Hot plate/plata vs blech

Elfrida

Wed, Apr 13 2022, 1:10 pm

A platta is evenly hot across the entire surface, whereas a blech tends to have hotspots around the flame(s) and the rest is cooler. Mine has options of warm or hot, so I can put it on hot before Shabbos to make sure all the food is properly hot, and then turn it down to warm before candle lighting. (The switch is under a cover and would be impossible to alter by mistake on Shabbos itself.)

We don't particularly like chulent and I often make a soup in the crock pot for Shabbos lunch. With a plata, I can set a timer for it to go off after the Friday night seuda, and come on again in the morning to heat up schnitzels or whatever else. If there's nothing that needs heating, it just stays off the rest of Shabbos.

During the summer I find that a plata heats up the kitchen less than a blech does.

seeker

Wed, Apr 13 2022, 1:55 pm

Elfrida wrote:

Thanks for all the details.

Thing is, the blech with its hotspots gives you a lot of control of how hot you want your food to get while you can't adjust the heat on Shabbos. You want something a little warm you put it farther from the flame, you want something hot you put it closer or on top. Or if you put it up thinking the meal would start soon and now it's hot and no one's ready, you can just move it over to stay warm and not burn out before everyone's ready. How do you manage these situations with the plata?

Is the timer part of the plata or the kind you plug it into?

WitchKitty

Wed, Apr 13 2022, 2:04 pm

When I don't want it as hot I put it on top of a pan or trivet.
Blechs are great for yom tov, because you can use the fire to cook then put the blech to keep it warm. Or like this year, when you can cook it on yt then put on the blech for shabbos. It also takes much less room in storage.
A plata is much safer than a blech. It's much harder to get burnt from it, because of the even heat, and because there's no actual fire. Plus I think it looks nicer.
Plus you can keep it anywhere, not only in the kitchen. During the summer my parents put it in the laundry room, so the kitchen isn't hot. And when my grandfather with dementia was living with them, they kept in in their room for safety reasons Very Happy

Elfrida

Wed, Apr 13 2022, 2:07 pm

seeker wrote:

To control the amount of heat, put the food on a shallower or deeper upturned tray. Same principle of being further from the heat.

Mine is plugged in to a separate timer. I don't think I've seen any inbuilt.