Tefal Express Induction Cooktop IH720860 Questions & Answers

Hello Butch. Make sure you have an induction-compatible saucepan / frying pan on the hot plate. Also make sure the pan has something in it or your pan will overheat. The cooktop will not permit cooking if it doesn't detect a pan. You can check if your pan will work with an induction cooktop by seeing if a fridge magnet sticks to the bottom of the pan. If it does, it should be okay.

If you have done all of the above and it still won't work, your unit may be faulty.

You don’t seem to be able to carryout a constant simmer, it pulses. So you get bursts of hot heat, then stops, then another burst etc .another very disappointing feature of this cooktop.

Unfortunately, it cannot maintain a constant simmer. I set the temperature down to 60 but it still cycles on and off. That is the inherent nature of these cheaper induction hobs. They rely on duty cycle rather than true temperature control at the lower settings. If I need to do a simmer that needs to go longer than about 10 minutes, I do that on my normal cooktop.

I found the touch dial to be very temperamental. It depends on how wet or dry your finger is! I found the quickest way to adjust is by using the +/- buttons and forgetting all about the silly touch dial.

Temperature can be adjusted only on fry selection but don't be too concerned as it is a gimmick. Here's why, the temp isn't the temp of the food, it is actually the temp of the pan surface. But what you want is the food temp right?? Well some other models have a separate prong sensor that you can put into the food and it sends the temp to the hob by Bluetooth

You'll notice the stir fry and hotpot settings allow for change of power levels.

They go down from about 2000 watts to 100 watts although any power setting below P6 uses a shorter duty cycle to alter its heat. Basically the device lowers its power a little but also cycles the heat on and off and on again.. not ideal but it does achieve the aim of low temp if not entirely even. Remember this is an express hob so it's best feature is the fast cooking rather than slow simmer..unfortunately. using P1 or P2 you can still get a nice cookyp especially if you press boost to give the food an initial well ,boost. Boost is a little higher than P10 say P10.5 not quite P11.

The unit is easy to clean and fast.

Removing the pan after you've finished will help it cool down faster and not have the fan on for so long.

I too was disappointed in some ways.. like it doesn't have 100 degrees only 80 and 120 which seems a big oversight. 80 is P2 and 120 is P3 yes a 300 watt difference when all powers above P3 are a step of 200 watts.

Anyway the boost function along with P 1 2 and 3 seem the only buttons worth cooking with even the pause is too short to use properly at only 60 seconds. Hope this helps.

Yes boil steam are set to P10 power. Soup to P9 which are too high you are totally correct. Fry can adjust the temp but that's a gimmick as temp isn't the temp of the food it's the temp of the pan base. Stir fry and hotplate allow power levels to be used. All powers up to P5 cycle on and off to set the power with P 5 and 4 and 3 having higher power when cycled on than do P2 and 1.

Boost function actually is higher than P10..just by a bit, but it provides a quick heat up of a pan for about 3 minutes do careful when you use it...it's useful for a pot of water or a lot of contents that's stone cold or from fridge perhaps.. it's great because you can press boost and 3 minutes later it'll reduce down to p3 or 2 or wherever you had first set it.

On the back it's rated at 2100w max. However, I rarely use it at full power. For most things that involve boiling I hit the Hotpot mode which defaults at power level 8 or 1600w and leave it there. Still boils quicker than gas... With the right pots of course.

Actually the one good thing about this device is the wide spread of wattage it has. It starts off at just 100 watts on power level 1 and increases up to 2100watts on power level 10 however if that still isn't enough, it has a boost function that allows a temporary boost of about a minute with 2200watts !...actually it's just a bit above p10. Boil is p10 steam is p10 and soup is P9. Oddly all three are unchangeable except time of cook.

The boost function lowers back to any of the 10 power levels you selected before you pressed boost. Very handy for getting a stew up to temp then having it fall back to a more leasueely 100 watts to keep warm or slowly simmer.

This job has its shortfalls but range of power isn't one of them.