For searching out info in the future, it might help to know that "induction tabletop units" are often referred to as "portable induction cookers" which sometimes is abbreviated as "PIC." Now, on your questions about pans, are you looking for a way to heat several pans together on a single induction burner? If so, the caterer's serving pan idea won't work any better than it would if you used it over a small gas burner. Induction heating is not passed by magnetic contact between pans over a PIC --- well, only on such an infinitesimally small scale as to be of no perceptible use in cooking :>). Basically, the strength of induction fields falls off so rapidly that it has no heating effect on pans more than a fraction of an inch above the burner surface. For the same reason, stacking pans won't work either. Further complicating things for you, your PIC may claim to be a 9-10" unit, but the actual induction field on them is only 3.5" to 6" (depending on brand.) Beyond that small field, you have to rely on your pan's mass and conductive abilities to spread and transmit the heat widely. A stainless steel caterer's serving pan is just too thin to function that way. IOW, it won't work like an induction adapter disk (which basically converts the induction heating into a radiant electric surface.) In theory, something thicker might work as an adapter, such as one of Chef King's rectangular, 14" x 23" carbon steel stovetop griddles (about $70 last time I checked). My experience with this kind of thing has been that these can heat other pans but so slowly that they work better on PICs as warming trays rather than for bringing other pots to heat. Frankly, it might be easier to heat up each pan separately on the PIC, then put on the caterer's pan with hot water, and use the PIC to heat the water that will keep the pans warm. If there is a second electrical circuit, you also might consider buying a second PIC. IIRC, there are some Duxtop units which have pretty good reviews and now are priced in the same neighborhood as the Chef King griddle that I mentioned above.

I have an entirely different reaction. I do not see why GE's response should be surprising. The manual for the induction ranges clearly says that minimum pan size for the six-inch burner is 4.75" and the minimum pan size for the two 8 inch burners is 5.75." If they put that in the manual, why should a customer service rep say something different in what will be a public posting on their web-site? And look at it from the perspective of the GE customer service reps. My4thGarden is looking at spending $2900 for a GE Profile slide-in induction range or $2600 for the freestanding one. A decent and serviceable smoothop electric range can be had for half of that from GE or, for that matter, from LG which is the subject of My4thGarden's other thread. No issues with using small pans on those stoves, although there certainly will be waste heat around the edges of the small pans. When someone says that they cannot afford to replace the present battery of small diameter cookware and doesn't want to, it makes a lot of sense to say to them: "why don't you consider a different stove that seems better suited to what and how you like to cook?" Plus, you may buy the induction stove and find that your particular small pans don't work. That leads to hassles with returns and refunds. If you work for a company, would you want to start that process? Now, it may very well be possible to use pans with slightly smaller diameters if they have enough ferrous mass in the base. Induction burners have sensors to identify pan size and ferrous mass -- too little of either and the burner will not activate. Trouble is, there is no way to find out how GE engineers programmed the sensors. All we know is that GE engineers have identified minimum pan sizes that can reasonably be expected to work. GE customer services reps are is not going to tell you, "don't pay any attention to the manual, you can do X____ instead." berner43's post shows that pans with diameters 10% less than minimum specified diameters work, at least on the mid and large burners and assuming that My4thGarden's pans have similar ferrous bases. Timdeb's post shows about the same for the 6-inch burner. If that relationship holds for the smallest diameter burner, as well, then even My4thGarden's 4.25" pans might work on the GE's smallest (6") burner. Or might not. Again, we do not know how GE programmed the sensors for the burner. Maybe the bases of My4thGarden's smallest pans won't have sufficient ferrous material in the base to be recognized. Also , bear in mind that a smaller pan is using smaller amounts of energy. If you cover, say, 70% of the burner, you will be only getting 70% of the power. (That is not exact but it will do for this dicussion.) Depending on what you are cooking in those little pans, that may or may no be considered optimum. If I'm manufacturing and selling stoves, and I'm training customer representatives, m I going to have them telling customers that they should use my stove for less than optimum conditions and then want to deal with warranty complaints from customers who may or may not understand what "less than optimum" means? What if the customer is using pans with "less than optimum" ferrous content and the pans don't work? Do I really want to have my engineers testing every possible line of cookware and then publish advice on less than optimum use? If I have to manage that kind of situation, I will be thinking I don't want that expense or headache. The unfortunate reality is that the only way to know is to run a test with the particular pans on an actual GE induction stove as berner43 and timdeb did. Can't find a GE to test your pans on? Then, it seems to me to make a good deal of sense for GE to recommend options other than induction for My4thGarden. "Buying and trying" is an option, of course, but only if you can buy from a vendor like Costco which has an absolute satisfaction guarantee: "I don't like it" is enough for Costco to take it back after a month or so. No restocking fee, either. Those kinds of guarantees are hard to find these days. The only induction range that Costco sells is the Maytag freestanding range and it only carries them in the online sales department. The Maytag is far less costly than the GE (about $1500, delivered). It has twin 6" burners in front with a 9" and an 11" burner in the back. Maytag/Whirlpool has not published minimum recommended pan sizes but apparently have marked them on the cooktop. My recollection from the one I saw last fall when I was stove shopping was that the six inch burners would take pans down to at least 4.75" and the nine-inch burner would handle a 7" pan. (But that was months ago and the memory is faulty on such details.) Virtually every brand of induction on the market will operate pans slightly smaller than the minimum recommended diameter. (Heck, I recall a post from a year ago where somebody here reported using a 5.5" diamter pan on the 11" burner of a Samsung induction range.) Anyway, the Maytag/Whirlpool burner arrangement, with twin 6" burners in front, seems well suited to My4thGarden's cooking preferences. Of course, there is the apparently lame "Aqualift" oven self-cleaning method which may be an issue. (This issue will not matter if you are somebody who avoids running self-cleaning cycles and, if you do, at least you don't need to worry about the self cleaning cycle toasting the control boards.) I noticed a Maytag on display recently when helping a friend shop for a stove. Might have been our local Lowe's or Home Depot that had one on display and mIght have been the identical Whirlpool model. I live in a very rural state, so maybe one of the big box stores in My4thGarden's area might have one, too. Worth looking at. This post was edited by JWVideo on Thu, May 23, 13 at 16:06

I don't understand all of these people who are saying pan size is not an issue. IT IS AN ISSUE. Perhaps it's not a big deal, but if you exceed the burner diameter by more than 1 inch (1/2 inch on each side) you will suffer heat drop-off. Perhaps most people don't mind it, but it does bother me. Try making a crepe in a 12" pan on a 10" burner. You will have 1 inch all around your crepe that is is not properly cooked compared to the rest. It most definitely IS an issue, but how much you are bothered by it depends on your cooking style and personality. There are definitely drawbacks to induction, and pan size is one of them. The other drawback is if your pan is larger than the burner, you never know where exactly the burner is in relationship to your pan. You develop a sense for it after a while, but the only way is to move the pan around and try to keep it centered. But when you can't see the outer ring of the burner, it's difficult. Induction cooktops also have built-in pan overheat protection sensors. This can inadvertently cause you to have your burner set to maximum yet it barely boils because the cooktop thinks your pan is too hot. It happens to me on my De Dietrich, which is the same manufacturer as Windcrest and Diva. I've already had two units, and they both exhibit the same "problem". Sure you can boil water quickly, but maintaining maximum heat for more than 5-10 minutes is impossible given the protection circuitry. I do love induction for its efficiency and speed, but I miss the flexibility, visibility, and the ability to heat my pan to the melting point with gas. You will have the best induction experience with cast iron, but your arms will hate you. In my experience the All Clad Stainless does not work well with induction. The pans make popping noises, sometimes move around on their own due to the magnetic field causing the pan to vibrate, and don't retain heat very well. The big advantage to gas is that you have a lovely envelope of heat surrounding the pan to keep it hot - from the bottom and along the sides. Induction, on the other hand, only heats the bottom of the pan and you quickly lose heat along the sides. It's a different experience. Not better or worse, just different. In my house I don't have gas, so induction was a good option to give me the same control and speed as gas with an electric cooktop. However, if I had a gas connection at my house I would definitely have a Wolf gas range in my house right now. No question.

Thanks for the reply. You got me curious, since I was under the impression that most of these units had similar sized elements - something in the 6-8" range, with the cheaper ones probably being smaller. I probably should mention that the *bottom* of the pan is actually more like 10.5". So I took the unit apart, and measured the element at 7". I know that there are commercial-grade single-burner units that presumably have larger elements, and that some full cooktops are available with one element larger than the others. I suppose it's possible that this unit is not heating evenly across the entire element - though this seems counterintuitive to me. Any suggestions for specific models with larger elements would be welcome. (I'm going to stick with the single-burner for now, as I'm not ready to install a full cooktop.) Your suggestion of liquid as a diffuser makes sense. In fact, I haven't tried cooking anything that both has a lot of liquid, and takes up the entire width of the pan. My test case has been 11" quesadillas, of which I eat a remarkable number in an average week. But my original issue remains: that is, how to evenly heat a pan of this size on an induction burner? It really seems like I ought to be able to get at least as good performance as my former electric cooktop that had similar sized (open) burners.