Out of sheer curiosity, I took a torch to one. Managed to melt the glass to a crisp, but I couldn't detect any foul odours (other than a quick initial whiff that I presume to be an accumulation of shop dust burning off). YMMV
Does cast iron work, Amir? I have a couple of cast iron woks, made in China. They are very unlike the typical cast iron wok such as the Lodge. They are thin and work very much like a carbon steel wok. They are smooth, rather than rough like most cast iron. I couldn't believe it was cast iron until I saw one that someone had dropped on a concrete floor. It cracked just like normal cast iron.Oops. Got my metals confused.Meant high carbon steal. Corrected OP.
Thanks a bunch. That smoke is what I get out of the carbon fiber I tested. I worry about what it could be.
Those Chinese cast iron ones will work, and they are excellent too; the best IME. They are right next to the carbon steel ones like I have from our local Wal-Mart. I've seen them at Chinese/Asian cooking/grocery stores. I think they're all like $10-$20 (at least here). My carbon steel one is awesome because it transmits heat so fast, as Amir described. The Lodge cast iron one is heavy and slow to heat, so it gets a lot less use, but it cooks very nicely too. I would expect it to do really well on 240V induction tops though. Perhaps after I make a run to drop some kitchen stuff at Goodwill, I want to grab a carbon steel skillet or two. The Lodge ones are great; my parents have one; and the BeDuyer ones look like they might even be a little better.
"So I was running a restaurant - well helping my friend run a restaurant, you know how the business is - back in, oh, this must have been 1986? and who should come in but Arnie Nudell, who was of course designing speakers for Infinity at the time as a follow up to the IRS 1. And we got to talking and Arnie was toying with an idea to use the same power source behind an induction cooktop to drive a speaker coil, which you know is also an inductive load, and Arnie was talking about how, maybe the way that the cooktop determines the distance could also be used to determine the position of a servo woofer to be used inside the feedback loop of a..." [15 more minutes cut]
Hello you all. I need help for an unusual application. We have this super nice commercial induction wok cooktop:
This thing runs in 240 volts and is able to produce heat that no home gas stove can remotely replicate. Problem I have is that with any high carbon steel wok, it will error out complaining that it is an incompatible pot. I have tried a number of them and they all error out. Non-stick, stainless woks, etc. work but not cast iron.
I have figured out that if I elevate the work about 1/8 to 1/4 inch, it will happily work. Initially I used folded paper towel and while that worked, the tower starts to gradually char and creates foul smell which I assume is from the binders in it.
I then bought some silicon mat that is rated to 600 degrees. This worked up to a point and then started to melt, making a mess. I assume something other than silicone is in there.
I bought another silicon mat that they sold for use on barbeque grill. I figured this would work well seeing how they show it on top of open flame:
Oh my gosh... This mat worked for a bit and then started to steam/smoke. I picked up the wok and a nightmare occurred: particles of fine, orange powder pigment started to dislodge itself and stick to everything as it cooled off. Took me entire evening to clean/sand off from the wok.
Today I tried some carbon fiber welding mat rated to some 1800 degrees:
Strangely this one started to steam (?) and produce a bit of white smoke and moisture. And terrible smell. I figured this can't be good to breath so I stopped.
Wanted to try fiberglass but one seller said it was not food safe. Ceramic fiber insulators say you shouldn't breath the fibers so not sure if that is a good option.
I have not measured the temperature of the work but I think it easily hits 1000 degrees and even higher. Anybody can think of an insulator that won't out gas like these things do?
Appreciate any pointers.
My smoke smelled like dust. That welding blanket has been sitting on a shelf in my wood-shop unused for several months. After that initial waft of smoke, there was none and I melted the top layer and got a few more layers too hot to touch. I'd be more than willing to vacuum a different spot and do the test again, if you'd like.
