Testing The Settings
After a few trial runs with simple tasks on our new cooktop, I decided I needed to be more specific about what each numbered setting meant. Remember, there is no visual guide from a flame or glowing element to lead you, only when you see the action of the food cooking do you know what is going on, and that can be too late. I learnt this from the transformation of fish sticks into ‘fish rocks!’ Oh, you can figure it out from cooking on it eventually, but why not get some data that can help you.
To run these tests of the settings, I used a 5˝ dia., stainless steel pot with a candy thermometer attached – not really scientific, but good enough. I half filled the pot with cold water, and between each test the pot was thoroughly cooled down. At the lowest settings the final temperature of the water hardly registered on the thermometer, so I dipped an ‘educated’ finger into the water and took a guess. Not scientific, but close enough for me. Also, at the low settings the temperature varied very little once it had reached its maximum, whereas at the upper settings, once maximum was reached the power cycled on and off with a ten degree variation in the liquid.
Performance.
Setting Time Tested (Min.) Max. Temp. (F)
#1 10 Slight Rise
#2 10 90
#2.5 10 100
#3 10 120
#3.5 10 140
#4 10 150
#4.5 10 160
#5 10 175
#5.5 10 190
#6 10 195
#6.5 8 200
#7 6 205
#8 6 205
#9 3 212
P 2.7 212 