On 7/4/2010 11:53 AM, George Shirley wrote:
> On 7/4/2010 12:08 PM, dsi1 wrote:
>> On 7/4/2010 5:40 AM, spamtrap1888 wrote:
>>> On Jul 4, 2:27 am, > wrote:
>>>> On 7/3/2010 9:23 AM, sf wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> On Sat, 03 Jul 2010 08:53:26 -1000, > wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> High power burners are great. I always cook on high. :-) The kids say
>>>>>> they have an induction range in some warehouse with their name on it.
>>>>
>>>>> Now you and Jean can swap ideas.
>>>>
>>>>>> I don't like the idea of being restricted as to choice of pans I
>>>>>> can use
>>>>>> but will try this new fangled range if they install it.
>>>>
>>>>> But this means you can get *new* pots& pans... which is a good thing
>>>>> after you've invested in pots& pans that refuse to die (thirty years
>>>>> is long enough in my book) and you want a change.
>>>>
>>>>>> I grew up cooking with a gas kitchen. Looking at my dad's kitchen
>>>>>> now as
>>>>>> an adult, the burners seem really weak and not suitable at all for
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> way I cook. I remember the kitchen as being a hot place.
>>>>
>>>>> If it's the same stove as when you were a kid, it's less powerful
>>>>> because it's OLD and wearing out.... just like people do. You and
>>>>> your dad aren't the same as you were 30-40 years ago either.
>>>>
>>>> Gas stoves don't get weak during their service life - the stove had
>>>> this
>>>> weak output by design - just as the output on your stove is set by
>>>> design. I use to clean the burners every once in a while and there's
>>>> nothing to wear out and I never saw any build-up of gas residue.
>>>>
>>>
>>> The typical consumer stove gas burner (9100 BTU/hr) puts out as much
>>> heat as a "high power" electric stove coil (2600 Watts).. If you cook
>>> your food with a blowtorch, you may need more BTU, but I find regular
>>> burners get hot enough to burn food if I'm not paying attention.
>>
>> This was an old Caloric unit from the early 60s. I'm pretty sure that
>> the thing was not a blowtorch and I was pretty happy with the electric
>> stoves that I had after I moved out of my parent's house. My assumption
>> is that newer units put out more heat - the one my parents had would be
>> unacceptable to me these days.
>
> My gas stove is about five years old now, has five burners ranging in
> Btu output from 5,000 to 16,000. I can bring a big boiling water canner
> to a rolling boil in about ten minutes, that's about five gallons of
> water. Plus it has a self-cleaning oven that gets upward of 7-800F when
> it's really cooking the gunk off the walls.
>
> The output of a gas stove depends upon the size of the aperture feeding
> the burner and the size of the burner. The new stoves are very good as
> long as you remember which burner puts out the best heat for what you're
> cooking.

I have no doubt that modern ranges have a higher output. This is
reasonable - back in the 50s - 60s, high temperature frying wasn't the
style like it is these days.