not Chinese, but I cook a lot with a wok. I also have a single induction cooktop and surprisingly, the wok has enough iron to work with it while some old cheap conventional cookware did not. However, wok cooking needs to be hot all over the wok and not just in that little point where the wok is close enough to the induction coil.
I have a conventional propane stove which I need to keep, because here in Puerto Rico the power system is quite unreliable (especially during a bad hurricane year). But the conventional stove burners are not really hot enough. With a 1/16 - inch drill bit I could increase one of the burners capacity substantially. I painted the stove knob red so people have some warning when they light that burner! It burns more gas, but wok cooking is really fast, so in the long run it is probably more efficient than lots of other cooking approaches.
I would definitely consider a wok-shaped induction heater. Induction heating is quite remarkable.
Thanks for the feedback. That’s my situation in South East Asia, power can be unreliable at time. I cook with a gas stove and have a portable electric stove as a backup if I run out of gas in the middle of my cooking.
I used to cook with a high pressure stove (the ones you see in Chinese restaurant) that are perfect for woks but my wife was afraid I would burn down the house so I switched to a regular gas stove.
Induction could be an option in the future though, if it allows for that fast heating/cooling style of cooking I use.
In the US, stove burners are rated in the confusing units of “BTUs” which is actually a unit of energy, not power. When they say BTU, they mean BTU/hour. The highest-rated burners on a typical stove are about 10,000 Btu (per hour), but high-end stoves can get up to about 18000 - that is equivalent to about 5000 watts. My single-element induction top is only rated for about 1000 watts. So although it heats and cools rapidly, I suspect it is not up to the demands of wok cooking (unless one wants to cook only very small portions).
not Chinese, but I cook a lot with a wok. I also have a single induction cooktop and surprisingly, the wok has enough iron to work with it while some old cheap conventional cookware did not. However, wok cooking needs to be hot all over the wok and not just in that little point where the wok is close enough to the induction coil.
I have a conventional propane stove which I need to keep, because here in Puerto Rico the power system is quite unreliable (especially during a bad hurricane year). But the conventional stove burners are not really hot enough. With a 1/16 - inch drill bit I could increase one of the burners capacity substantially. I painted the stove knob red so people have some warning when they light that burner! It burns more gas, but wok cooking is really fast, so in the long run it is probably more efficient than lots of other cooking approaches.
I would definitely consider a wok-shaped induction heater. Induction heating is quite remarkable.
Thanks for the feedback. That’s my situation in South East Asia, power can be unreliable at time. I cook with a gas stove and have a portable electric stove as a backup if I run out of gas in the middle of my cooking.
I used to cook with a high pressure stove (the ones you see in Chinese restaurant) that are perfect for woks but my wife was afraid I would burn down the house so I switched to a regular gas stove.
Induction could be an option in the future though, if it allows for that fast heating/cooling style of cooking I use.
In the US, stove burners are rated in the confusing units of “BTUs” which is actually a unit of energy, not power. When they say BTU, they mean BTU/hour. The highest-rated burners on a typical stove are about 10,000 Btu (per hour), but high-end stoves can get up to about 18000 - that is equivalent to about 5000 watts. My single-element induction top is only rated for about 1000 watts. So although it heats and cools rapidly, I suspect it is not up to the demands of wok cooking (unless one wants to cook only very small portions).