FWIW, If you are worried about your cast iron scratching your induction just use a silicone hot pad under the skillit while you are cooking. As long as it is rated at least 500 - 600 deg. IT will work fine to protect your glass from possible scratching from the pans. It will rob a little bit of power but works just fine. I fry with cast iron skillits and it works great!

When I called Salon Blue Ridge about DeDietrich, hoping to find zoneless, they told me they only sold a couple of basic models, though direct import from Europe is possible. But that wouldn't help the ridge/lip thing. It is possible to get hot spots on induction, even though it's possible to warm up all of a pan that is highly compatible (i.e., lots of iron). Some of it is going to be trial and error to find what temperatures work for you and how they affect your particular pans. Some people have some success using an oblong grill/griddle with a shallow lip on induction. This may depend on the sensitivity of the unit. Some units specifically say they will work up to 1/4" above the surface. The question is really whether the pot detector will detect your griddle pan. Round, single sided, griddles and grill pans are made for use on induction to take advantage of 11" elements.

Thanks for the info, Amcook. I was "taught" by Asian (as in from Japan and Honk Kong) home cooks who use big chopsticks with their woks. I didn't mean to imply that there aren't other valid ways. Only that that was the only way I know, and I'm not fast or accurate enough to do it properly. The metal has a taste remark was to Weisman, who said one needed chopsticks to eat the food. I found myself thinking that they do make a difference in the taste, which, at least for me, comes down to metal or plastic, both of which I can taste when I use such forks, and the polished surface of good chopsticks, which I guess also has a taste, now that I think of it, but it's "right" with Asian food. Not saying I've never used a fork on leftover takeout. Just agreeing about the flavor. And yes, stainless steel has a taste, but it doesn't come off on stuff. It's the fork itself that has the taste. I think anyone who is a very good wok cook would be happier in moving to induction with a bowl shaped specialty burner, which works well with your hand hammered wok. I looked at the stainless specialty induction woks, like Demeyere, and the Gaggenau unit/wok, and they looked all wrong to me. The Le Creuset just said it wanted to live it my house with all my other Le Creuset. There are very few flat outside, round inside cast iron woks. This one seems to work pretty well on the induction. The only issue would be the power, because the diameter of the bottom isn't big enough to trigger the outer ring. It should work okay on my front 2.2KW ring (about 15k BTU), though, which should give it a faster recovery time. The important part is that it certainly gets hot enough for stir fry, even on the 1.8. The outer ring boosts to 4.4KW, which is more than 30,000 BTU, but there isn't a round bottomed wok which has a big enough contact radius to take advantage of the 20,000 BTU large element, or the 30,000 BTU boost, but for normal portions, it shouldn't be necessary. This is something for people to consider when they're looking at total power on a flat surfaced induction unit. To me, the shape of the interior of a wok is the whole point. Other people are happy making a stir fry in one of those wok/frying pan hybrids, or just a skillet, which would be big enough to take advantage of the maximum power. And it made very nice, American style fritters.

To second what laat said, there was a discussion of cracked cast-iron last summer with a recommendation of ramping-up induction when pre-heating cast iron grills, griddles and pans. Link is below. Same thing might also be said, btw, for putting cold cast iron pots over gas burners and in fireplaces, too. OTOH, I've never heard or seen anything about having to ramp-up high heat with other cookware on induction stoves. I've never had any problem going to max heat with stainless stockpot full of liquid. For other kinds of cooking, I don't feel the need to run max-heat and then turn down as some people like to do. I've pretty much always picked my intended heat setting and just used that with induction. For me, it is a practical matter rather than a "thou shalt not" kind of thing. For me, the pans seem to heat up plenty fast enough on induction without my needing to mash the throttle to the floor and burn the tires in a launch from a standing start. mmhmmgood Your question about whether your situation was freakishly bad luck and unlikely to repeat or if getting another KA would be endlessly repeating the thing known to fail? No, it was not freakish bad luck but odds are pretty good that you won't get another cooktop that suffers from infant mortality. You are playing the odds rather than, as Einstein put it, insanely repeating actions known to be useless failures. I say your experiencing the defect and endlessly delayed and poor warranty service was not freakish. First, there are frequent reports and irate complaints about outsourced warranty being absurdly slow and lacking competence. It is a pervasive problem these days for pretty much all brands of appliances. The chances of that happening again are, unfortunately, significant. I can only suggest trying to research service providers in your area and seeing if you can get a different (and better rated) company if something else happens. Second, what happend to you was not freakish because KA has had a higher defect rate that many other brands of electrical stoves and cooktops. According to what I recall from the recent annual surveys of members of Consumer Reports, KitchenAid electric stoves running something like a 15% defect rate, That is about double the rates for GE and, strangely enough, Whirlpool branded electric stoves. (I say "strangely" because Whirlpool owns KA and a lot of the appliances come out of the same productions lines). Some of the high defect rate for KA was undoubtedly from the problems with KA's self-cleaning ovens frying over-temp breakers and circuit boards. IIRC, the KA cooktops ran a lower rate of defects, around 8%, which is only marginally higher than for other major brands (which ran about 6% or 7%). If the rate for induction cooktops is the same as for other KA electric cooktops, then roughly 1 in 12 owners have serious problems but the other 92% do not. Chances are pretty good that a new KA cooktop will be fine for you for the next few years. Of course, statistics like this are of no comfort when you are the one who gets whacked with a double whammy. But,, what do really have to lose --- that you would not be losing anyway --- if you are unlucky enough to get a second frail unit? Since, you were happy with the KA unit when it worked, and really want another induction unit without shelling out for an upgrade to a new unit, I say the odds are in your favor. Get the replacement and let us know things work out. Here is a link that might be useful: crackedcast iron griddle on induction This post was edited by JWVideo on Sat, Sep 14, 13 at 14:44