Please help! Hosting tonight and the hob isn’t working!

[whatthen]

I’m having a few people over to watch the England match tonight. Last night I cooked a chilli and intended to heat it up and make the rice tonight. However, after cleaning the hob last night it will no longer turn on. None of the four rings will work. I can smell the gas, but there is no click to spark it.

What can I do? I’m at work till 5:30 and people are arriving at 6:30. The rice isn’t microwaveable packets, it’s uncooked rice that needs boiling in water.

I’m not sure but this was the problem when the click on my fire stopped. I will check.

If its water getting it they may work by the time you get home and they have dried out fully.

If you are worried about using a lighter/matches you can cook rice in the oven while you reheat your chili.

Just pop your rice in a large oven proof dish, measure you rice by volume and add 1.5-2 x the volume of water (depending on type of rice google will help) Cover with foil and pop in the oven for half an hour ish.

Makes lovely rice and easier than the hobb if you get it right.

Good luck and have fun.

You can cook rice in the oven. https://hungryhealthyhappy.com/oven-cooked-rice/

OP, I've never heard matches are dangerous for lighting hobs. How is it different? A flame or a spark - they both do the same thing. I use matches all the time when our hob rings play up. It usually just means they are a bit damp. You could try wiping them with paper towel, especially around the gas jets and the little ignition tube thing (excuse my technical terminology , then trying again

Put the rinsed rice in a glass bowl cling film it and cook. You can get proper instructions on Google Gemini . If it's only the hob that's gone though and your ovens working the chilli can be repeated in the oven and I'm sure there are recipes online for oven cooked rice. Good luck!!

I’m assuming she’s concerned as she’s had the gas running for a while without being able to light it, so therefore lighting a match might ignite quickly due to a lot of gas in the air?

OP once you’ve aired out the room a little I’d do as others have said and set the gas on low, light a match and light the hob. It should be absolutely fine.

Not sure what you googled, OP but I just googled can you light a gas hob with match and I got this. Did you just say “gas”? 🤷‍♀️. There are, as pp have said, elongated lighters specifically for this job. I’ve got a fancy rechargeable plasma thing that I use for lighting the fire, candles and the gas hob if we have a power cut. Perfectly safe

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I'd totally try a match with gas turned low. It is probably just a bit wet. It will dry. Have you had everything back off, dried it all again and replaced everything?

OP. Let any residual gas disperse. Pop to the corner shop and get one of these (img under review)
turn gas back into hob and click the lighter. This is pretty much how it worked pre 90s

I think it must be moisture getting in from when I cleaned it.

I had this once. It was ok once it had dried out.

But of course use a match. That's how everyone lit their gas cookers and hobs before automatic ignition.

Neighbour!

Also, if you light your hobs using a match or lighter, any moisture in your clicker will dry out immediately so fixing your hob for the future.

You can do rice in the oven- this is my standard way to do it and it works brilliantly. It uses more energy than using the hob though so best when the oven is on anyway.

Preheat oven to 220
Weigh the rice
Add double the weight of boiling water from the kettle (so 200g rice, 400g water, say)
Lid on and straight into the oven.
For white basmati, cook for 20 mins then fluff it with a fork. Brown rice takes a bit longer.

(Obviously you could just light the hob with a match though.)

Matches ?

I had the same (and also the hob sparring all the time) do I just unplugged it and used marches. It’s fine and there’s a safety feature that cute has off when there is no flame (at least in Europe, don’t know about the Uk) unless you’re holding the switches down.

I've been using matches since I moved into my house with the broken hob three years ago. Still alive!

I'm rubbish at lighting gas hobs with a match because when the flame ignites I panic that my fingers are going to get singed, yelp, drop the match and let go of the gas knob at the same time. I'm fine with one of the long clicky lighters though. It's not really dangerous, I'm just a bit of a panicky idiot!

Do you have a switch for your clicker that you've accidentally turned off?

When we had a gas hob, it had a switch to turn the power on and off. So check that's on, as well as checking that the fuse it's on isn't blown.

Failing all that, just go out and buy a gas lighter or box of 'cooker matches' from any supermarket/hardware store/pound shop or similar.

Rude on your part OP. Knickerless (great username) was right, and wrote her post in a jokey way. There’s loads of ways round this issue, just be a grown up!

It will be the ignitions that are damp. Buy a gas ignition lighter which produces a spark and turn on the ring. Or give the small wire part of each ring a good dry with cloth and try again.

we done this for years at my parents house. 1 ring never worked and they didn’t fix it for ages! Used to turn gas on and use a lighter

Oh, just as an alternative, Argos sells rice cookers for about £25 and are absolutely brilliant. They use minimal electricity and you can just switch them on and forget about them. They also have a stay warm function which is handy when you have guests and are going back for seconds etc.

Absolutely safe. My ignitor hasn't worked for years, I keep a box of extra long matches in the kitchen drawer and use them instead.

1 pint of easy cook rice, soaked in cold water to remove the starch.
Knob of butter, 1tsp salt, 1.5tsp stock powder melted into 1.5 pints of boiling water in a big bowl.
Stir in rice. Cover bowl with cling film.
Microwave for 25 mins on high. Break up rice with a fork when finished.

Job’s a good’un.

I can’t be arsed with your rudeness.