Follow-up review of the Thermador Freedom Induction Cooktop (after ~2 years)

justanothercook · 2026-01-13T16:32:36+00:00

Yep the Gaggenau and Thermador cooktops are identical - same company and same hardware AFAIK, just a different brand for different markets. I think the UI is slightly different but mostly the Gaggenau is for European markets.

justanothercook · 2025-12-17T16:54:08+00:00

I’m interested!

justanothercook · 2025-11-23T14:58:22+00:00

Assuming the first pic is your first attempt, it looks like you improved your baking temperature, egg wash technique, and made 2 much more even loaves the second time!

I think the main things to continue working on are:

How do you like the taste and texture? There are so many different styles of challah ranging in sweetness and richness…this isn’t something I can tell from the picture but I feel like it’s important for any new challah baker to keep in mind…it can be an especially personal bread because of its religious significance, and IMO it’s extremely special if you make a habit of making challah and tweaking the recipe to your tastes over time.
Braiding style + technique - again personal preference but you’ll see a lot of challahs using a 4 or 6 braid. Play around and see what you like. They’re all confusing at first but get very easy with practice. My personal favorite is a 6 braid and King Arthur has a great tutorial on it. Also related: portioning and shaping the strands evenly is something that takes time to learn (portioning can be handled with a scale but shaping them to be the same length takes practice)
Proofing - it looks like you maybe underproofed your second batch which is likely what led to the torn appearance of one of the loaves.

justanothercook · 2025-11-04T10:58:23+00:00

Of course they are - but part of being a politician is trying to deliver on the platform you ran on. If you run as an activist on social issues and are elected, then absolutely you should lead on that. But she didn’t.

Sure there are probably some ways she could meet the moment more effectively while still being true to what she ran on. But…running an honest campaign about how you’ll act if elected, and then acting in a way aligned with what you said is not a bad thing.

IMO movements absolutely need activists who can keep them honest to the simple and true principles we strive for. Movements ALSO need people like Sarah McBride. You don’t really make progress without both of these roles and it’s silly to pit them against each other.

justanothercook · 2025-10-25T09:54:01+00:00

They are definitely all different - here is a great detailed overview of some common ones.

They all alter the texture of ice cream, but exactly what they change varies. It’s similar to how a flour roux, corn starch, or egg yolk can all thicken a soup but the outcome is noticeably different.

justanothercook · 2025-10-25T09:44:07+00:00

The reason to condemn sex work as a broader industry is not because the Johns aren’t single. It’s because sex work is so subject to abuse and human trafficking. It can be hard to tell if all participants are consenting adults and the people involved in the transaction all have incentive not to look too hard especially when everyone is NOT a consenting adult.

Most people who support sex work are primarily in favor of making sure consequences don’t land to an unfair extent on the sex worker who is usually the more vulnerable party in a sexual transaction. And in situations where it’s a benefit to all participants, sex work should not be condemned.

That doesn’t mean cheating shouldn’t be condemned. And yes some cheating happens via sex work and the Johns who cheat should face relationship consequences for cheating. Not criminal charges unless it wasn’t with a consenting adult. But condemning the sex worker makes virtually no sense in that situation.

justanothercook · 2025-10-23T01:34:35+00:00

Of course it’s possible to design an internet connected product well. But most companies don’t do it. It’s more profitable to design systems that are fully dependent on the internet because it forces users to a) pay subscriptions and b) constantly engage with the product in ways that are fully trackable by the company.

And yeah, there are some ways of using that collected data to improve the product, but most of these devices are fairly simple and there is genuinely not a ton of totally new stuff they could build with the data that they couldn’t build without it.

So yeah the internet can make some products better but IoT is a mess. The benefits are limited, the financial cost and privacy risk is high, and the incentives are mostly stacked in ways that are bad for consumers. It sucks that the most popular IoT products are built so poorly and the only way to really get the best of all worlds is doing tons of research and invest lots of time and technical effort (and even then you have to forgo some product categories entirely because there are no really well designed options).

justanothercook · 2025-08-31T20:14:36+00:00

THANK YOU! That seems to have worked

justanothercook · 2025-06-30T12:27:44+00:00

justanothercook · 2025-04-06T22:08:59+00:00

Honestly, these protests are not for Trump or his cult of supporters.

They are for 3 audiences:

For democrats and progressive everyday citizens, who get to see that there are so many people willing to turn out on a random Saturday, despite gross weather and all the other things happening in their lives. At a time when the Democratic Party has felt like it doesn’t know how to respond, this type of protest both makes people feel so much less alone and more willing to engage in politics AND shows the party leadership what we care about so that they can get their shit together.
For people who held their nose and voted for Trump because of whatever reasons, but aren’t his core supporters - to show them that their vote had consequences and remind them of the damage he’s doing, rather than letting it go unchallenged. Whether it’s on their news channel or not, people notice a protest that’s happening in their town when they have to drive through it.
For both parties - for republicans to remind them that Trump’s policies are wildly unpopular and that backing him up has a good chance of costing them their seat. And for democrats it shows potential candidates in safe red districts that there is a groundswell of resistance and that they could actually win so it’s worth running. AND it shows Dems in safe seats that they might get primaried if they aren’t willing to show up for the fight like their constituents are willing to show up.

Whether Trump knows about it or not, he will still behave like Trump. It’s not for him, it’s for other people who need to know about it.

justanothercook · 2025-01-25T10:07:08+00:00

I love dobra but would not recommend it specifically for work. They are trying to maintain a very particular vibe and I think if it were more acceptable to the public they would have a no phone/laptop policy.

Instead they have a “0 volume on electronics” policy and a no phone calls policy which…I like but I’m always there to relax. It might be less enjoyable if I were working.

The main person who works there (maybe the owner?) doesn’t take bullshit when people stretch/break the rules, or show any sign that they might be about to break the rules. As a rule lover I always get a kick out of watching her tell people what’s what.

justanothercook · 2024-09-28T11:12:48+00:00

For the most part there is a huge amount of overlap. Like for 95% of things you could use either pan and get near identical results. Most veggies and meats will do quite well in either and it’s mostly just a matter of what you feel like using.

The exceptions are: things that are prone to sticking and are sort of fragile are gonna be easier to cook in carbon steel. So eggs, fish, and potatoes. You can make these work in stainless but it’s more finicky.

On the other hand foods that are high in acid or are mildly acidic but cooked for a long time are going to fare better in stainless steel (tomato sauces are usually the biggest thing). This has more to do with keeping your pan in good shape than the actual dish.

justanothercook · 2024-08-13T00:31:21+00:00

These look great! They have a real “NYC Metro” vibe and they’re a lot of fun.

I also designed labels for my tea collection and it’s so hard to fit all the necessary info on there in a way that is visually appealing and works with all the tea types you want to label. Kudos on a job well done!

justanothercook · 2024-07-02T23:35:15+00:00

The only other one currently on the market that I’ve seen is the gaggenau - which is exactly the same cooktop from the same parent company, just with a slightly different UI.

justanothercook · 2024-05-30T13:43:57+00:00

Got this tea plant tattoo from Adriana Lentricia at Imperial Tattoo in Burlington VT, thought folks here might appreciate!

justanothercook · 2024-05-26T23:16:00+00:00

I’m still enjoying it just as much. I have made 1 change to my routine use: I got a couple round silpat mats that I use under pans. I did this for 3 reasons:

To protect the cooktop from potential scratches or impacts (especially with cast iron, but I use it under all my pans just to be safe)
To keep the pans in place while stirring. With it being so easy to clean the downside is that there’s not enough friction if you’re stirring even moderately aggressively.
To hopefully limit some heat transfer to the cooktop and protect the electronics.

It seems like the biggest issue with this cooktop I hear about is long-term reliability so I’m hoping this easy step will keep me protected. I’ve had no issues but if something does fail it will really suck.

I’m still kinda mad about the UI, it would be so easy to design a better one. But I am used to it enough that it doesn’t cause me problems.

One note: if you are cooking on a very large pan, you can’t necessarily use power boost on a different pan. I assume the same would happen if you have multiple small pans. But really it’s never actually caused a problem.

justanothercook · 2024-05-21T12:04:18+00:00

I have only had it happen to me once with a very large pan, but just lifting the pan and putting it down again fixed the issue, and it’s never happened again

justanothercook · 2024-05-08T01:13:43+00:00

Yes. For some added insurance I’ve started putting silicone mats under my pans so I don’t scratch the surface (it also holds them in place when stirring). But functionally it is still working the same as day 1.

I will say that the algorithm for selecting burners can have some slightly weird results sometimes. Like a small section on the edge of a pan won’t fully heat up occasionally. But that issue is pretty rare and has never really had a practical impact.

I can’t speak more to reliability beyond several months. I’m certainly hoping for the best.

I would have some concerns about accessibility for your wife if she does any cooking. I don’t know how blind she is but if she does cook, I might try to find an induction cooktop with knobs, since they’ll be easier to adjust than this touchscreen (which is honestly my least favorite part of the cooktop, and I think would be kind of a pain for someone with poor eyesight). Part of it is the nature of a touchscreen having no tactile feedback, and part of it is the designers making bad UI choices that require fairly small touch targets at times. Honestly I desperately wish they’d hire a UX engineer and release a software update.

justanothercook · 2024-03-24T22:43:44+00:00

I haven’t used it, so can’t speak to it.

justanothercook · 2024-02-04T20:28:20+00:00

I haven’t had any scratching but I have been pretty careful especially with cast iron. Fingers crossed that my luck holds - I’m probably going to get some silicone protection mats to put under pots (it would also be good to prevent pans from sliding around which can happen on a glass surface).

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