Pot sticking to induction cooktop

Question

I recently bought a Max Burton 6400 induction cooktop. I used it a few times with some pans I already own and had no problem. Today I wanted to heat some milk up quickly, and I used a cheap Ikea sauce pan. The milk heated up fine, but when I tried to remove the pot, it had become stuck to the surface. I turned the cooktop off, but it was still stuck. I finally was able to slide it to the edge and pull it off, throwing hot milk all over my kitchen.

Has anyone experienced this with an induction cooktop before? Is it considered a malfunction? And should I blame the pot or the cooktop?

Answer 1

I am guessing you had a bit of fluid either on the bottom of the pan or on the top of your stove. It could have been almost any fluid including water. Even though your pans can get really hot, water trapped under a pan doesn't seem to boil away very quickly, and the longer the pot sits on top of the fluid, the thinner it is pressed, thus turning into a suction problem because there is no effective fluid surface (thickness) for air to slurp in under the pot.

I cook mostly with cast iron, so the irregularity of the surface minimizes this effect a great deal.

Make sure your pot bottoms and stove surface are dry and clean. Obviously they'll still get greasy, especially during heavy cooking sessions, but try to keep the grease level to a minimum, and wipe down the stove between the burners as you go.

Answer 2

My SIMPLE SOLUTION to this that hopefully will work for others as well is first I placed and tried to insert a plastic measuring tape edge to get in between the stuck pan and the stove top of the induction cooker. When it was only able to get in between the two a little, I put tissues around the bottom of the pan to absorb the liquid underneath it. Threw the wet tissues and placed new dry tissues.

Then I used a flat metal spatula and inserted it in between the two and very gently tried to lift the pan off the stove top to avoid scratching or damaging both while the tissues are there to also act as a mini lever for the spatula.

To my surprise, the pan got unstuck easily. (I waited for the induction cooker and pan to cool first before I did all this. I actually slept over this issue due to the stress it has brought me and when I woke up this solution came to my mind.)

Answer 3

My induction pan stuck to the induction hob which naturally made me panic! I was making homemade soup and it had to simmer for awhile. To resolve this I realised the pan needed to cool down. I turned everything off and removed the soup from the pot by using a ladle. Once the pot had cooled down and with a little gentle pressure I slid the pot to the edge and then lifted it. No damage to the hob. Water was trapped beneath the pot and the hob.

Answer 4

I used to work in a foundry that used induction oven to melt aluminum,zinc, and brass. I would say it was liquid suction

Answer 5

I had this issue too, I too believe it was the suction. Use this or something similar:

Tescoma Induktions-Adapterplatte, ø 21 cm https://www.amazon.de/dp/B00N1TFH5U/ref=cm_sw_r_wa_apa_glt_i_8N98N0TVX219CFPF5TNW?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Answer 6

It is entirely possible that your pan melted a bit.

Many materials will just not warm up if you put them on an induction stove. But if you have aluminium which is thin enough, it can melt. There are people who melt alu foil on induction cooktops as a prank. I suspect that, if your pot was thin enough, or if it was layered with aluminium as the contact surface (and layered/sandwich bottoms are common in cookware), it could have heated too, and melted and fused with the cooktop.

Another way to fuse would in principle be bad enamel, if the pot itself heated enough to soften a thin layer of enamel. But this is very unlikely, since enamel has a much higher melting point than aluminium. I have used enameled pots, including cheap ones, without any problem.

This is not the only possibility, of course. As Escoce said, a burnt-on liquid can also make it stick somewhat. But if this is the case, you should be able to separate it without damaging the glass by simply pushing harder on the pot. If they are completely fused, a melted bottom is more likely.

If this is what happened, you should blame the pot, and only use pots with a "ready for induction" sign on the bottom. The only exception should be cookware for which you are sure that its bottom layer is either steel or iron. Check steel with a magnet for conductivity.