I also have the Max Burton 1800 watt portable. It came the day I moved back into my kitchen but I finally used it a few days ago and like it very much. Thinking about buying a couple more instead of wishing I had the full sized range @ $3,000! Micro, toaster oven, crock pot, and old style electric hot plate was more than adequet for the remodel cooking. On the other hand, my electric stove was available under the construction dust 99% of the time. My carpenter left it on rollers so all I had to do was roll it in and out of the space as we worked but I rarely used it. My remodel only took a month so the cooking issue wasn't the problem it might have been over a longer period of time.

My "Fire Breathing Dragon" outdoor DCS open burner gas cooktop can't begin to keep up with a race to boil water, even compared to the smallest hob on my Elux Icon Induction Cooktop. As pillog mentions. "Power doesn't tell the whole story"! First the efficiency of gas is less than half of induction, (the portion of the energy that actually ends up in the pot/pan). Most souces quote gas at a little less that 40%, (Typically 38%) whilst souces quote induction efficiency at over 80%, (as I recall). From experience, I can tell you, that when some idiot hit a power pole and and I had to use that "Dragon" outside, I thought the water was never gonna get hot for my coffee! I fell asleep, (Smack Dab in the middle of the back yard)~~~~waiting~~~~~~and waiting~~~~~for my morning coffee!!! Gary

judo_and_peppers -- Assuming that the "different part of the kitchen" has 208/240v outlets, a pair of 2500 watt induction burners (standard, single phase 240v) would work very well. They would be about 25% faster at boiling the water-bath kettle than the big coil burner and would give you more even heating across the base of your sauce-cooking pans (which I'm assuming are probably 10" diameter 8-to-12 qt. stockpots). Also will give you a lot more flexibility in arranging your workspace and much easier to clean (and keep clean) than the top and burner wells of a coil burner stove. That Caso portable induction that you linked to --- well, it is probably too wimpy for your production work. Its effective power for waterbath canning will like be about 60% - 70% of an 8" diameter burner on a coil-burner stove. If you went for a higher-powered 120v unit (say, an 1800 watt Max Burton), you'd be closer to the effective power of a coil burner, but still slower. Also, almost all of the residential/portable induction burners have induction coils of 7" diameter or less, which is slightly smaller in diameter than the standard large coil burners (normally 8" in diameter.) Might or might not be an issue when cooking your sauce. (Do realize that comparing wattage ratings for coil burners and induction hobs is more than simply looking at the wattage ratings. The rule of thumb is that starts with the U.S. DOE ratings for efficiency in how much of the burner's energy goes into a pot. DOE says it is about 85% for induction burners and 60% to 70% for coil burners. Mutliply those factors by the rated burner wattage and you'll get some numbers for a rough comparison. Thus, in theory you get 1750 watts going into a pot on an 8" 2500-watt coil burner and 1275 from that Caso 1500 watt induction burner. In contrast, a 2500 watt induction burner will yield 2125 watts. Again, this is just a rule of thumb, but it may help think through what you want to do.) Following up on what hollysprings said about restaurant units, some commercial/restaurant induction equipment uses standard 120v, some models use standard (single phase) 208/240v, some use 3-phase 240v, and some use 3 phase 400v. The 3-phase equipment is massive --- 8000 watt stock-pot ranges for 20 gallon pots, rangetops with six 3500 watt burners, etc. For anybody who might be interested, check out the Cooktek product page on the Dvorson's web site and see the whole gamut of products. The link is below. For what judo_and_peppers wants to do, however, the monster three-phase units are way beyond overkill, but the 2500 watt units would be very serviceable. There are significantly less expensive units, too. First, Consider that a good coil burner range can be had for about $500 --- much less if you buy a used one --- although it would be worth spending another $70 to upgrade the 8" burners to canning elements (much beefier supports for handling big kettles). The least expensive, 2500-watt semi-pro portable induction burners that I know anything about are Eurodib (found at Katom.com) and Sunpentown (at AJ MAdison) which run around $400 each. They are NSF rated and so are acceptable for use in commercial kitchens. The potential concern with these units is that they are not really designed to be serviced if anything wears out or breaks, and may not be up to the wear and tear of production cooking the NSF rating, notwithstanding. However, I've read of people using them in commercial settings. There was a recent posting on Chowhound discussing the Eurodib units being used in a chocolate business by the poster's son. (IIRC, the poster's screen name was Swissair if you want to search for it.) Sunpentown has been around for a relatively long time and Chowhound has postings going back the better part of a decade. (Also, maybe egullet.com "Kitchen Consumer" forum might have info on them, as well.) Fully commercial-rated, 2500-watt induction burners from the recognized commercial brands (Cooktek, Garland, Vollrath) will run about $1k per burner. I am only familiar with the Cooktek units, having used one for a while a decade or so ago. Very durable, very precise. Made in Chicago and built to allow service and repair (which is available via mail-in), the Cooktek units likely will hold up better with pots even larger than water-bath canning kettles. IIRC, the induction coils were something like 9 inches in diameter, so well-suited to larger stockpots for making the hot sauce if heating the bases evenly matters. There are two lines: "Heritage" ($$ with 25 heat settings or temperature settings and a rotary knob control interface) and "Apogee" ($$$ with 100 steps or temps and all touchpad interface). I believe www.Websterauntstore.com carries a brand called Avantco which has a 2500 watt unit for something like $180. I know nothing about this brand or the unit. Might we worth checking into. Here is a link that might be useful: examples of commercial induction This post was edited by JWVideo on Mon, Aug 11, 14 at 18:49

I have a NKW 10" portable induction burner from Amazon for about 55.00. I also bought a Cook's clad covered 12" saute pan for about 52.00 on Amazon so I could test this out. I plan to get the Cook set they sell on Costco now that I have seen this one saute pan in action. So far so good. One tip I have learned is to take care of your pots so they don't warp. You want your pans to be flat on these induction. So don't use high heat since this may warp your pans. Don't plunge a hot pan into cooler water since this will also warp the pan and even the cast iron ones. I won't be buying a bigger stove. I have been burned too many times by the big box store brand names for reasonably priced units. I can't afford to spent thousands on a stove either. I think this portable induction plate approach is a fine idea. I am surprised more aren't doing it. I was surprised such a thing existed and wondered why I hadn't hear of these before. With these inexpensive portables I am not so worried about using my cast iron pans since if they get too scratched I can replace them but honestly since I will be storing them in a drawer I really don't care if they have scratches. With a bigger expensive unit I would be extremely worried about ruining the top and I would end up spending at least 1,300.00 on one and to replace it would be awful on my budget. Where as I could replace a portable many times over before I reached 1,300.00 again. I also have been burned too many times by big brands and don't feel it is worth the investment to sink so much money into them anymore. I also ordered a Wolf counter top oven which I have heard great things about. I will probably ditch my older microwave. We are building our cabinets for our kitchen and I am stuck with one aspect of it. I intend to store my NKW, two of them in a top drawer. This way I will have more counter space to use for other things for my smaller kitchen. Also while we remodel the kitchen I can plug my counter top oven and induction plate(s) into any wall socket which will make things less of a hassle. I now can build more cabinet drawers instead of housing a big stovetop/oven. But I also need a better approach for exhausting smoke etc for the induction plate. My husband is 6' 4" ends up hitting his head on our Broan Allure kitchen exhaust fan. I would like to ditch this fan and put cabinets there and have a slide out exhaust fan or some other alternative. I found this study on basic common kitchen fans enlightening since they never extend far enough out to really capture all the harmful fumes from cooking oils etc. http://eetd.lbl.gov/sites/all/files/publications/lbnl-5545e.pdf There aren't that many slide out exhaust fans and not that many reviews and they are expensive for what you are getting at about 700.00 for a Bosch 30" fan. Maybe that explains why there are not that many reviews for them. Not sure they work that well either and local places don't display them. I am wondering if others who have made the switch to portable induction cooktops and have figured out a way to vent these without using the typical kitchen hood approach. Maybe install a cabinet fan insert box in a upper drawer to pull out over the portable cooktop since I typically cook in the area of where a front burner would sit and most fans have lights in the front and don't do a good job of grabbing the smoke fumes from the front burners per the study above. It is too bad these are not tested and rated better. One of my grandmothers had a large metal through wall vent above her stove and I wondered if this might be a way around it. Place it between the bottom of the cabinets and the counter top in the area you will use the portable cooktop. Maybe have a pull out of some sort on the bottom of the upper cabinet to prevent the smoke from rising too fast which will give the wall fan a chance to pull it outside. My kitchen is open to my living room and I really like the idea of a more modern look in a kitchen with less clutter and have the kitchen set up to be more flexible with regards to counter space.