Portable Single Burner

The burner plates heat up much quicker than I thought they would. The burner plates react the same way any electric burner does, once heated, they take forever to come down to a lower cooking temperature for a particular food -- especially in heavy cookware. I am very glad I got this! To keep foods warm: Starting from a cold burner -- the temperature dial 'clicks' and lights up at setting #1. I find that setting acceptable. The plate will warm up even w/ the temp set below #1, the light will not be on, but the plate could be hot. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes from a cold start to warm a plate. If you want to keep foods warm on the same burner you used to cook the food: take the pan off the burner, turn the temp down to 1 or 2 depending upon how warm you want it, and let the burner cool down until the light comes on - a pan w/ ice cubes helps the cool-down. (On the unit I have, setting #3 cooks food at a very healthy simmer. And #2 is pretty hot too - so close to #1 works best on the one I have.) When boiling water is required, as in steaming veggies or poaching eggs, I start it at setting 7, and turn it down to 3/4/5 once a simmer or boil has been reached. Quick steaming veggies, such as asparagus, need to be turned down much faster, unlike steaming or boiling spuds still cold from refrigeration. I left pasta to slow boil at 5/6-ish til done without turning it down much. Setting 7 will get you a very hot rolling boil for pasta if that's your preference. A turn down to setting 3 is good for a simmer once all the food has heated through. For omelets and saute, it worked best when the pan was heated to the desired temp, starting on a lower setting before adding any grease or foods -- this type of cooking was the hardest to get right. Setting 3/4. I dislike browned omelets. Caramelized onions, done right, take a while. Browning and quick stir fry -- I heat up to setting 6 or 7 before adding grease & food. Setting 7 will burn food, so frying until done on this setting was iffy. I do a lot of browning for dishes that need to be simmered in sauce/wine/stock w/ veggies. So, reducing the temp after turning all the pieces to brown the other side worked best for me (I browned a bit of onion too, at the same time :). Stir fry -- it's quick! I do not use a setting 7 to fully cook food - it's my heat up the pan and bring to a boil temp - to cook I turn it down to where I want it and adjust the temp as needed. At 7 the temp dials get a tad hot but I don't need a hot pad to adjust temp, however, the top of the housing gets hot and could burn. Above a 7 both the dial and the metal housing gets very hot, and you'd need a hot pad to turn the dial. I use very heavy bottomed cookware that heats up slower than lighter cookeware -- but being heavy, they retain heat longer. All electric stoves/cooktops are different, and this two-burner hot plate is no exception. It took me a month to find the right measures of heat for my cooking needs.

Earlier, I had purchased a portable dual side-by-side burner style for my basement kitchen which does not have a stove (note the original unit was a recognizable quality brand name). We wanted two full functioning burners, however we found that unit had only one side which had enough heat to cook food and bring water to a boil (however it was a bit underpowered and slow to cook and boil water compared to our main level stove), the other burner was just a warmer only and could not cook food or boil water at all which was not advertised accurately so I had Amazon pick it up. Before buying anything else, I finally did some real research rather than simply depending on brand name and review quantity and rating alone and found these units which are very powerful (high wattage rating) and cook food quickly and can bring water to a boil quick and easy. I also found that having 2 completely separate burners is a major advantage. It allows you to use any size pan by just physically moving them further apart (which was a huge problem with the dual side by side design). A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Glad I learned what I did from the original purchase so I was armed with everything I needed to know to buy the perfect burner setup. These units work very well (similar in perform to our stove), appear to be well made and are perfect for us :). Keep in mind, these are very new to us and have only been used a few times at the time of this writing, so I can not speak to the durability or longevity of these units yet but everything looks good so far.

Its not bad . Its takes a few minutes to eat up .

Heats up very quickly is very safe and works very well easy to control the speed and the heat distribution works well very good value for your money must buy we use these in our food truck and it was perfect

I've had this double hotplate 1 year and 10 days. Three stars for functionality. Cons: 1) Too slow! Like, mid 20th century slow! Not very hot. Even turned up all the way, the smaller burner takes 5 minutes to melt a heaping tablespoon of butter on top of a small saucepan of peas! And yes, my pan is really flat and makes good surface contact. 2) The smallest droplets of moisture left on the heating plates, such as from a boiling splash, result in a spot of bright orange rust on the burner plate the next day. Yes, it scrubs away with a steel wool scrubber, but that's unacceptable to me. For a $60 hotplate, bought new? Nope! Buy it at a garage sale for $5...yep!

I did the burn off as recommended and then put a pot of water (maybe three cups) on it and it was just under four minutes to a rolling boil. It was already hot and on high so it might take a minute or so more from cold but it had no issues getting it going. This was at sea level (our house elevation is about 60 feet) so higher elevations will be different but it gets hot and is big enough to do the job. My wife was worried that the on/off knob might be in the way of a big pan or pot but it really isn't at all. Works great and we use it for our camper so we can cook outside on the griddle and this and not smell or heat up the camper. Great buy!! I didn't get any smell when doing the burnoff but there was just a little smoke but I probably wouldn't have noticed it if I wasn't especially looking for it. I see no issues with this lasting a long time.

I placed 4 cups of water in an open pot and turned the hotplates temperature to the maximum setting while monitoring the unit's power consumption with a watt meter (see photo). From a cold start it took approximately 11.5 minutes for the 4 cups of water to reach a rolling boil and the watt meter never went above 1390W (for comparison, it took 7.5 minutes to boil the same water on our gas stove). These numbers were within my expectations when I purchased this hot plate. However, what I didn't expect was that within the time it took to boil the water the entire body of the hot plate became extremely hot. The entire unit is made of metal and it rapidly conducts the heat of the cast iron top. I couldn't touch the body of the unit at all without getting burned and I couldn't touch the temperature dial for more than a second at a time before it became too painful, and after only 12 minutes of being turned on! It also has no internal fan so the internal wiring harness is also getting cooked inside it's oven-like shell at the same time, which I have no doubt will inevitably lead to a major fire hazard with enough use. This hot plate is such an insane safety hazard I'm shocked that there aren't hundreds of reviews of people, or their children, with 3rd degree burns after accidently touching the hot plate after use or photos of scorched countertops/cabinets when the internal wire harness melted. I really wanted to like this product since cast iron hotplates are so cheap and robust in design but this is unacceptable. I ended up purchasing an portable infrared cooktop instead and even though it only runs at 1190W it managed to boil the 4 cups of water in about the same amount of time from a cold start and the body of the unit remained cool to the touch throughout the test. This Cuisimax hot plate should be removed from Amazon for consumer protection.

Nice, does heat up well. It is bigger than expected but its good quality