Elite Gourmet ESB-301F Countertop Single Cast Iron Burner, 1000 Watts Electric Hot Plate, Temperature Controls, Power Indicator Lights, Easy to Clean, White

I bought the burner to temporarily place in my barbeque for smoking five 2# blocks of sharp cheddar cheese for gifting my daughters. Aluminum foil, a steel pan and the smoking pellets (I use apple wood) make the actual smoking setup. A wire rack to set the cheese on next to the smoker setup. Quite simple and easy to use. Just remember to tent foil off the burner so that the cheese can't 'see' the burner. Make sure the barbeque is off and fully cooled. We only use the barbeque as a smoke container - we never turn the barbeque on, never. Never turn the barbecue on during smoking. Always use a cooled barbeque to begin smoking. Also when done smoking always remember the wood pellets in the steel pan are burning. Let them burn in a safe location. Do not pour water on the burning wood pellets in the steel pan while they are sitting on the ELECTRIC burner. If you must, unplug the ELECTRIC burner then pour water on the wood pellets in the steel pan. I place the burner on the barbeque rack on one side. I fill the steel pan with how much smoking pellets I want to use (usually ½ to ¾ full of pellets and NO WATER) and fold a doubled over layer of aluminum foil to seal the pan with pellets. Make the doubled over aluminum foil sufficient long so after folding like a top pie crust on the pan, it can be directed out and down the shield the burner element from the cheese. Put five or six random small ⅛ inch or so holes in the doubled over aluminum foil on top of and sealing the pan to let the smoke out. I don't want the aluminum foil to melt or bump something and short out so mine hangs out and down below the burner but does not ever actually touch the burner. But it can be very close (¼ inch away) just not touching the burner. Place the cheese on a cooking oil sprayed wire rack or stainless wire splash screen far away from the aluminum foil sealed, apple wood pellet partially filled smoke maker pan and burner (also inside the barbeque just on the extreme other side of the inside of the barbeque). Turn the burner to about '6' to get the wood pellets to burn then drop the burner down to #2 to #4 to sustain burning and smoking. Close the lid on the barbecue and let it smoke away. The barbecue will warm some from the smoking energy. I do my cheese smoking when it is cool outside (preferably less than 55°F). This helps keep the cheese from melting. I notice a lot of smoke wafting from the barbeque and that is normal. When it is in the 40's outside, I place something over the barbeque to slow the loss of smoke to retain some heat in the burning smoke pellets pan. A plastic large lawn bag over the barbeque helps retain the smoke and keep things going on a cold day. I generally smoke with as cool a smoke as possible by doing it on a cool day out of the sun or preferably at night. I let the smoke go for at least ½ hour, but usually 1 hour. I smoke raw meat the same way and at the same time. Just position the meat closest to the burner and keep it and it's drips off the cheese. Don't put the cheese on the bloody rack. That's it. In the morning after everything is cooked down, I remove the burner and wipe it down, I remove the pan to the sidewalk. Remove the aluminum foil and fill the burnt pellets in the pan with water and let the burnt wood pellets soak in the steel pan underwater for an hour stirring occasionally to ensure any microembers are extinguished. Then I place the burnt wood pellets in a steel container STEEL CONTAINER away from the house, car, outbuildings, etc. And on garbage day the the garbage cans to the curb then decanted the water off into the grass and dumped the extinguished and soaked burnt smoking pellets directly into the garbage can AT THE CURB away from cars, trailers, etc. The charred wood pellets help deodorize the garbage can. This is an electric burner review and it works perfectly, controllably, stable, and reliably to smoke cheese inside a closed lid barbeque. I can only imagine how well it will work operating as it was designed to as a burner on the table.

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).

Works great, gets hot extremely fast! But the outside of it arrived broken. I hope in the future it gets packed better.

Just rec'd today.... Tried out 'my purpose' for purchasing..... I've a secret recipe for black bean tacos. The tacos are tastier with 'charred/slightly blackened' corn tortillas; no oil/pan frying whatsoever -- place directly upon burner and let her char! The problem is that I've been using my induction stovetop burners and slowly but surely, with each dinner prep ---- more and more tortilla residue is left on the surface and even comet-like stuff won't remove it. Point being - my stovetop surface is slowly getting ruined :( :( A good decent hotplate was needed which led me to this purchase. A quick perusing here @ amazon and voila---it appears that I found just what I needed! ************* THE LOWDOWN ************* 1) Cast iron heating element -- nicely done, love it!! Solid piece which means no 'food fall-thru's' & HOT, HOT, HOT!! I did not want one off those 'coil-burner' hotplates -- so I'm a happy camper having found this. And YES, it does seem to cook evenly. My tortillas were all evenly charred :) 2) 1000 watts -- nice and hot, nice and quickly. Would have preferred 1100-1200 watts but they were not avail in the price range I was willing to pay for simple burning of tortillas :) 3) Regarding the "Cool Touch Base" (there is no such thing) Yep, the entire base/casing gets quite hot also, so I use a wooden trivet (the tiny feet DO NOT get hot... but I'm not taking a chance). Personally, I can't even imagine such a small cooking utensil as this not getting hot.... that's the point --- heat.... and being so small, the base is bound to get hot also. Consider your stovetop... nearby any burner used gets quite warm too... so, it is what it is. Therefore, this DOES NOT have a 'cool touch base'. It's called "precautions taken" and one should be fine. 4) How to clean the drip pan underneath the burner --- oh my, I can't see a way to do that! It appears to be one tightly made unit (instructions mention nothing of this). I suppose that over time you'll just burn that excess stuff away? Perhaps, once again -- just be careful not to spill liquids... and for crumbs (toast, etc) just turn upside down and shake? I'm perfect, so rarely do I have crumbs.... bwahahahaaaa ;) 5) It's been 10 minutes since I turned it off. To make sure it was off, I unplugged it because 5 min into "OFF" - the darn thing was just as hot as it was "ON". It is STILL WARM enough NOW to keep the tortilla 'warming'. That is something I don't get with my stovetop burners ---- but I am willing to deal with that. Cool-down will be at least an hour+ before storage. 6) There IS a 1 year warranty - good to know. But having bought thru amazon --- returns are easier than the manufacturer should something happen sooner than that. And, at least there is a warranty that extends beyond the avg 60 day timeframe. That's it! ... I'm now drowning in my black bean taco diet and loving every single minute of it!! Hope some of this helps :)

In May, 2010, my family and I began the daunting remodeling of our kitchen. We decided to live at home during construction (a pretty major re-do) and, wanting not only to save money, but to continue to eat in a healthy fashion, we really didn't want to eat out every night - costly, salty and fatty! So enter this little gadget. We used this almost every single day (2 adults, 2 kids), for at least one meal/use daily, for four and a half months (it was a long project!). Not one single glitch. I'd credit it, almost single handedly (well, along with a fantastic toaster oven - the Proctor Silex 31120 Pizza Oven - and the microwave) for allowing us to achieve our goals. In the entire period, we ate out twice, and that was by choice. We have every intention of keeping it as a "fifth burner," giving us some flexiblity, now that our kitchen is finished. We have a new induction stove (FANTASTIC, btw), so this will let us use our old pots/pans that aren't induction compatible. And when our daughter goes off to college, I can see this little unit potentially going with her. Yes, it's a little slower than a "real" stove, but it did everything we asked of it and more. Easy to clean (the cast iron burner is virtually one piece with the body and, as a solid top, stuff doesn't drop between/below the burner like a unit with coils), and the heat output was pretty controllable - never burned anything. We used pots and pans, up to 10" skillet size. Technically, it's a little small for that (based on burner size) but it worked fine. Probably wouldn't try a 12", unless it's all you have, but I'll bet it'll work, just not as uniform heat distribution. And it was very stable. It's solid, but not too heavy. Non-skid feet, very level and broad footprint, yet it was very unobtrusive on a small wet-bar countertop, leaving room for cutting/dicing of other things. Sure, individual units may not be good (see other reviews), but this thing has POTENTIAL. I don't regret buying it one bit; if you do and yours doesn't heat, I'd recommend returning it; you probably got a bad one! Happy cooking! UPDATE - 10/28/2019 - Nine (9) years later (!) and it's still awesome! UPDATE - 10/6/2025 - still going strong!

heats evenly, easy to clean

-------- Newest review: Well, it died, 8 weeks after I bought it. Can't say I'm surprised. ---------- second oldest review below-------- So I had to revise my old review down. This thing is straight up dangerous. After many hours of the smell never really going away, I disassembled it. Turns out, they used cheap little plastic-covered connectors at the junction to the coil. The plastic on one of these had turned completely to white ashy flakes, which had now fallen down all inside the housing. The other connector was heavily blackened and cracked. There's probably not a real fire danger, as the housing for this unit is made of metal, but sheesh, that's just cheap, bad design. Another thing that happened is that it started buzzing a lot. 60 hertz, so you may correctly guess that the coil was vibrating against something, that something being a metal heat shield on the bottom of it. I bent it back slightly with my hands, and the noise is gone now. Another thing has has happened is the sensitivity of the control thermostat has shifted. Of its problems, this one is most dangerous. There is no indent to completely turn the unit off. The "off" setting, rather, is just analog low temperature cutoff, which seems to now be around 70 degrees. So sitting completely quiet while plugged in, if the temp in your house drops below 70, it will click on full 1000 watts for several seconds. Currently, the thermal mass of the coil cover stops it from getting too warm in those several seconds, but it does rise to perhaps 130F, just guessing from putting my hand on it. 30 minutes later, once its cooled down, it will do this again. So absolutely DO NOT leave this thing plugged in. What if it rose even warmer with a plastic bowl or newspaper on top of it? While cheap, overall this thing is just too poorly designed and dangerous. Even as cheap as I am, I cannot recommend it to anyone. -----------oldest review below-------- OMG THE SMELL IS AWFUL. Not like a "little bit" awful, but truly madly deeply awful. A little smoke and lots of burning nasty plastic vapors. Do NOT turn this thing on inside your house for the first time. Put it out on your back deck, grab a beer, and leave it on high for an hour until whatever non-UL-approved Chinese chemicals that are inside these things finally burns off. I would definitely not leave this thing plugged in when not in use. Especially since the knob is very easy to bump on. Otherwise a good, simple, hot little unit, lol.

I wasn’t expecting much at this price point, but this little thing did it’s job for just over 6 months of near daily use before dying out. Cord can get very hot, smells like burning plastic/electronics the first couple of times you use it. Gets hot enough to boil water in about 10 minutes, however the temperature repeatedly cuts on and off and extends that time drastically. It’s small enough to move around and store with ease. I would not speak as to it’s safety, not a unit I would leave unattended for more than a minute. Would only buy one again if I just wanted one to have around without intending to use it much.