NESCO SB-01, Electric Burner, Stainless Steel, 1500 watts

I purchased this as a substitute for using the gas range in my camper, with the excess heat of the gas, and poor temperature regulation. The results, perfect! I use it with my 11' cast Iron fry pan, and 10" griddle, as well as a 2 qt. saucepan with perfect results every time. It maintains the heat you set it to, and even egg beaters, and glutin free pancakes come out perfect every time, which are both subject to scorching if gotten too hot. But when I want the heat, I do hash browns and stir fry with the same perfect results. Heat up is quicker than on my (8' burner) gas range, and I don't kill the air conditioning. I haven't found a down side (other than no degree numbers, just an uncalibrated scale), works better than expected. A comment was made about rusting, duh, its a cast Iron burner. Treat it with a little oil (I use flaxseed) when cool, like any other cast Iron cookware.

This is a very good hot plate for the price, I like it for the heat it puts out. We cook at work and we need it to get hot enough to fry things with.

I bought one of these Nesco burners back in 2015, and let me tell ya, it was a little workhorse. I was so glad to have that burner in storage when my home was destroyed by a storm. That burner was my only "stove" from 2016 until earlier this year (2020). I never had a problem boiling water for pasta, or searing a steak, or cooking more delicate things like eggs or grilled cheese sandwiches. The burner was always up to the task. So when my trusty Nesco burner finally bit the dust earlier this year, I bought a new one right away, expecting the same great performance. However, the new burner made a humming/buzzing noise most of the time and took FOREVER to cook anything. And then the thing quit altogether, within a couple of months of purchase. It's been sitting in my garage since then (that was in May). I'm just now getting around to writing the review. I've been relying on my microwave and instant pot since then, but finally purchased a Cukor 1500W burner last week and have been very pleased with it so far.

only used it once so far. Heated to a boil very quickly, looks nice and feels hefty (not plastic and heavy enough so it stays in place). I read one review that complained that the manual says it is 1000 watts. The manual I got did indeed say that it was 1000 watts, the manual online says 1500 watts. If you turn the unit over and read where the serial number is it says 1500 watts. Check yours. Whatever the wattage is it heats up FAST. Only negative is that it does not have a power light indicator only a lamp that lights as it warms and goes out when it reaches the desired temp. Easy to have it on warm without any visual indicater.

At first I didn't think that this worked for what I bought it for, to heat up my Coco Nara coals. The coils are under the black top thing, so you not directly on the heat source, which was enough to not get my coals going very well. I found a solution though, in a foil tent. I shaped a piece of aluminum foil with a cup bottom to put over the coals while they are on, and it gets them red hot in no time now. When my first attempt with foil didn't work to well, I put a air vent hole in the top of my foil tent to allow for circulation. I wouldn't of thought it was bad if it didn't heat my coals up, since that isn't what it was designed to do.

Shipping was great (well for $10 I would hope it would be...). If you are not concerned about wattage, this hot plate is for you. It works as well as the owners manual describes. However, this Electric Burner is listed as a 1500-watt. When I used it the first time I noticed it was no better than my 1000-watt unit I was replacing. Looked in the user manual for possibly something I was doing wrong. The owners manual clearly states: "SB-01: 1000W, 120V, 60Hz" (SB is the Single Burner model. The DB-02 is their dual burner that gets to 900W+900W) Oh, and the price dropped $12.88 since this was purchased September 2nd. I am extremely dissatisfied! Contacted seller for a return, and to get all of my money back.

I received my burner today, but I haven't used it yet. As a matter of fact, I don't even know if it works. Anyway, I will comment on the design which is nice. It has a nice size cast iron burner as described, along with the steel body casing which I love so that I can use pans larger than the burner without worrying about the body of it melting. I will follow-up with a review on its performance very soon. Since writing this review, I have had the pleasure of putting this burner to use. It was amazing at how fast it heats up, however, smoke came barreling out around both knobs like there was an internal fire going on inside of it. The smell was like burning wire. While alarmed and watching this thing closely, after about 15 minutes the burning smoke and smell started to dwindle. One would ask. "why didn't you unplug it?" well, for starters when it comes to new high-voltage electrical small appliances my husband and I always test them outside with our kitchen extinguisher nearby. As far as the way it cooks, well let's just say we finished off on our kitchen gas stove. I would suggest this for small item cooking and not large heavy pots.

These hotplates look nice BUT it am clear I will have to be extra gentle on the temperature control knobs on both the units I bought because they are connected to the unit is a VERY FLIMSY manner. They feel very loose and rickety. I did a test of boiling water on one of the units. It worked fine. Impressively, the water continued to boil even 5 minutes (or longer even) after I turned off the burner. I guess the cast iron surface really retains its heat!! *** JUNE 30 2019 UPDATE *** We have really only been using one of the units and the one we have been using stopped heating up. For a couple weeks it worked if we slapped down on the top of the burner lightly but now even that is no longer getting the unit to heat up. WOW! Less than 5 months of use and it is done! *** DECEMBER 2019 UPDATE *** I have been trying to get these units replaced by metal Wire Corp. They seem to only respond to email communications intermittently and only after repeated prodding. I finally opened up one of the units to see if I could effect a repair and discovered the poor electrical engineering that went into this simple product. The product designer used PIDG FASTON type quick connectors to power the element and these connectors heat to as much as 500 degrees with each use. The connectors expand and corrode over time and become loose. Recrimping these tightly temporarily resolves the issue until they expand again or until the terminals corrode completely.

I had been using a 1200 watt Salton hot plate for about five years in my office (just to fry veggies, heat up soup and make coffee with moka pots). Heating up anything would take forever on that thing and it was starting to rust, so it was time for an upgrade. This thing is significantly better. It heats up so much faster. It heats the food up a lot more before the auto-shut-off kicks in. It makes a 300 ML moka pot coffee in about 2/3 the time as the Salton. Cooking takes somewhere between half to 2/3 the time as it did with the Salton. It still has some issues though: You basically have to wear oven mitts to shut it off because it gets too hot to touch the control dials. It feels a bit more fragile than the Salton (I've only had it a week, so if it breaks, I will update this review). The manual said it would stink for the first few uses because a protective coating would burn off the element or something? They did not lie. I had to open a window and run a fan for the first few times I used it. It's getting better now but ya, that smell was brutal. All that said, at this point in time, I definitely recommend this thing. I'm very happy with it. Just the time I'm saving making coffee with this thing is worth the difference in price between this and another cheap Salton hot plate (and I don't even think that this hot plate is that much more expensive than those ones, tbh)

Items is not good at all

Used this all summer living out of hotels for work, heats up water pretty fast, solid construction definitelely saved me and would recommend. My only complaint is that it takes a long time to cool down to be able to pack it away (30min roughly)

now we have two, thanks great unit.

Our 5 yr old ceramic stove shorted out under the ceramic and died, so we have been waiting for its replacement. In the mean time, we purchased this burner on Aug 13 2017 and exactly one month to the day after we began using it, it no longer gets hot. This is an expensive piece of junk! We cooked our dinner on this every night for 30 days. That's it. Thirty whole dinners, that's all this burner lasts for. Don't waste your hard earned dollars on this, it will let you down big time.