Do Radiant Hobs Have An Edge Over Other Types ?. Review on Morphy Richards Radiant Cooker

The answer is Yes, I am writing this review to reveal some of the secrets on this product to help fellow buyers take an informed decision. Sadly these information are unavailable either in the Morphy Richards site or any other place for this product, only after making a purchase I could figure them out.

How this works? ( Morphy richards radiant cooker essentials model which is analog type).

Some basics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-ceramic#Cooktops (So this has radiant heating coils, ie simple age old electric stove coil type which used get red sitting in a grove of a white non heat conductive material)

This has a thermostat which cycles the heating coil ON and OFF based on the temperature you select.

I like this mechanical control instead of the digital because you have a very flexible control over the temperature unlike the digital radiant model which increases the heat in steps and if you need something in between then it's a problem.

You can control the temperature somewhat like a typical gas stove but the temperature is not controlled through the intensity of the flame but by turning ON and OFF or cycling of the 1800w heating element something like your Iron box.

Like every appliance this also has a unique play area and definitely would be a worthy addition to any kitchen. A cheaper alternative is a simple hot plate with thermostat from Nova or any other available for less than a K in ebay or any other online sites.

But the caveat is (since I have one Nova too) the maximum temperature the hotplate attains is significantly lesser than Morphy Richards for example I found the dosas will never become brown when using that even when kept at high. You can overcome that limitation (which I did now) if you know how to fiddle with the thermostat calibration screw/setting, but this piece was for geeks only :-)

I have an induction cooktop on the other hand which is digital touch control based and I find it almost useless for any of Indian type of cooking except for boiling water, manufacturers have to look in to this design flaw in Induction cooktops and provide consumers with option to smoothly adjust the heating power through a jog dial / analog control or provide a user definable temperature through similar jog dial controls.

Update edit: Even though Morphy Richards comes with a thermostat control I found during the course of it's usage that there is no much variation in the heat output (in terms of On Off cycle variation controlled by thermostat)setting from Low to High ie if low is 100 degrees the high may be 150 degrees which is very small range, seems to bad thermostat design for this model.

But the funny part is my other cheap hotplate Nova  is performing much better after tweaking the thermostat calibration screw, so if you want a Radiant cooktop stay away from this Morphy Richards model, you could go for a digital one and buy from a place who will have at least 15 days no questions asked return policy so that you can see if it suits your need and decide you want to keep it or return it.

As I said before this technology definitely has many advantages over Induction as you can literally treat this is as your conventional hot plate and can use glassware, SS, aluminium alloys for that matter anything that you have been using on a gas cooktop and heat is uniform unlike the Induction where I can see rings of metal superheated in the vessel, easily noticeable when boiling water where the bubbles raise in 1 or 2 concentric circles instead of through out the pan bottom like gas stoves.

Also the heat control is so bad that whenever the power cycles through the Induction coils you can literally see the bubbles stopping and coming back to sync with the power on-off cycling. So there is no flywheel effect in heat unlike radiant or thermostat controlled hotplate where even when it cycles the power the residual heat maintains somewhat a more constant temperature in the cooking pan.

Now more technical stuff as a feedback to the manufacturers. Whether it is induction or radiant or halogen when you use TRIAC / IGBT why not provide a digital jog dial or analog pot to adjust the power ? If you implement jog dial for temperature control why not the increments be at least in 5 degree steps instead of 60-100-150-200?