Buy a pan for any stove

Buying a pot is both easy and hard. Enameled and stainless steel, glass and multi-layered, cookware sets. Which is better?? Read and choose!

A cauldron has long been considered the ideal saucepan.

Its shape and the material of which it is made have changed over time, but the principle of construction has remained the same: it is a thick conical bottom, slightly thinner but thicker walls.

Originally cauldron was copper, with the development of metalworking technology was cast iron, in Soviet times the cast iron was replaced by dural, now back to cast iron. If the cauldron is properly prepared from the beginning and this is a laborious and long process , the food will never get burnt in it.

The classic cauldron is the ideal cooking utensil for cooking over an open fire, with the use of all kinds of devices: a tagan, a tripod, a base, and so on.

There are many variants of cauldrons – cast-iron, wok, Hungarian beograch, Chinese wog, you can’t list all of them. But all variants have one thing in common – thick domed bottom and thick walls.

The bottom of the dishwasher is critical as it is the first to absorb the heat shock. The domed bottom of the cauldron contributes to the fact that the flame seems to hug the cauldron and the heating is even.

GAS PLATE

In this case the shape of the base, both inside and outside, is very important. The thing is that in this case we are dealing with an open flame. And as we know from school, the highest temperature of the flame is at the top, practically invisible point of combustion.

If we turn on the burner at maximum, the highest point of heating is on the side walls, not at the bottom of the pot.

That’s why mankind invented composite bottoms.

Nowadays the leading type of steel saucepan is the one made of 18/10 steel with a composite bottom, or as it is also called “sandwich”. At the bottom they use aluminum gasket, the more expensive variants use copper, and the more expensive variants 40-80% more expensive than the common ones have not only composite bottom but also the walls.

• For gas stoves, cast-iron enameled pots are perfect. They have a thick bottom with good thermal conductivity. But they have a significant disadvantage – they’re heavy!
• Pressed food-grade aluminum pots can replace cast-iron pots, they are just as thermal conductivity, yet much lighter. The bottoms of such pots are thicker, the heat distribution is excellent, but there is one thing – they are all coated. Some are coated with ceramic, some with Teflon and some with titanium. The Germans are the leaders in this market, but the Italians and Chinese are actively stepping on their heels.
• Thin-wall duralumin saucepans. They are good only for sterilizing lids for canning because the thin bottom gets deformed by the flame and the heating is very uneven. This is also true for Teflon fabrications of incomprehensible manufacturers. Just boil cold milk in a pot like this and you can see the signs of deformation!

But every pot has its own task. Some are only for cooking, such as spaghetti. Here the uniformity of heating of the bottom does not have a decisive importance. For this purpose, pots with a thin base are available – they heat up the liquid as quickly as possible. But with this kind of bottom you have to stir the pot continuously, because the food sticks to the bottom. To avoid that, the pots have special nets. I think it’s easier to buy a universal pot with a thick bottom and leave all these tricks to the chefs.

ELECTRIC STOVE

For the classic electric stove, known to us since the days of the Soviet Union, the shape and thickness of the bottom does not matter, since it does not heat up to extremely high temperatures.

But ceramic glass pans are a totally different story. Cookware with a thin bottom is not suitable at all in this case: the heat deforms the bottom. Cookware will vibrate when reheated, and vibration can crack the cooking surface. For the same reason you can not use the cookware after the gas stove.

The base of cookware for glass ceramic hobs must be thick, perfectly flat and correspond to the diameter of the burner.

Now some manufacturers have started producing so-called energy-saving cookware. On the outside of such a bottom there is a prominent spiral notch that promotes even heating. Due to the accumulation of heat, after heating you set the value of heating on a burner just below average, and the pot continues to work at full power, due to which it saves energy. When buying such cookware, I would recommend that you buy from reputable manufacturers and that there is a sign on the packaging, and better yet on the product itself, that it can be used for glass ceramics. The material of such pans is pressed powdered food-grade aluminum.

But with cast-iron cookware it’s not quite that simple. In this case, you need a lighter version, preferably from a good manufacturer. As in the case of energy-saving cookware, there must be a sign on the product that allows its use on a glass-ceramic surface, and the diameter of the bottom of the product must match the diameter of the burner. But you can’t make a thick, heavy bottom in this kind of cookware, and so the whole point of a cast-iron product is lost.

INDUCTION HOB

In this case, the products of dubious manufacturers will have to forget about.

There’s an opinion that if the bottom is magnetic, then the cookware is suitable for the induction stove. That’s not quite right.

On the product, designed for an induction stove, it is necessarily to be stamped on the bottom of the appropriate sign.

Cookware for induction stoves should have a special bottom that retains and distributes heat. This pot’s base stores heat and distributes it evenly over the walls. This pot looks the same as the others, except for a thicker bottom. And if you look closely, the bottom is a little concave inside. That’s where the magnetic disk, which distributes the heat.

TROWN OVEN

American stove, Dutch … In this case, cast iron is ideal. Can also be uncovered. And the bottom is domed. Cauldron. Or the cast iron. Whether it’s porridge with smoky, rich cabbage soup, pilaf, goulash or anything else you can cook in a American oven! The main thing is to have the right cookware, with the right bottom, which will not burn our food.

Manufactures

According to the renowned cookware manufacturer, Zwilling J. Hoffmann, the world leader in the manufacture of.A. Henckels, they have devised the perfect base for this pot. This is a patented technology Sigmabond.

The point is that the insert capsule is made of special steel 1.A 4520, which has magnetic properties. The pot is rectangular in shape so that the heat rises to the rim of the pot with virtually no loss. Inside the aluminum sleeve the aluminum content is 99.5% pos. 2 , which eliminates air gaps and evenly distributes the heat. And it’s all framed by the so-called “medical grade” 18/10 stainless steel. The numbers indicate the ratio of chromium to nickel.

The specificity of this patented technology is that the high-precision presses the bottom in a cold state, thus achieving uniform bottom thickness and lack of air voids. The slight bend in the bottom promotes optimal contact with the plate surface and rapid heat distribution. The straight outer corner of the bottom of the pot and the rounded inner corner guarantee according to the manufacturer that food will never burn in such a pot. Smooth transition from the bottom to the body of the pot makes it easier to clean.

The bottom, produced by standard technology, differs in that it is pressed in a heated state, with an aluminum content of less than 99%. This means that the thickness of the base in the center is less than on the edges, so that there are air pockets. This contributes to uneven heat distribution and, as a result, burnt food.

Lacor is another notable player on our market. The company used to produce professional cookware, but now it offers home cookware. Using a wealth of 60 years of experience, they developed their own version of the bottom. Thanks to the triple bottom and heavy lids, you can cook in this cookware without water and with a minimum of oil. The unique sandwich construction three layers of stainless steel and aluminum provides the fastest and most even heating, which is particularly important when stewing and cooking liquid foods.

On the cast aluminum pot market, the German company Woll stands out. Each pot is hand-formed from a high-grade aluminum alloy at a temperature of about 750 ° C. I will not tell you about the manual culling, etc.d. Thanks to the especially strongly molded 10 mm thick thermal bottom, the body of the pot has a high heat absorption and optimal thermal conductivity. Deformation of the thermodrain is impossible, even at very high temperatures. In terms of consumer quality, this cookware is the closest to cast iron.

And now a little bit about the marketing tricks. The well-respected firm Vinzer has launched Majesty series of pots with so-called “copper” bottom. Our Belarusian colleagues examined these pots. The result is quality cookware complying with GOST 27002-86. But! I question the correctness of the use of the term “copper bottom” on the package. In reality, the copper coating on the base of the pot is just a design element, not an added value. Otherwise this cookware is made on a good enough level.

On the bottom

In the picture we see a cross-section of the base of a Zepter saucepan

:

1 – Aluminum insert for even heat distribution.

2 – The point of the upper flame. Since the flame hits the aluminum insert and the thermal conductivity of aluminum is higher than that of 18/10 steel, the heat is evenly distributed over it.

3 – Bottom made of 18/10 steel.

4 – 18/10 steel wall.

More about the base

This pan is not suitable for gas stoves. The curved walls near the bottom will cause the food to stick.

The way out is simple – do not turn the burner to maximum, cook on medium heat.

It is impossible to identify a leader in the production of 18/10 steel pots, they are produced by almost all leading manufacturers, including manufacturers of professional cookware. Each has its own secret to bottom inserts, bottom curvature and height.