Hamilton BeachPortable Single Induction Cooktop Countertop Burner Hot Plate with Fast Heating Mode, 1800 Watts, 10 Temperature Settings up to 450F, Black (34104)

We bought this to use in our RV but it works so nicely it stays in the house and gets used every day.Very quick to heat, extremely easy to regulate heat and easy to wipe clean.A little noisy from cooling fan but goes silent quickly when done cooking.

I've never used an Induction Stove, or Hot Plate before. To Test mine, I put one of my pans on it, on high, for 15 seconds, to verify function. Shut off, removed my pan, touched to bottom quickly to see if warm yet. I got a first degree burn on my palm ! Very impressed with inductive heating ! I can't wait to try cooking on it. I got this because my ancient stove heats and cooks unevenly on all four burners. ( electric coil type ). The old stove uses a lot of power, for marginal results. With this, I can get far better cooking results, and use much less electricity ! The old stove takes 15 min to get to cooking temp. This cooker is ready in less than a minute. I may get another, and quit using the old stove completely !BUY THIS MODEL !

I searched the influencers and review sites intensively because I have no experience with induction tops whatsoever. However, my collection of hot plates all under heat when it comes to stirfry. Induction plates are supposed to be the most efficient form of energy transfer applied in the context of modern cooktops.Couple of tips that I picked up. For any induction top do not leave a hot pot of food on top of the plate. The heating element must not be allowed to overheat. If you leave a large tub of food on top of the plate, it forces the fan to turn on and off constantly possibly for hours thus wearing out your hot plate.After reading about induction plates over at the serious eats website, it looked like the Hamilton Beach was superior to its rivals when it came to maintaining high temperatures. Since this is exactly what I need for wok cooking, the Hamilton Beach model, which was the runner-up compared to its competitors moved into first place on my personal scale.In addition, the Hamilton Beach offered a larger cooking surface than most induction hot tops. A 10” skillet was acceptable. You’ll still have a hot spot and the sides will be significantly cooler but this beats some perfectly fine induction tops that recommended 7” skillets.After trying out the Hamilton Beach model, I now understand why people are willing to pay $1500 for the Breville unit. The Hamilton Beach maintains temperatures in 25° increments. It took only a few minutes for me to acquire a hatred for digital temperature control. A serious cook needs analog but unfortunately $1500 for a hot plate is a bit much even for control freak style cooking.The claims that induction cooktops offer superior heat transfer are absolutely true. For the same amount of power as my electric hot plate the cooking temperature of the pot finally exceeded medium using the induction hot plate.The serious eats reviewers did not understand why the Hamilton Beach came with a booster button. This button pushes the power levels up to the highest setting for 30 seconds. The professional reviewers claim this was an excellent way to burn your food. Since I am using a cast iron wok hitting the button several times is an excellent way to pre-warm the pan. The professional reviewers docked points off this unit for including a frivolous feature prone to mistakes. I say the pro reviewers didn’t bother to cook enough using the cooktop. The boost button is the second most useful feature right after the on/off button.It should be noted that my cast iron wok (Amazon Basics) has an absolutely flat disk on the bottom. So it's a flat bottomed wok but the *interior* has the traditional curved surface. It's the only wok I've seen with this design. The flat bottom makes it work really well for induction. I don't have a traditional wok with the curved bottom but I seriously doubt it would work at all.I’ve tried pan frying using the cast-iron wok. Thanks to the 25° increments in the power level. It’s actually hard to maintain frying temperature. You’re either too high or too low. God forbid your kitchen window should be open and a breeze picks up. Yes you’ll need to adjust the power levels to compensate for windy conditions. For induction cooktops, there will be a hot spot the size of the heating element. Heat didn’t spread far from the hotspot. So I had a hotspot at the bottom of the walk approximately 4-5 inches wide while the sides of the wok remain relatively cool. The majority of the cooking happened at the bottom of the pan with very little actual cooking happening at the sides. This is actually how woks are supposed to cook, but you usually get more of a heat gradient going up the sides of the wok when using gas (and still the best way for woks).Switching to stainless steel, the induction top maintains a higher temperature for stir fry. Finally, I am able to sear meats, which wasn’t happening using the electric hot plate. But similar to the electric hot plate there’s a noticeable hotspot. It’s just bigger and hotter. You still have to work around it. I manage this by cooking foods one at a time, transferring to a large bowl and then adding everything together at the end for the final blend. The most noticeable difference is cooking speed.So if you’re not happy with your cooktop or if your kitchen doesn’t have much room, and you cook using a wok or cast iron, the Hamilton beach induction plate isn’t too bad a choice. Unless of course you can afford 1500 for the Breville.The induction hot plate heats things so quickly that my normal routine of sitting down to wait for something to boil won’t work. I’ve accidentally boiled away pots of water because my sense of timing was so off. there is an auto shut off when this happens . Luckily the controls include a timer, which solved the problem completelyUnlike electric top plates, induction plates have a power cooling fan, which means it makes more noise. The noise level wasn’t too bothersome.Induction plates have a glass top. You need to be careful when setting down your metal pots on top. Or you can get an extremely high quality piece of silicone and set it on top of the glass. The silicone will not react. (But it will melt if it is low quality silicone). Cleaning the top is the same as for any glass top. You use the special cleaning paste (sold separately) and you use a glass scraper (with the razor edge) to scrape off the burned on bits.P.s. they also make induction hot plates that are curved to fit the bottom of a wok. Of course I found this after I brought the Hamilton Beach…

Nice simple controls. Smaller footprint would be even nicer.[April 2025 update-FAST heating, you won't need the higher power settings much. For the price, the coil diameter is acceptable, though more even, wider heating would be even nicer.]I was surprised that it seems to very noticeably "cycle" off and on a lot, significantly raising and lowering the temperature/power each time, not that that's really a problem, but infinitely variable control like any resistance or gas stove would be much better. Is this the difference between this "economy" inductance stovetop and the other, much more expensive models? If not, then what IS the difference??As another reviewer wrote, "It has timed cycles like microwaves, not power levels", I think this is a correct description; but is this true of all inductance cooktops? I'd like to know!It will NOT heat the edges of a 10" pan nor pot very well. The dirty little secret of inductance cooktops seems to be that the internal coils are very small, probably less th,jan 6"; Amazon needs to require sellers to write more useful descriptions rather than just endless, unhelpful marketing drivel.All the same, I'm glad I bought it , and I would buy it again!There's a learning curve, this being my first inductance stovetop, especially with the choice of either setting the desired temperature or the desired "power level". It's is very tricky setting a pot of soup to simmer without either over-or under-powering it. Now I see why some models have what I thought was a ridiculous 20 power levels to choose from; continuously variably via a real or virtual dial control would be better.Now that I know I want an inductance cooktop, I'm shopping for a 2 or 3 burner, 240 volt one I can inset into my countertop; I'll definitely want one that let's me choose between setting temperature and setting the power level, OR that offers a huge selection of fine power settings. and I think these should be designed to offer fine-tuning right around the range where I want to simmer a pot of stew or whatever...The biggest issue is that the coil diameter (the coil is hidden, but you can tell it's small)- because the edges of my 10" frying pan and 6-qt. pot don't heat up adequately, requiring constant stirring, and omelets raw around the edges.But, Amazon, YOU HAVE GOT TO POLICE THE CARELESS, VAGUE, AND MISLEADING PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS in most listings. Product descriptions for so many items are expanding into sleazy-looking piles of SPAM, strewn randomly with unrelated but similar-looking things, making Amazon shopping a big headache. YOUR CUSTOMERS DESERVE BETTER!! One two-burner inductance stove errantly listed the power source as "gas"; the seller acknowledged the mistake, but did not correct it.-I say this because as I am trying to select a good inductance stovetop to inset into my countertop, I'm going to be stuck with it for a long time, and the listings are long and misleading, too often written by marketing folks without the slightest understand of basic units of measurement and parameters that buyers might find useful.

Worked well, until it died after about a year. And we weren't even using it the last eight months, we just started using it again a couple weeks ago and there was a pop noise, and it stopped working completely. So we got about six months out of it.