5 ms·

That's why you pre-heat them in the oven. This freaks people out who've never done it. Whaa ... you're sticking a pan in an oven thats turned on? Because if

by VLM 10y ago

That's why you pre-heat them in the oven. This freaks people out who've never done it. Whaa ... you're sticking a pan in an oven thats turned on? Because if you do that to a cheap stamped steel and plastic pan, the plastic handle will melt off. There's a reason CI pans have expensively attached solid cast iron handles and not bolted on plastic handles... You seasoned the pan by heating it to 400F in an oven till it stopped smoking... by definition putting it back in a 400F oven isn't going to hurt it... Also you can't accidentally overheat to 1200F and burn the seasoning off in a 400F oven, unlike preheating on a stove top. The stove top is used to hold to a constant temp not heat it up. Leave the oven at 400F while you're cooking on the stove top... finish cooking, wipe/scrub the pan, apply a very light coat of oil, toss back in the 400F oven, turn the oven off, by the time the oven finally cools off you just massively strengthened the seasoning layer. Depending how fast your oven cools off I guess. WRT SS there is no free lunch, you spend about as much time re-seasoning cast iron as you do scrubbing stainless steel with barkeepers friend powder. If I'm generating a sauce, like say making fried Italian sausages with grapes and a nice white wine sauce, its stainless all the way, but I don't generate sauce when I'm making plain breakfast sausage, for example.

maxerickson 10y ago
If you know the setting on the stovetop that holds the pan at the temp you want to cook at, you probably won't burn the seasoning by putting the burner modestly higher than that.
dpark 10y ago
Heating my oven up to use a pan on the stove seems ridiculously inefficient. Also I don't sear at 400. That seems way to low for most things I'd cook in cast iron. Also, I've not once used barkeepers friend on my stainless. It tends to clean up fine with a scotchbright pad. But I mostly use teflon pans these days.
- VLM 10y ago
  Oh I donno most of the energy going into stovetop ends up as air currents rising to the ceiling and the insulation is pretty good in my sealed oven. Also its very cheap to heat air (compared to water or iron) so it doesn't take much energy to heat that enclosed well insulated oven. I have the EE gear to do it and I'm almost tempted to figure out which takes more KWh, in my infinite spare time. I season my CI to 400 and as you raise the temp more smokes off so I'd have seasoning problems taking CI to red heat. CI is cheap, cheaper than disposable teflon pans, so owning an unseasoned (probably rusty) one for 1500F steaks and one with glassy seasoning for my wife to cook her eggs is totally realistic. I have SS for high heat. If you ever need help cleaning stainless, the powder helps. The thing with scotchbright pads is endless news released explaining that after the first use they have more bacteria than a truck stop bathroom... Teflon is super expensive in the sense of my not being rich enough to shop at walmart. I've been cooking a long time and after throwing out 10 to 20 formerly non-stick pans I bought lifetime SS and CI. So lemme get this straight, I've been buying $50 non-stick pans roughly every year for 20 years thats $1000 of pans sitting in landfills, yet I can buy stainless alclad for only $150 that will last my descendants until at least the year 5000 if not longer? Sign me up! I'm too poor to buy $50 pans I can only afford the $150 pans.
  - dpark 10y ago
    > Oh I donno most of the energy going into stovetop ends up as air currents rising to the ceiling and the insulation is pretty good in my sealed oven. Also its very cheap to heat air (compared to water or iron) so it doesn't take much energy to heat that enclosed well insulated oven. I have the EE gear to do it and I'm almost tempted to figure out which takes more KWh, in my infinite spare time. But you're going to use the oven and the stove, so this seems really inefficient to me. There's also a lot of stamped steel and metal racks inside my oven that has to get to temperature. The oven pulls a lot of electricity into large heating elements and still takes 15 or so minutes to fully pre-heat. I'm not at all sure that heating, say, 20 pounds of steel to 400 degrees is an efficient way to heat a pan. > If you ever need help cleaning stainless, the powder helps. The thing with scotchbright pads is endless news released explaining that after the first use they have more bacteria than a truck stop bathroom... I guess I don't believe that. I squeeze my sponges out so they fully dry, and I occasionally send them through the dishwasher. I'm not very concerned about the sanitation of my sponge, especially since I'm cleaning with soap, which should carry any germs off the dishes when I rinse. I'm also not clear what the alternative is. I'm going to scrub my dishes with cotton cloths? > Teflon is super expensive in the sense of my not being rich enough to shop at walmart. I've been cooking a long time and after throwing out 10 to 20 formerly non-stick pans I bought lifetime SS and CI. So lemme get this straight, I've been buying $50 non-stick pans roughly every year for 20 years thats $1000 of pans sitting in landfills, yet I can buy stainless alclad for only $150 that will last my descendants until at least the year 5000 if not longer? Sign me up! I'm too poor to buy $50 pans I can only afford the $150 pans. My only problem with teflon durability is other people. I've had $25 teflon pans last for a decade. I've also had $50 teflon pans get ruined after a week from people using metal utensils on my new pans. :( I have plenty of stainless cookware that I use when it feels appropriate (e.g. searing). I have cast iron as well, but while I'd like it to work well, I've generally not had much luck. I can get it seasoned, but I have trouble getting it clean without destroying the seasoning. I also haven't found it to be nearly as nonstick as teflon unless I use a lot of oil (which I don't actually mind, but my wife does).
    - VLM 10y ago
      "getting it clean without destroying the seasoning" I've had excellent luck with a nylon bristle brush from the dishwashing aisle. Looks like it would work as an elephant handler's toothbrush (giant toothbrush for the elephant, not the handler). Hot pan cleans a lot easier than cold pan. About a cup of water helps. Probably I'm slowly clogging my drains with grease by doing this, but it cleans up so well.
colanderman 10y ago
Hm, I had never thought to do this. (I no longer own the pan.) Granted, that would require me to get up a lot earlier to wait for everything to heat up :)

by VLM 10y ago

maxerickson 10y ago

If you know the setting on the stovetop that holds the pan at the temp you want to cook at, you probably won't burn the seasoning by putting the burner modestly higher than that.

dpark 10y ago

Heating my oven up to use a pan on the stove seems ridiculously inefficient. Also I don't sear at 400. That seems way to low for most things I'd cook in cast iron. Also, I've not once used barkeepers friend on my stainless. It tends to clean up fine with a scotchbright pad. But I mostly use teflon pans these days.

VLM 10y ago
Oh I donno most of the energy going into stovetop ends up as air currents rising to the ceiling and the insulation is pretty good in my sealed oven. Also its very cheap to heat air (compared to water or iron) so it doesn't take much energy to heat that enclosed well insulated oven. I have the EE gear to do it and I'm almost tempted to figure out which takes more KWh, in my infinite spare time. I season my CI to 400 and as you raise the temp more smokes off so I'd have seasoning problems taking CI to red heat. CI is cheap, cheaper than disposable teflon pans, so owning an unseasoned (probably rusty) one for 1500F steaks and one with glassy seasoning for my wife to cook her eggs is totally realistic. I have SS for high heat. If you ever need help cleaning stainless, the powder helps. The thing with scotchbright pads is endless news released explaining that after the first use they have more bacteria than a truck stop bathroom... Teflon is super expensive in the sense of my not being rich enough to shop at walmart. I've been cooking a long time and after throwing out 10 to 20 formerly non-stick pans I bought lifetime SS and CI. So lemme get this straight, I've been buying $50 non-stick pans roughly every year for 20 years thats $1000 of pans sitting in landfills, yet I can buy stainless alclad for only $150 that will last my descendants until at least the year 5000 if not longer? Sign me up! I'm too poor to buy $50 pans I can only afford the $150 pans.
- dpark 10y ago
  > Oh I donno most of the energy going into stovetop ends up as air currents rising to the ceiling and the insulation is pretty good in my sealed oven. Also its very cheap to heat air (compared to water or iron) so it doesn't take much energy to heat that enclosed well insulated oven. I have the EE gear to do it and I'm almost tempted to figure out which takes more KWh, in my infinite spare time. But you're going to use the oven and the stove, so this seems really inefficient to me. There's also a lot of stamped steel and metal racks inside my oven that has to get to temperature. The oven pulls a lot of electricity into large heating elements and still takes 15 or so minutes to fully pre-heat. I'm not at all sure that heating, say, 20 pounds of steel to 400 degrees is an efficient way to heat a pan. > If you ever need help cleaning stainless, the powder helps. The thing with scotchbright pads is endless news released explaining that after the first use they have more bacteria than a truck stop bathroom... I guess I don't believe that. I squeeze my sponges out so they fully dry, and I occasionally send them through the dishwasher. I'm not very concerned about the sanitation of my sponge, especially since I'm cleaning with soap, which should carry any germs off the dishes when I rinse. I'm also not clear what the alternative is. I'm going to scrub my dishes with cotton cloths? > Teflon is super expensive in the sense of my not being rich enough to shop at walmart. I've been cooking a long time and after throwing out 10 to 20 formerly non-stick pans I bought lifetime SS and CI. So lemme get this straight, I've been buying $50 non-stick pans roughly every year for 20 years thats $1000 of pans sitting in landfills, yet I can buy stainless alclad for only $150 that will last my descendants until at least the year 5000 if not longer? Sign me up! I'm too poor to buy $50 pans I can only afford the $150 pans. My only problem with teflon durability is other people. I've had $25 teflon pans last for a decade. I've also had $50 teflon pans get ruined after a week from people using metal utensils on my new pans. :( I have plenty of stainless cookware that I use when it feels appropriate (e.g. searing). I have cast iron as well, but while I'd like it to work well, I've generally not had much luck. I can get it seasoned, but I have trouble getting it clean without destroying the seasoning. I also haven't found it to be nearly as nonstick as teflon unless I use a lot of oil (which I don't actually mind, but my wife does).
  - VLM 10y ago
    "getting it clean without destroying the seasoning" I've had excellent luck with a nylon bristle brush from the dishwashing aisle. Looks like it would work as an elephant handler's toothbrush (giant toothbrush for the elephant, not the handler). Hot pan cleans a lot easier than cold pan. About a cup of water helps. Probably I'm slowly clogging my drains with grease by doing this, but it cleans up so well.

colanderman 10y ago

Hm, I had never thought to do this. (I no longer own the pan.) Granted, that would require me to get up a lot earlier to wait for everything to heat up :)