Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

................................ Overview ................................ The Max Burton 6400 lets you get the performance and control of a good gas cooktop, with the added benefit of excellent control over the temperature of the pan or skillet. You can therefore maintain the temperature of a sauce, or set the temperature of a frying skillet, to any one of fifteen different temperature levels. Because it plugs into a regular 120 volt outlet, you can get all of these features anywhere you have an electrical outlet. I previously owned the Max Burton 6200, and this model is better in every single respect. It is a solid five-star product. Before I describe my experiences cooking with this product, let me first describe various tests I did. ................................ Testing Setup ................................ To keep things simple, all of my tests were done with a four quart All-Clad saucepan, filled with exactly one quart of water. I used a Thermapen thermometer to make all my measurements (in Fahrenheit). This thermometer is quite accurate, and gives the same results every time. To measure the power consumed, I used a Kill-A-Watt power meter. ................................ Test #1: Compare To My Gas Cooktop ................................ My first test was to put the saucepan with one quart of water onto my Thermador 11,000 BTU/hour gas cooktop, using the largest burner set to the highest setting. I measured the water temperature before I turned on the burner, and then let the burner run for exactly two minutes, without stirring, and without a lid on the pot. I immediately took the pan off the heat, stirred the water a few times, and then measured the temperature. I then repeated this same test with a new quart of water and a cold pan, but this time on the 6400 induction cooktop, with the control set to level 10, the top level. My gas range raised the temperature by 60.5 degrees in two minutes, and the Max Burton 6400 raised the temperature by 63.5 degrees in the same amount of time. So, very much to my surprise, this device heated the water FASTER than the largest burner on my gas stove! I knew it would be faster than a standard electric stove, but I had not expected these results. This is VERY impressive. ................................ Test #2: Temperature Control ................................ My next test was to see how well it can hold a given temperature. The model 6400 provides fifteen discrete temperature settings (not ten, as stated in the Amazon description), in 25 degree increments, from 100 degrees to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. I set the temperature to 200 degrees, and used my Kill-A-Watt power meter to monitor the power being used. The power applied was about 80% of full (Level 10) power. The power supplied (measured by my power meter) stayed the same until the water temperature reached 208 degrees, at which point the power consumed went to zero (actually to 6 watts, which is what is required to run the internal fan). As the temperature dropped back towards the 200 degree setting, the power started to cycle on & off. I let it run for ten minutes, and at the end of that time, when I measured the water temperature, it was 200.5 degrees. That is pretty amazing! I then decided to test how well it could maintain the temperature of a large skillet. This turned out to be a VERY useful test, and provided me with an important lesson in how to properly use this tool to achieve the desired result, but without creating a problem. I highly recommend that you pay attention to the following test. I put my 12" Lodge cast iron skillet on the cooktop, with nothing in it, to simulate heating the pan prior to searing. I used my "point-and shoot" infrared thermometer to take temperature readings from the skillet surface. This is a very accurate way to measure surface temperature. I set the temperature control to 325, a temperature that is somewhat lower than I'd probably use for searing. Within 15 seconds, my thermometer was reading close to 150 degrees. After 50 seconds it was reading 325, but the power meter was still showing the same power going to the cooktop. I kept monitoring for a few more seconds, but started to see smoke, indicating that the cast iron seasoning was beginning to smoke. I turned off the cooktop and removed the skillet. The skillet surface, in the center, measured 425 degrees after only 75 seconds on the cooktop. I spent a few moments trying to figure out why the temperature control hadn't stopped the heating sooner. The answer was obvious: The temperature control measures the temperature on the underside of the glass cooktop, and it takes time for the temperature at the surface of the skillet to work its way down to the temperature sensor. Read that last sentence again, because you really need to understand it in order to get the best results when using the temperature control. The pan had heated so quickly that its temperature hadn't yet worked its way down to the sensor which is mounted on the underside of the glass cooking surface. Glass is a thermal insulator, so it doesn't transmit heat as quickly as does something like metal. If the pan has been full of food, or liquid, or oil, any one of those things would have absorbed much of the heat, and therefore slowed the speed of the skillet's temperature increase, giving the sensor time to "catch up" and react. So, the 6400 was doing everything right, but I didn't anticipate this problem. The moral of the story is this: if you are heating an empty pan for searing, you cannot rely on the temperature control and instead must monitor the pan's surface temperature the old-fashioned way, using the water "spritz" test, a point-and-shoot thermometer, or some other method. If the skillet or pan is reasonably full of food, water or oil, the temperature control should work just fine. ............................... Test #3: Power Consumption At Each Level ................................ My next step was to measure the electric power consumption for the ten different power levels. These tests gave me a lot of insight into how the unit functions. I should point out that the highest power I ever saw on the meter was 1625 watts. This is less than the promised 1800 watts. However, I later did a few tests with a very large Dutch oven, and measured a much higher wattage, much closer to the rated 1800 watts. This is another important thing to understand about this unit (and any other induction cooktop): The amount of power delivered depends on the cookware used. The following numbers were measured with my four quart All-Clad saucepan. Level Watts 1 0 - 750 (cycles on/off) 2 782 3 962 4 1140 5 1232 6 1312 7 1402 8 1484 9 1544 10 1623 I learned several important things. The first is that level 1 is quite different from the other settings because the heat is cycled on and off about every ten seconds. The second is that the difference in power settings for the first four power levels is quite large, whereas the difference in power between the upper levels is far less. I didn't do any tests to see how this actually translates into the rate of heating. This doesn't concern me much, because if I need to have more precise heat control at the lower settings, I will switch over to the temperature control and use that instead. If you think about it, the reason you probably are fussy about the low temperature control on any cooktop is that you want to maintain the temperature of a sauce, or rice, or oatmeal, without having it burn or stick to the pan. The temperature control, set to 125 or 150 should let you do that. ................................ Actual Cooking ................................ Now that I know all this good stuff, how do I use it? Well, when using the power level setting (rather than the temperature control) I see no reason to use this device differently than I have used any other cooking appliance for the past sixty years. If I want to heat something fast, I'll crank it up to the top setting, and then if I want to slow down the cooking, I'll set it lower. As my kids would say: Duh. However, when I need lower heat for simmering, I will definitely be using the lowest setting (Level 1), or will switch over to one of the temperature settings. Also, I will be very conscious of the rather large "bump" when going to level 3. This morning, I cooked steel-cut oatmeal for breakfast. This has to cook a long time. I boiled the water, in record time, using the high setting. I then added the oats, waited for everything to return to a boil, and then started simmering. I first tried using the temperature control, and then later used the lowest (level 1) power level. The temperature control set to 175 did a good job of maintaining that temperature, but was cooking too slowly. I then tried the 200 degree setting, which should have been perfect for this job, but found that during the on/off cycling needed to maintain that temperature, it got the pan a little too hot to leave it unattended without having the oatmeal start sticking. It wasn't burning, but my goal was to reduce the number of times I had to stir it to almost zero. Fortunately, my next attempt, using the level 1 setting, worked perfectly, and I was able to maintain a near-boiling temperature without having to spend forty minutes standing in front of the pan stirring. This is much, much better than the on/off cycling on my gas range. So, what I learned from this is, like any tool, you have to learn all the different ways to use it, and adapt to how it works. I still expect the temperature control will be great for tomato sauce, and other similar recipes. ................................ Induction Cooktop Issues ................................ I've read a lot of reviews of various induction cooktops, and two issues are often mentioned: heat distribution (i.e., hot spots) and fan noise. The 6400 supplies heat in a 4" diameter ring in the center of the cooktop. If the pan is larger than that ring, it is up to the pan to distribute that heat. Any gas cooktop also has exactly the same issue with hot spots because the "circle of flame" produces heat, but inside and outside that ring, it is much cooler. When I did the empty skillet heating test that I described above, I measured not only the center of the pan, but also the temperature near the edge. During the initial heating, when the center got, literally, smoking hot in 75 seconds, the outside of the pan at that point in time was only about 200 degrees. I guess this upsets some people, but it is just basic physics, and it applies to gas cooktops as well. For instance, the largest burner on my Thermador gas cooktop supplies flame that is also about 4" in diameter, and it produces almost the identical sized hot spot, although some of the heat does spill around to the edges, because of how a flame works, so the pan's edges aren't quite as cool as what I measured using the 6400. So, there is nothing wrong in the design of the cooktop that causes this phenomena, and you will find it with any consumer, portable induction cooktop. If I end up using this a lot, and if hot spots become a problem, then the obvious solution is to purchase the Max Burton induction disk. While this is designed primarily as a way to use non-induction cookware with this unit, it also will spread out the heat across its 8" diameter surface. When using it with an induction pan, I will heat the pan without the disk (to take advantage of the super-fast heating) and then when I need to simmer something or do cooking that requires more even heat, I will insert the disk. I guess this is a little like using an insulating trivet with a gas stove in order to get really low simmering temperatures (most gas stoves don't have a flame that is low enough to simmer without burning). As for fan noise, I used my old Radio Shack sound meter to measure the fan noise. I didn't find it objectionable, but many people have mentioned it in their reviews of other induction cooktops (they all have fans). Using the "C" weighting (all frequencies measured), and holding the sound meter near my ears while standing in front of the unit as if I were cooking, I measured 60 dB. This is the sound level of two people speaking to each other. To provide a comparison, I measured the downdraft kitchen fan behind my Thermador cooktop. It has the fan motor mounted fifty feet away, so the only noise coming from the vent is the sound of the air, not of the motor. That fan noise measured 66 dB. I then measured the noise of my two, full-sized, microwave ovens, standing at the same distance from each of them as I stood from the cooktop. They both measured 68 dB, slightly louder than my downdraft fan. What does this mean? Well, the perceived loudness of 70 dB is twice as loud as 60 dB, so the fan noise from this cooktop is approximately half as loud as a full-sized microwave oven. Half as loud is a LOT quieter. The fan is on all the time during cooking, and stays on for about a minute after the 6400 cooktop is turned off. I did not find the fan noise to be annoying, and it was not an issue for me. I guess some people object because a regular electric cooktop makes virtually no noise, and a gas cooktop only creates the small sound of gas hissing. ................................ Pan Sizes ................................ Before I finish, I should make a comment about the size of this unit. The measurements given in the specs are quite accurate, but somehow it didn't sink in how large it is. For instance, I have a 12" Lodge cast iron skillet, and it fits on this unit with very little overhang. You can use a 12" skillet with no problem. ................................ Timer Setting ................................ You can set the unit to turn itself off after a preset time. To do this, you press the timer icon and then press the up or down arrow keys to set the time. About four seconds after you stop pressing, the timer number stops blinking, and that time has been set. If you press and HOLD the up or down arrow, the time quickly increases (or decreases) in five minute increments. By pressing and holding, it takes about 8-10 seconds to go all the way to 180 minutes (three hours), which is the maximum that can be set. This press and hold function has a little bit of a "hair trigger," and I often found the time going up or down by five minutes, even when I thought I had just pressed and released the button, which should have given me just a one minute change. It would be nice if the engineers could add an additional quarter second delay to the fast timer setting function, in future versions of this product. ................................ Summary ................................ So, in summary, I am very, very pleased with how fast this unit heats pans and skillets (and their contents), how well the temperature control works, and how simple it is to use. I like it a lot, and recommend it without any reservations. ................................ Post Review Additions ................................ I've had the product for a month, and still like it just as much. I made a tomato sauce, and then added some browned meat for a spaghetti sauce. I wanted to simmer the sauce with the meat for several hours. I found that the 175 degree setting kept the sauce at about 180 degrees, even with lid partially off (in order to permit the sauce to thicken). This capability to simmer slowly is infinitely better than anything I can do on my Thermador gas cooktop, even with its on/off "extra low" settings. From now on, all my sauces will be made using this induction cooktop. I also now use the cooktop for heating 7 quarts of milk when making a large batch of yogurt. I put the milk in a three quart saucepan, and then put that inside my 4-quart All-Clad saucepan which I fill with a few inches of water. This makes a really large double boiler. I set the cooktop to the top level (level 10), and heat the milk to 180 degrees. This takes exactly eight minutes (I've done this half a dozen times). When it gets within a few degrees of 180, I switch the cooktop to the temperature mode and set it to 175 degrees. This helps maintain the temperature of the milk at 180 degrees for five minutes (this is required to break down the milk proteins). I previously used my microwave, using its temperature probe. This worked really well, but the microwave takes a LONG time to heat seven quarts of 40 degree milk. This method is much, much faster, and almost as precise. [Edit]June 7, 2015: I've now owned this unit for almost a year, and the one minor negative I need to add is that I really wish the bottom power levels provided more control over low-temperature simmering. There is too much of a jump between levels 1 and 2. Level 1 is fine, but once you bump up to Level 2, it is too much power for many sauces and stews. In addition, the differences between level 3 and level 10 really aren't that large. So, I wish the bottom five levels could be spread out a little more. It is still a five-star product, and I often use the temperature control when simmering, and that works just fine as a substitute for better direct energy control.