Stove Levels.

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Cooking4Fun

Senior Cook
Joined
Jun 23, 2020
Messages
339
Location
Buffalo
How much do stove dials vary numbers wise? I never know what is low, medium-low, medium-high, or high. Also not sure if 6 or hi are equally appropriate for boiling. Do they ever standardize the numbers? Any stoves that give a quantitative energy output for each value?
 

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Don't try to make sense of the numbers. Imagine the dial as a clock. 12 at the top, six at the bottom, etc.

Six o'clock is medium, between six and nine is med. high, between nine and twelve is med high to high. Same going the other way. between noon and 3 is low, between 3 and six is med low.

Simmer is wherever on the dial you get the pot to actually simmer.
 
In addition to what Andy said, the type/ quality of pot you use can make a difference as well. Not necessarily in the ultimate final temp, but in the time it takes to get there. I recently got a new stove top and was cursing it for a few months , cause it seemed to take forever for things to reach the temp I was looking for, until I got new , higher quality pots. These guys get to temp quickly, and hold their heat much longer and better. I didnt realize the importance of a decent pot until just recently. ( not that what I had previously was bad, but the bottom was a little warped, so they didnt sit on the stove top evenly causing certain parts of the pot to get hotter quicker than others ( not too mention they would sometimes spin as I was mixing, which was a real treat). If I had gas probably wouldn't have been as much of an issue due to the flame doing the heating and not sitting on a flat surface.
 
When I was a kid, we had a built in gas, cooktop. One of the burners had degrees F as the markings. The burner had a sensor in the middle, so it would keep the food at whatever temperature you set it to. That house was built in 1959. I wonder why we don't see that now.
 
Cooking4, think of simmering as a shimmer with some bubbles.

Luke warm is not going to cook anything further - other than maybe some bacteria!
 
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