The power of magnetism just doesn't impress me. At least not in the kitchen. Not yet, anyway.

As most kitchen gizmo junkies — along with anyone insane enough to be looking into renovating their kitchen — have heard by now, induction is the wave of the future in cooktops. Be there, or be slow.

J.M. Hirsch

And there's quite a few advantages to that. First, they are fast. Very fast. The most powerful industrial models — found mainly in culinary schools and some restaurants — can boil stockpots of water in seconds.

They're also cool. That is, to everything but the pan. Unlike traditional gas and electric burners, which throw heat upward (some of which is actually caught by your pan), induction burners magnetically focus their energy on the pots.

This means you lose little heat to the environment. In some kitchens, such as where cold-loving pastry is made, this is key.

Induction also allows for remarkable control. Many models allow the cook to control the heat down to the degree. Talk about precise simmering! Makes those otherwise useless simmer burners that come on many gas stoves look prehistoric.

However, there are some downsides, at least for the home cook. The cool factor rarely matters in residential kitchens. Sure, a cooler burner would be nice if you're boiling pasta during a heat wave, but that minor advantage comes at a cost.

A really big cost, at that. Home induction cooktops (no oven included) can cost thousands, and you can buy top-of-the-line commercial gas ranges for that kind of money. And let's face it, a honking hunk of steel is way sexier in the kitchen than a plate of glass.

Then there is the pots-and-pans issue. Induction burners work only on cookware to which a magnet will stick. That means copper, aluminum, ceramic and many stainless steel pans are out.

And so I had written off induction burners. Until I recently noticed induction hot plates (similar to those cheap electric ones you sneaked into your dorm room, only not cheap and not electric) showing up on the consumer market.

For many people, this is the only way induction cooking will get into their homes. So I decided to take one for a test drive and bought a BergHOFF model for $150. It somewhat resembles a closed laptop with concentric circles drawn on the top.

I was encouraged. According to the packaging, the burner would work fine with stainless steel pans. This ran counter to much of what I had heard (magnets don't stick to stainless steel), but I was willing to give it a try.

So I devised a test to see how it held up against my gas stove.

I filled a 2-quart stainless steel saucepan with 2 cups of room-temperature water and 1 cup of ice and set it on my stove over a high flame. The water came to a boil in just under 6 1/2 minutes.

Then I cooled the pan, refilled it with ice and water and set it on the induction burner. An hour later it was producing some fine steam, but it never came to a boil.

Either the burner was defective or the company was wrong about the stainless steel. So I grabbed a 3-quart cast iron saucepan and repeated the experiment. Cast iron generally is a bit slower to heat than other metals, but it holds the heat better.

On my stove, the pan hit boiling in just over 6 1/2 minutes. This time the induction burner worked, shaving 30 seconds off that time. Not bad. But is 30 seconds worth the price?

I don't think so, especially if you'd need to buy new pots and pans just to use it. But if you are so pressed for time that the half minute savings will make all the difference, then get out your wallet.

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asap columnist J.M. Hirsch covers food, diet and nutrition for the AP. E-mail him at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .

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