ESB-301BF Countertop Single Cast Iron Burner, 1000 Watts Electric Hot Plate, Temperature Controls, Power Indicator Lights, Easy to Clean, Black

Lo uso en mi oficina para hacer café con la cafetera italiana, excelente calienta muy rápido

Small, easy to store, gets hot enough to boil water, meat, soups, pancakes, eggs, chili, popcorn, toasted bread, stir fry..I use mine everyday. Your basic model, nothing fancy but it works. I would recommend. As far longevity I don't know I only had it for a month. The numbers have already wore off. Some one might care about that, I don't, i pretty much cook everything on maximum.

I almost tossed this...glad I gave it a second chance. I bought it for cooking while traveling away from home. It seemed to be a good option for that...cooking in hotels or in an unfurnished apartment/home when on an extended stay. The first couple of times I used it it didn't seem to get hot enough to boil the water but in hindsight it seems to work better and get hotter after the first few uses. It kind of seems like it needs to burn off the coating first before it's fully functional, but once it does it works great and is pretty efficient just keep in mind that due to its reduced wattage it may take longer than expected to get hot. Think of the light as a preheat...when it first turns off, it only means that it's ready to start cooking. There is an initial smell that comes from the burner and maybe even a little smoke I'm not so sure about the smoke because I first used it outside and the room that I was in was fairly large and well ventillated not sure if the initial smoke was from what I was cooking or the residue. Whatever coating, residue, or what have you that causes it does eventually burn off and leave you with no smell but it did take quite a few uses (even after initially leaving mine on 1 much longer than the recommended time). There were a few options with the burner tops. Mine is the iron one. It retains some heat after the burner light cuts off. I saw some reviews complaining about this but now after using it I see it as a feature (if efficiency is important to you) because the heat turns off once the desired setting is reached yet the burner is still cooking. The downside is that sometimes you will need to turn the burner off (or down) earlier than you may be used to. At home I have an electric stove and while it does take longer to warm up or cool down compared to a gas stove, the response time is still much closer to a gas stove than it is to this burner. It can take quite awhile for the burner to completely cool down after turning off. A nuisance at first but now that I'm used to it I kind of like it since it does save me a lot of power. I'm on an extended stay now and there is a gas stove here that works great but I find myself using this burner most of the time to save my expense on gas. Recently got the electric bill and it was so much cheaper (a fraction) than the gas which was really great and I was using it the burner a lot. One other downside is that it takes the burner a lot longer than expected to heat up. I have been turning it on early to "preheat" it and this helps a lot to get things cooking. I have even used the burner to cook stock in a large stock pot. It did take longer to get the water boiling and I had to use higher settings but it worked fine otherwise. My only worry was whether the burner could handle the weight. The burner is still new (I've only been using it a couple months so far) so the jury is still out on that. All things considered I'm very happy with my burner and even considering getting another one. It is very efficient, takes very little space, and is great for travel or on the road. A second one will allow me to cook two things at the same time. Edit on March 29, 2023 - One other thing that probably deserves being mentioned. The settings are numbered from 1 to 6 (if I remember right, because my stove is currently packed somewhere since I'm not traveling at the moment). It will take some trial and error to find out which settings work best for your cooking preference. I recommend after the initial burnoff (per the manual), doing a test run first to boil water in your usual pot presetting to 4 first then allowing it to go until the water is boiling and then turning it down to see where you like it set at most for simmering, medium boil, etc. Then do a fry test run frying/sauting something simple (like onions and potatoes or similar) and starting again presetting at around 3.5 and then heating everything up in your preferred pan and seeing what settings you like best here as well for it to cook at the speeds that you prefer.

I almost didn't order one of these because of so many negative reviews. But I have to tell you, it works wonderfully and I am extremely happy with it after 3 weeks of use. I use it nearly every day, at least once a day. Packaging is solid. The unit boils water with no problems whatsoever. Just to give readers an idea how I tend to use this hot plate, I mainly use it to boil water for making soups and ramen, or to boil rice and beans. Being single, I only need to cook for one person, so the amount of water I need to boil never exceeds 3 cups at a time. This unit provides plenty of power to do this (can't remember for sure, but I believe this hot plate is 1000 watts). I never need to use it for more than 12 minutes or so at a time. It boils 2 1/2 cups of water in about 7 minutes (very respectable in my opinion). When I'm making just rice or rice and beans, I bring it to a boil for 5 minutes, then I turn the unit off because I place the pot I'm using into an insulated pot cozy for 20 minutes more to finish cooking without the need to use more energy. Some reviewers reported the power indicator light goes out. And yes, sometimes it does. This is because once the iron plate heats up to temperature, the heat element turns itself on and off to maintain the temperature you have selected, not because it's shorting out. The first 2 or 3 times I used the hot plate, there was a faint smell from the hot plate. Most likely it was from a factory coating placed on the heating element when it was manufactured to protect it from corrosion during shipping/storage. After using it a couple of times, I smell nothing but good food cooking. I was never concerned about it catching fire, like other reviewers have reported. I don't know how long some reviewers who left negative opinions were using this hot plate, and maybe they really did have major issues with this particular model of hot plate. But no one with problems mentions how long they had the unit on before experiencing their issues. Since I don't plan on making seven course meals on this single burner hot plate, and don't need to have it on more than 15 minutes at a time, I don't expect to ever have a problem with this product. Even if this hot plate conks out on me right now, I feel it was well worth the twenty bucks. I suspect it will last a very long time because the build quality is very simple but durable, maybe with the excemption of the temperature selection knob which feels a little flimsy (though it is not wobbly or jiggly, just a little too easy to turn in my opinion). But I'm only planning on using that to dial to the temperature I need, not swing on it. It turns on, it turns off. When you're done with it, unplug it like you should unplug every other appliance that's not being used. Extremely pleased with this product. In fact, in the time it took to boot up my computer and write this review, my rice was finishing cooking in it's pot cozy. And now it's done. I have no complaints whatsoever, and I would highly recommend this hot plate for someone like myself who wishes to make very simple meals. Update, August 2013: Had this hot plate for 2 1/2 years now, and it continues to work fine after nearly daily use. The temperature selection knob has gotten a little wobbly, and it feels like it could pull off if I were to try to do so, but it seems to work equally well today as when it was brand new. For a $20 hot plate it could burn out tomorrow and I'd still be pleased with the service it's given me (though I expect it will continue to work for years to come).

This is a sturdy little unit, that is just _barely_ sufficient for my purposes (a moderately sized pressure cooker that is incompatible with my glass-top stove). However! Outside of using gigantic heavy pots on undersized heating units, this thing is AMAZING. It heats up swiftly, it is robustly designed (the mere fact that it can take on a pressure cooker like a champ speaks to this), and it gets the job done. Excellent value!