Low-Heat Gas Cooking

Over on the kitchn today, they are talking about burner plates. These are plates of material that sit in-between a gas burner and your pot, serving to reduce the heat.

Strangely, I'd never heard of these before. Part of that might be the fact that - until recently - I've been stuck with electric stovetops. One area that electric stoves tend to beat gas stoves in is lower-temperature cooking. With a gas stove, you can have great temperature control until you get to the point where the flames are in danger of sputtering out. A heat diffuser will let you keep the flames up a bit higher while reducing the heat transfer. They'll give you that control at a lower temperature.

Burner plates aren't too expensive, starting at just over $10. You can see a few examples from Amazon to the right. Still, I'm wondering how a ceramic tile (costing about $1) would work. I'd rather use something even less expensive (and multipurpose) than a unitask piece of metal. Ceramic will certainly stand up to the heat of a gas burner. It is, however, an insulator rather than a conductor. It will diffuse the heat well, but it won't react to your changes in temperature quickly. Still, it might be a useful and inexpensive alternative. Maybe a ceramic tile wrapped in aluminum foil?