Thank you for all the replies!
I have some Lagostina pot (also somewhat flat, but less flat than the
Calphalon) that takes 18 mins... so the time seems to be highly variable.
I will experiment with various pots, in the hope of getting finally a
"fast pasta pot", but overall I am now quite happy with the GE range.

Peter

"Peter Aitken" wrote in message om...
"Peter Lampione" wrote in message
om...
Is 13 minutes normal for bringing 3.5 quarts of water to a boil?

I have recently (today!) purchased an electric ceramic top range
(a GE unit), and compared with my older electric-spiral Jenn-Air
unit, I find it takes quite a bit longer to bring water to a
boil.

I am using a Calphalon pot, which is reasonably flat bottomed
(with a ruler, I can detect 1mm of space between the ruler
and the center of the bottom, but I have not seen pots
that are better than this). I fill it with 3.5 qt of water.
It takes 13 minutes to bring the water to a boil.
Is this normal? I notice that once the water is hot (but not yet
boiling), the "burner" cycles, perhaps 30 seconds on and 8 off.
This, I am told, happens when the pot is not perfectly flat,
but the Calphalon seems to be as flat as they come.

Is the cycling normal? Is the time reasonable?
I would also appreciate comparisons with the time people are
getting from gas ranges.



I am not about to get out a stopwatch, but that seems in line with what I
experience on my Dacor. The cycling is normal too - as you probably know it
is to prevent the burner from getting too hot and damaging itself. You have
also seen that not-perfectly-flat pots are perfectly usable on a flattop
range even if not quite as efficient as one that is perfectly flat. Given
that metal expands when heated it is probably unrealistic to ask for a pan
that is flat when cold and when hot.