Induction Cooking info and experience.

[aybabtme]

I also prefer boiling water in our induction. We have a very nice electric kettle but the efficiency difference doesn't make up for the extra space.

[rgleason]

The boat is too small for many appliances. I like the idea of 1 induction burner and 1 cookpot.

What size and type of inverter? 12v? Or 24v ? What is needed for 24v with 12v equip?

[GILow]

Originally Posted by rgleason

The boat is too small for many appliances. I like the idea of 1 induction burner and 1 cookpot.

What size and type of inverter? 12v? Or 24v ? What is needed for 24v with 12v equip?

24 volt does make wiring the inverter a whole lot easier. It also halves the cost of the solar regulators if you go down the vitron path.

But I concede it adds complexity and some costs in providing the 12 volts that will almost certainly be required elsewhere on the boat.

I've gone with 24 volts because I wanted around 4 kW of 240v AC, and that was going to be very messy with 12 volts.

[capn_billl]

Originally Posted by GILow

24 volt does make wiring the inverter a whole lot easier. It also halves the cost of the solar regulators if you go down the vitron path.

But I concede it adds complexity and some costs in providing the 12 volts that will almost certainly be required elsewhere on the boat.

I've gone with 24 volts because I wanted around 4 kW of 240v AC, and that was going to be very messy with 12 volts.

I'm thinking about that.

Most of my load is inverter, and fridge. The led house lights, and electronics use maybe 5 to 7 amps. SO I really don't need more than ONE 200 Amp hour battery (1 DD) that can be topped off from a single alternator, or small 12v charger run off the generator or shore power. or it's own 200 watt solar panel.

THEN swap the bulk of current House batteries with 24 Volts on a completely
different system with it's own solar, 800AH batteries, and inverter charger that only goes to the galley.

That just leaves me buying a 24v fridge, and inverter charger, and batteries. Everything else stays the same, and leaving a light on no longer means draining our fridge power.

[Oceanride007]

I would suggest that if your Solar is less than 800W then, make do with a portable unit like a small Nu-wave, you can do that now and do all your measurements. The thing is if you have a wet event, you will still need your gas cooker. I like the nu-wave with its fine temp control, timer, variable power. It will easily become your preferred cooking method.

[rslifkin]

If your current fridge has a Danfoss compressor there's a good chance it can already run on 24v.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Oceanride007

I would suggest that if your Solar is less than 800W then, make do with a portable unit like a small Nu-wave, you can do that now and do all your measurements. The thing is if you have a wet event, you will still need your gas cooker. I like the nu-wave with its fine temp control, timer, variable power. It will easily become your preferred cooking method.

The Nu-wave is bl--dy brilliant! I'd recommend it even if you have a couple of kW of solar. Heck, we use ours on land in preference to the modern gas cooktop in the kitchen

The boat will eventually have three of them.

[capn_billl]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

You’re not gonna make sense out of these posts, with consumption figures all over the place. I recommend to do some easy no-brainer first steps that are okay even when you decide to keep propane (do anything to get rid of it though :thumb)

Here’s the first one, a simple, portable 110V induction cooktop… but high quality:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FLR0ET8

Next, if you cook/steam rice/oatmeal/veggies etc:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0849SDZX7

These two are highly rated, winners in the American Test Kitchen and don’t cost an arm and a leg.

Also, you mention baking bread. We bake all our own bread, both loafs and rolls. If you bake bread often then it is recommended to use a horizontal pan with two kneading pedals. We use a Zojirushi but it’s hard to get and expensive, but a search on Amazon will show many options at just over $100

All of these are very energy efficient. You will hardly notice the rice cooker and bread maker. The induction cooktop depends on what you do like others explain. I recommend a water kettle for it as well (need induction compatible).

Even if the induction takes too much from your batteries, you will still use it occasionally when you have shore power or it is a day too hot for propane in the cabin.

We used these appliances for 10 years on lead acid batteries before switching to LFP.

Very good info.

Also I suggest instead of trying to calculate electrical power from propane usage to instead add up hours per day spent cooking, and multiply by wattage of cooktop.

The dual induction propane Hob is my next purchase.

Model #TI-1-2B

I can use the induction side for when I have a plethora of power or at the dock, and propane for backup or when running low at anchor.

[aybabtme]

Going to 24V on a small boat with just 300W of solar doesn't make sense. The 12V inverter cabling is going to be just two thick cables and that's the end of it. Not worth putting an entire new voltage if you only want to power an induction stove and otherwise have a power generation/storage constrained boat. If you just want to power an induction hob, you don't need more than a 2kW inverter. The hob won't continuously use 1800W, and in fact you'll have control over how much power it uses anyways.

Keep it simple at 12V. If you want to go bigger, get a bigger boat with a bigger power budget. If your cable runs are relatively straightforward, 12V or 24V doesn't make a big difference anyways. At least not anywhere near enough to bring in an entirely new voltage.

Now if we were talking about running aircon, all electric everything, and a lot of power generation and a big budget, sure go 24, heck go 48V! But I don't think that's your plan now if you're on the fence about even trying induction to begin with.

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by aybabtme

Going to 24V on a small boat with just 300W of solar doesn't make sense. The 12V inverter cabling is going to be just two thick cables and that's the end of it. Not worth putting an entire new voltage if you only want to power an induction stove and otherwise have a power generation/storage constrained boat. If you just want to power an induction hob, you don't need more than a 2kW inverter. The hob won't continuously use 1800W, and in fact you'll have control over how much power it uses anyways.

Keep it simple at 12V.

Agreed. We are seeing a 70A draw for the 1kW electric kettle or toaster at night time. Less during the day as any solar power is used to offset this first.

Using both 800w induction hobs together we draw 90A which is still well within the 150A limit of the lithium battery and the 2kW inverter. Wiring is 35mm which stays cool to the touch. We did manage to locate the batteries and inverter within 1 metre of each other which helps.

Last year before the winter upgrade to 600w of solar, we had 300w of solar and this did a pretty good job of supplying most of our needs with occasional use of gas cooking or having to switch in the DC>DC charger to enable the alternator to top up the batteries. This wasn't very often though, twice in our 2021 three week cruise. Now with 600w we haven't needed the DC>DC so far this year.

Two photos showing the gas hob when we had 300w and this year the full electric cooking with a gimballed double induction hob. The first photo shows the induction hob par boiling the roast potatoes before they go into the Remoska with the duck for 90 minutes and cook in the duck fat The gas option does give some redundancy. We did like having the option to mix and match and it halved our gas usage last year.

The small plastic electric kettle is usable at sea and doesn't fall over even going to windward. We have pan holders on the double induction hob, but a very thin 0.8mm silicone mat from Amazon did a pretty good job of keeping a pan on the single induction hob and didn't noticeably alter the hobs performance.

Pete

[s/v Jedi]

For “cookpot” I hope this isn’t something like an InstantPot. If so, call me and I have one for you

These are really a fail. Not once good rice and that is the minimum requirement imo. I tried to make it do but everything failed.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

For “cookpot” I hope this isn’t something like an InstantPot. If so, call me and I have one for you

These are really a fail. Not once good rice and that is the minimum requirement imo. I tried to make it do but everything failed.

I bought an instant pot for home a good few years ago, but hardly used it. As you pointed out, it's not a great rice cooker (although it's possible to do an acceptable job if you ignore the "rice" button on the front, and particularly if you're cooking other things in with your rice). I eventually brought the instant pot to the boat, leaving just the rice cooker at home.

On the boat, I've found the instant pot reasonably useful. It makes a decent slow cooker, the pressure cooker function is reasonably power efficient, and because the lid locks on even in slow cook mode, it's possible to load it up with food, set it in the galley sink, and have dinner ready on arrival for a travel day where we might get in late and don't want to fuss around in the galley much underway.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

I bought an instant pot for home a good few years ago, but hardly used it. As you pointed out, it's not a great rice cooker (although it's possible to do an acceptable job if you ignore the "rice" button on the front, and particularly if you're cooking other things in with your rice). I eventually brought the instant pot to the boat, leaving just the rice cooker at home.

On the boat, I've found the instant pot reasonably useful. It makes a decent slow cooker, the pressure cooker function is reasonably power efficient, and because the lid locks on even in slow cook mode, it's possible to load it up with food, set it in the galley sink, and have dinner ready on arrival for a travel day where we might get in late and don't want to fuss around in the galley much underway.

Sounds like a fail to me. Don’t torture yourself with it any longer

The cheap little rice cooker I linked to above does it all and was one of the winners with the American Test Kitchen, leading to a sold out situation of almost a year

For pressure cookers, use a good one that is compatible with induction

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Sounds like a fail to me. Don’t torture yourself with it any longer

The cheap little rice cooker I linked to above does it all and was one of the winners with the American Test Kitchen, leading to a sold out situation of almost a year

For pressure cookers, use a good one that is compatible with induction

We do use a good rice cooker at home. Only real reason the instant pot ended up on the boat (rather than buying another rice cooker) is limited galley space and it can do more stuff than a rice cooker. If I find space for it on the boat, I may buy a small rice cooker to keep aboard at some point.

One big thing for us is avoiding needing the stove more than once per day, as until I add more battery capacity and up-size the inverter (and probably need more solar too), the stove is generator-only when we're away from shore power (our stove is electric, but we haven't switched it to an induction unit yet). I don't mind cranking up the generator for a bit to make dinner (as it also heats water for showers), but I don't like having to run it multiple times in a day.

If not for the stove limitation and already having the instant pot, I agree, just get a stove top pressure cooker. But it's hard to justify buying one when the instant pot was already in a cabinet collecting dust. About the only advantage of an instant pot over a stovetop pressure cooker is that you can put it anywhere while in use, which might be good for those boats with a really small galley.

If you do end up needing to make rice in an instant pot, the best results I've gotten (at least for short grain rice) have been from high pressure, 4 minute cook time, and letting it depressurize on its own. The biggest thing I found was to use significantly less water than you otherwise would, as the instant pot is sealed and doesn't lose water as steam like a rice cooker does. So a normal quantity of water leads to soggy, awful rice. And if there's not a little oil or some other kind of fat in there, the rice tends to burn a little and stick to the pot. So I've been avoiding making just plain rice in the thing.

[Senojev]

We have 120V Kenyon two burner Bridge induction cooktop that draws a maximum of 1750W. It uses a control that limits the combination of the burners to that maximum which translates to one on full and the other to about half so you can quick boil on one and still get a good heat on the other. We can count on one hand the times that we would wish for more heat. Has temperature control as well as power control and a timer.

A nice feature is a full silicon mat that anchors pots at over 30 degrees roll or pitch and keeps the glass top clean from spills. Who wants to be cooking in more than that. On the lowest setting drawing about 3A equates to slower cooker. They also make a 240 version..We regularly use on our 3000VA inverter..

Highly recommended. Very efficient way to cook.