sufficiently thick bottom of copper or aluminum (normally hidden in induction capable cookware) should spread the heat. The only caution for pans significantly larger than the outer ring mark is to avoid having the pan overlap any electronics, such as the controls. These aren't designed for high temperatures. kas

Thanks for the several useful comments on this. Unfortunately I have been canning so long that I am still using my old-style (40+ years old) aluminum canners that require constant watching and heat adjustment (pressure gauge with hissy/vent models, not really "jiggle" like the modern ones, I misspoke in my first post) during processing to maintain correct pressure throughout the cycle. These are, even with gas, a royal pain and I have been thinking about replacing them. My modern pressure pans that are in effect self-stabilizing as far as pressure -they are true "jigglers" - are much easier to use. The main thing keeping me from replacing all the old pressure canners is financial inertia and reluctance to abandon these huge kettles which still technically work just fine. (I use them not only for pressure but also BWB with the lids off and many, many jars stacked up inside.) I fuss about this every year during the canning season, then, of course, it fades away afterward. I should just bite the bullet, I suppose. My worry about the heat plate set-up is that it would be like trying to run them on an electric coil: not feasible (or at least extremely frustrating and lead to poor quality control) because of the residual heat in the coil (in this case heat plate) itself. And unlike smaller pots there's no moving aside a canner packed with 3 or 4 dozen jars of food to the side to try and temper the heat. Working outside does sound appealing, but I would be a little reluctant to do so because I really like having my kitchen set up for canning with ready access to water, etc. If I set up an indoor canning room in an outbuilding, that would be ideal and I have seen some people with that setup and admired it. I often prep/process batches of food in the evening or at night and working outdoors would draw a lot of flying critters to the lights. I am fiercely obssessive about sanitation during prep so it would stress me out in the open air, I think. I do plan to have an outside exit from my kitchen to a small porch ... I am just now thinking maybe it should be a screened small porch that could be set up for canning during the main rush of the season. I'd have water close at hand in the kitch. Hmmmmmm The timing/safety issue comes to play if it takes takes too long, or too conversely it happens too quickly, to get to pressure. At extremes of either end you have issues of safety and to some degree food quality (very long time to get to pressure). This is one of the reasons that using a regular pressure pan (especially a smaller one) is not advisable for pressure canning. This is slightly OT, but have I read here a method for converting older style canners to more easier use by switching to a different weighted gauge? Maybe I am confusing this with something else? I appreciate the time you have taken to write your comments; it's very helpful to me. Canning, especially pressure canning, is foreign to a lot folks and they haven't got any idea how and why it is different from regular cooking. L

I have the Max Burton single burner unit--bought it a year and a half ago from an Internet supplier. Saw an episode of the PBS cooking show that tries out experiments; they recommended it as being best for the money. Have no idea what is on market now. I wouldn't worry about hot spots. It worked just fine, even with a couple stainless steel pans that are 18/8 quality (not recommended in manual, I think it has less iron in it). I did a lot of warming up of dishwashing water--very fast in a big old enamel stockpot. Faster than the gas burner in the camper. Also works with cast iron. Haven't found a conversion plate (described above) but would like to try one. I think someone made a posting about putting a cast iron fry pan or handled griddle on the burner and putting a nonferrous pan onto that and it heated the inner pan. Haven't tried this myself yet. Just remember that when a pan is really hot, it can melt plastics, including the housing on the unit itself. I have one ugly melted spot on lip of housing. But we've enjoyed the unit and now use it as an auxiliary for the range, when we need more burners or need to separate cooks. Because our GE glass cooktop range cautions against making sugar things because hot sugar can erode the hot cooktop, we've used the induction burner atop the range for jelly, etc. Yes, it would be good to use it outside on deck to boil water for corn on cob, etc. I wouldn't call these uses "non-serious" cooking. I sometimes use it for boiling teakettle but new range is better boiler than old one so I haven't used induction for tea for quite a while. Yes, don't put it on a circuit with any other big power users--coffee pots, microwaves, irons. We used it in camper trailer during renovation time and I did a lot of hiking into the house to restore power after forgetting and running two heat-generating items simultaneously despite single orange power cord to the camper. One caution: the power cord is not flimsy but big and husky; we now keep the unit in a shallow drawer and there is little room for anything else in the drawer because the cord takes up big loopy space; cannot detach it either. The fan turns itself off when the face is cool enough, even if you turned unit off much earlier. Fan is quiet enough for me to hear radio while it is running, but it is an extra sound in the room. Unit turns on at medium setting; you beep it higher or lower from there. It's really neat to see the burner instantly change colors when you beep the buttons to a lower number. If I recall correctly it will detect when a pan boils dry and turns itself off. Never actually tried this so can't verify. -- Based on my experience with the Max Burton single burner unit, I decided to go looking for an induction range; couldn't find a moderately priced white one, darn!