{"items": [{"author": "Michael", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/455091681187850?comment_id=455100754520276", "anchor": "fb-455100754520276", "service": "fb", "text": "Stainless steel pots should work just fine as well (austenitic steel is paramagnetic).
The real reason I don't think that they make magnetic stirrers for cooking is that the viscosity of most things you'd want to cook is too high. Anything thicker than the thinnest of soups or sauces is not going to stir very well.", "timestamp": "1345645651"}, {"author": "Boris", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/455091681187850?comment_id=455110194519332", "anchor": "fb-455110194519332", "service": "fb", "text": "How about a self-stirring-pot?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.../self-stirring-pot_n...", "timestamp": "1345647883"}, {"author": "John", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/107538053067746902173", "anchor": "gp-1345659469424", "service": "gp", "text": "If the burner is made of an aluminum chamber (like those on our stove), perhaps a powerful magnet INSIDE the burner would be strong enough. Mount an electric motor under the burner with a shaft up into the burner. The flow of air and gas would help keep the magnet cool. Of course this wouldn't work on fancier burners made of cast iron.\n
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\nSome stainless pots are likely to be non-magnetic. ", "timestamp": 1345659469}, {"author": "Jeremy", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103590581158790876995", "anchor": "gp-1345660063602", "service": "gp", "text": "An automatic pot stirrer would certainly be quite convenient.\u00a0 It might be require some careful engineering to avoid the lower/drive magnet getting demagnetized by the heat of the gas flame.\u00a0 Also it seems the stirling engine would make it rather difficult to control the speed of the stirring independently from the temperature of the pot, such as vigorously stirring while simmering.\u00a0 Also, I wonder if magnetic stirrers would work for most foods or if there would be problems with highly viscous substances.\u00a0 For something as difficult as polenta, I can imagine that only a powerful direct stirrer in the stand mixer-type configuration would work, as a large amount of force is required.\u00a0 I had been thinking about an idea for an electric pressure cooker with a square cross section when viewed from the top opening, that would rotate (about an axis that goes through the center of the bottom and the center of the opening) using a motor, so that when placed with the (sealed) opening on the side, rather than on the top, it would stir most things pretty well without requiring any parts moving internally.\u00a0 I can imagine that this would allow cooking things like pasta that would otherwise get stuck together in a pressure cooker.", "timestamp": 1345660063}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1345665598485", "service": "gp", "text": "@Jeremy\n\u00a0I hadn't thought about heat harming the magnet, but that could be a problem. \u00a0It looks like high temperature magnets are only good to around 300C, and keeping it from getting hotter than that while surrounded by natural gas burning at ~2000C might be very hard to impossible.\n
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\nI think you could also do something with an electromagnet to spin the magnetic bar stirrer, but then you need to generate electricity from the engine which is way harder. \u00a0Or you could just run heat resistant wires from somewhere else, which is simpler but ugly.", "timestamp": 1345665598}]}