Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
Ride the Heat Wave
Got an electric stove? I do, unfortunately.
I hate the thing — mostly because when I turn it off, it doesn’t cool off. Not for a few minutes anyway. Way inefficient.
But I’ve recently realized I can at least make the most of that annoying electric-stove characteristic by shutting it down a little early and riding the heat wave home to the finish line.
Tonight’s noodle soup, for example, required holding the soup at a boil for 3 minutes after putting in the noodles. Shut it down after 1, ride the wave for the last 2, and I’ve saved a bit of unnecessary heating there. I’m not sure how much energy is used to heat up those coils, but the whole soup-making process probably took about 8 minutes, start to finish. Since the last 2 were on residual heat, shutting down early saved 25% in that case.
Similar results for last night’s pasta.
Of course this doesn’t work so well for the giant pot of soup that takes 30 minutes to cook, but hey, it’s a little thing.
