Mainstays Portable Single Burner and Hot Plate, 120V~ 1100W

As I awaited the arrival of my MainStays Single Burner hot plate I kept imagining more uses for it. My first thought was that when I cook brown rice it\’s difficult to find exactly the right setting on a gas stove for simmering. It should be easy with the electric hot plate because it has an easy-to-read dial. Last summer I had a back-yard gathering and had a big pot of chili on the patio table. Next time I\’ll use the hot plate to keep it hot! I tried it out (outside) for melting lead for diving weights and on MAX it melted the lead quickly. I had to turn it down to about 3 1/2 and it was still boiling. I made a comparison with my gas stove and with a 4\” burner it took about 3 minutes, 40 seconds to boil two cups of water. On my 3\” burner it took about 3 minutes, 45 seconds. With the single burner hot plate it took about 6 minutes, 30 seconds. This was with a copper-bottom (plated) stainless steel sauce pan. I assume other types of pans might heat up more quickly on an electric stove. Another idea I had was if you are RV camping in a park with electric hook-ups you could bring along the single burner hot plate and save on propane. I have stayed at some resorts (outside of USA) that had two-burner electric stoves (with all the numbers worn off) so I will consider bringing it along next time because sometimes two burners are simply not enough.
It has a fairly sturdy appearance so with normal care it looks like it will last. The first time I tried it the burner looked very red on MAX and when I turned it down it still looked very red. It seems to take a little while for it to reduce the heat to the new setting so you don\’t get the quick response that you would expect on a gas stove. The instructions don\’t say much of anything other than \”turn the control knob to the desired setting.\” The indicator lights cannot be seen very easily outside in bright sunlight.
I\’m giving it Four Stars because it takes a little longer than a gas stove, the instructions are very limited, and you really have to be careful handling it after use because the whole thing stays hot for a while.

The Mainstays single burner worked well. I used to use an electric burner when I was younger. It was years ago. We were shopping for a new stove. I remember an electric burner to be a better version of the Mainstays burner. The heating time is great and it has improved. It takes seconds to heat up. In the middle of cooking. I like that it has indicator lights. Let me know if the power light is on or off, and if the green indicator light tells me the burner is on or off. Didn’t have the indicator lights before. The burner’s coil would turn red. I think that was the indicator. I have used electric burners before, but they didn’t seem to regulate the amount of heat in our cookware. It was either low or high. The mainstay burner can cook food evenly. I made seafood sauce and taco on this burner. I was able to get my food to cook to my expectations. I wanted to go camping with this burner. It works great if you test it out at home. I would like to know if it would trip the camping breaker box before I go camping. I don’t know how much power it uses. It works well at my home. If you’re looking for a single burner, I would recommend trying this one. It gets the job done.