Keep burning things on gas hob

[BertieBotts]

I have recently moved to a rented house with a gas cooker. The cooker at my old house (where I have done most of my cooking ever) was electric so it's completely different. When I lived at home with my mum we had a gas cooker but it was ages ago and I didn't do that much cooking.

Anyway, on my gas cooker, if I try to simmer anything on a low heat, it always seems to burn. I put the ring down as low as they will go - it's one of the ones where you first turn it on and it's high, and the low setting is the opposite side of the knob from the "off" setting - hope that makes sense!

I have got two medium rings, one large and one small, but at the moment I only seem to be able to simmer stuff on the small hob which is annoying as it means I can't use it for anything else like a small pan.

I am not sure if I am doing something wrong. Any ideas?

You can get flat metal disc thingies from Lakeland, they help to spread the heat out more evenly. Things will burn if you leave them on the hob for too long aswell.

I'm more likely to burn things on electric hobs because the heat is so much less responsive. Simmering on the small ring is what I usually do if I'm making stock or something like that. When putting a small pan on a larger ring if you turn the gas down so that it is only under the pan then it's not usually a problem as there will still be plenty of heat. I wouldn't put a milk pan on our biggest ring but I do on the medium sized ones and it works fine.