5.0 out of 5 stars WILL BLOW YOU AWAY!!

c. · June 19, 2025

(function() { P.when('cr-A', 'ready').execute(function(A) { if(typeof A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel === 'function') { A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel('review_text_read_more', 'Read more of this review', 'Read less of this review'); } }); })(); .review-text-read-more-expander:focus-visible { outline: 2px solid #2162a1; outline-offset: 2px; border-radius: 5px; } I waited a long time before I wrote a review. These probably won't help much if you're really not into perfecting your meals. For myself, I don't think I could live without one. That is my final result of using this for quite a while. It nails all your preset temperatures within 1 or 2 degrees and stays there. This feature alone will prevent burnt sauces and over cooked meals. Your eggs come out perfect along with any other sensitive foods that you normally would have watch like a Hawk. You can simmer sauces forever without worrying about burning and over cooking. It has a sensor in the center of the surface which makes contact with your induction pan or pot. If your pan has an engraving on the bottom in the center. The sensor will not make proper contact, and the unit will let you know buy turning power off that it is not a usable pot or pan. The weight of your pots and pans also are a factor because if it weighs under approximately 2 pounds. The sensor pushes the pan off the surface and will not work. Make sure the pans you choose weight is at least 2 pounds for a perfect activation of the heat. These are really for gourmet cooks and chefs who demand perfection. If you are one of those 2 mentioned? This Breville Control Freak is exactly that and will blow you away. It really excels with deep frying. It comes with a plug-in sensor probe that attaches to the side of your wok or pot to keep a desired temperature nailed. Also great for Sous Vide cooking because it will maintain an exact water temperature throughout. This Control Freak can eliminate having to buy multiple different cooking appliances because of it's design and versatility. It's worth the money just for deep frying alone. When you buy a consumer deep fryer. They only go up to 375 degrees. That is useless if you're using frozen foods. As soon as you drop your frozen food in the oil. It will drop around 40 or 50 degrees, and your food will absorb the oils and ruin your dish. With The Control Freak. You can preheat your oil to 400 or 425 degrees to compensate for the temperature drop and nail your target cooking temperature for crisp soggyless dish and maintain that temperature throughout. Remember having to use double boilers for chocolate? Not with The Control Freak at hand. This unit has 3 temperature settings that gives you the option how fast or slow you want the temperature to raise. You can choose from slow-medium-fast and melt chocolate perfectly and no need to sweat the chocolate burning. Set the temperature to desired heat setting, then "slow" for aggressiveness. You can then watch your chocolate slowly melt to perfection and maintain desired temp within 2 degrees. You can also program recipe temperature settings, so you don't have to dial them in every time you are cooking a different dish. You just name the dish, choose the setting of temperature and rate of raising heat and then save the setting for the future. To recall a setting. Just got to menu and all the saved temperature settings will appear in a scroll down menu. I was used to cooking on gas burners and thought this might not be for me. Boy was I wrong! Like I said, "can't live without"! There are plenty of top chefs on YouTube demonstrating how they use them. The 5-note melody when you turn the unit on will remind you how much you use and enjoy cooking with "The Control Freak". It's melody is similar to the notes the Aliens used in the movie Close Encounters of a third kind😂. I can't see how a top chef could function without one. Pull the trigger on one of these. You'll thank yourself for all the inspirations this will give you and everyone you know will know exactly where to find you. IN THE KITCHEN!! 😂😂

5.0 out of 5 stars Maintains temperature to within a degree. Terrific for eggs, all kinds of frying; soup etc

R. · May 10, 2025

I bought the commercial version which is bigger but doesn't have as many bells and whistles as the home model. I use it every day. It brings a pot or pan up to temperature in seconds and holds the temperature you set. I do omelettes at 220 degrees and they come out perfect. Fried eggs at 190 degrees come out looking just like the ones on the emoji! No crinkling and no burning. Best things is its ability to hold fry oil at exactly 350 degrees (or whatever you set) and get the oil back up to temp within seconds of dropping room temp food into it. It came with a probe for oil and (separate) probe for water (think soup). Set it and leave it. It has a 10' burner and came with a carrying case. I will take it to my summer home with me. I plan to get a full induction cooktop, but when I do I will keep this for use on a sideboard. Because of its pan temperature sensor, automatic nature and precise control of temperatures. (Be aware it works only with ferrous pans, such as cast iron, carbon steel, stainless steel PLUS aluminum or copper pans built with a ferrous bottom piece. If a magnet sticks to the bottom it is good to go).

5.0 out of 5 stars UPDATE 2023: It will change how you cook.

K.K. · April 11, 2018

UPDATE 2023:I've now had my Control Freak (actually bought a second unit, it's that good) and I've been using it pretty much every single day for over 6 years now. 6 years. Works as flawlessly as it did on day 1. The glass top looks close to brand new (bound to be some scratches after daily use for 6 years) with very minor (ie need to look close to see) scratches. I use lot's of stainless cookware on this top, from small to large pots and pans.The heating element on the unit is 9" which makes it provide very even heat especially with good multi-ply cookware.Would I buy it again? In a second.Original review:I can't speak highly enough about this unit. Yes it's very expensive, some might say extravagantly so, and I wouldn't disagree... however this is really an example of "you get what you pay for".I've owned the unit for a couple months now and have used it for various cooking tasks. What has really blown me away is that the temperature control capabilities really are as fantastic as Breville claims. I've cooked hollandaise, melted chocolate, cooked eggs of various types, boiled stock and made chili.... I've used it plenty. I've made hollandaise and walked away knowing that when I set the pan temp to say 140 it will stay at 140. On top of that when you use the "fast/med/slow" heat rate speed setting appropriately you will KNOW you won't accidently overheat a delicate sauce, for example. No other induction cooktop (or any that I know of) is capable of this.From a quality perspective this thing is top notch. I've used my Smarthings linked power units to measure the power draw from this unit vs a cheaper induction cooker and the Breville shows a couple of important things. 1) it pulls consistently. You don't see spikes like you do on other units that indicates a lack of precise control and 2) it can pull more watts to heat up a bit faster than others.Lastly it looks great and the ceramic glass top is very sturdy and I've seen ho visual scratches after using many types of pots and pans, some with rougher bottoms than others.If you are looking for the best and wanting to really change your cooking experience (this isn't just heat, it's super control over the heat) you can't go wrong.