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> the main benefit of cast-iron cookware is its thick, heat-retaining material The main benefit was that cast-iron could be made before steel was invented, it

> the main benefit of cast-iron cookware is its thick, heat-retaining material The main benefit was that cast-iron could be made before steel was invented, it does not retain heat better than aluminum alloys. Cast-iron pans heat less evenly and must be made thicker than their aluminum counterparts. Many stainless pans will have cast-iron handles because it conducts heat worse than steel or aluminum, and will not get hot to the touch as quickly.

nicoburns 5y ago
If something conducts heat poorly then it seems to me that it would be better at retaining heat.
- painlessWheel 5y ago
  Aluminum actually has about twice the heat capacity (separate from conductivity) as cast iron.
  - xyzzyz 5y ago
    I haven’t seen an aluminum pan that was even half as heavy as a typical cast iron skillet is, though.
    - DubiousPusher 5y ago
      https://www.cutleryandmore.com/demeyere-proline/stainless-steel-skillet-p136386 https://www.cutleryandmore.com/demeyere-proline/stainless-st...
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  No, because they don’t mean “retain heat” in the same way you do. The goal is so that when you put something cold on a hot pan, it doesn’t immediately cool down, but rather that the surface stays hot and keeps searing your food. Thus, if the pan is not very conductive, the surface will cool down, and the heat “retained” in the interior of the pan will not be useful. In other words, the goal is to retain the hot surface, not the heat in general.
- taeric 5y ago
  Not sure I follow. Heat storage is not the same as conductivity. Consider a wooden trivet.
GavinMcG 5y ago
> it does not retain heat better than aluminum alloys You're missing the forest for the trees. Cast iron pans retain heat better than aluminum pans because cast iron pans are 4mm thick and aluminum pans aren't 6mm thick. (Also it does retain heat better. [EDIT: by thickness, not by weight. The comment below is also correct.]) https://www.centurylife.org/heat-retention-myths-and-facts-does-cast-iron-hold-heat-better-than-clad-is-clad-better-than-disc-base-at-retaining-heat-longer/ https://www.centurylife.org/heat-retention-myths-and-facts-d...
- painlessWheel 5y ago
  No, aluminum retains heat better. As you said cast-iron's thickness is what's doing the heat retention, not the material. https://www.makeitfrom.com/compare/6061-AlMg1SiCu-3.3214-H20-A96061-Aluminum/Ductile-Nodular-Spheroidal-Cast-Iron https://www.makeitfrom.com/compare/6061-AlMg1SiCu-3.3214-H20... For most day-to-day cooking where you're ingredients are in direct contact with the pan over a burner (sautés, searing etc) heat retention can actually be bad (it's difficult to adjust the temperature). For specific tasks, cast iron excels, that's why you don't see a lot of copper deep fryers. (This is mentioned in the 2 experiments that person runs in their kitchen that you posted)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- qbasic_forever 5y ago
  Thick aluminum can be amazing though, I have a nonstick pan with a near half inch thick aluminum disc base and it's a fantastic pan. It heats up up to medium and higher heat in about the time it takes me to turn on the range and get ingredients out of the refrigerator.
  - DubiousPusher 5y ago
    True. I borrowed a friend's top of the line Demeyere. It is a clad pan with a 4-5mm aluminum core. That pan could hold a lot of heat and dump it fast. It was too easy to burn your wrist just glancing it over the rim, even at conservative heat levels. In the end, it didnt cook that much better than my All-Clad D7. So I just stayed with that. But I have never cooked with anything so brimming with heat and ready to pour it into absolutely anything that came into contact with it.
bruckie 5y ago
Interesting! https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/specific-heat-metals-d_152.html https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/specific-heat-metals-d_15... says that aluminum has twice the specific heat capacity of cast iron, and another page on that site says that it has about four times the thermal conductivity. So if your goal is to dump as much heat into your food as fast as possible, aluminum is definitely the way to go. But if you want slower heating, iron may be better.
- owalt 5y ago
  This isn't a complete analysis. From the same site, cast iron has a density of 6800-7800 kg/m³, whereas aluminium is around 2700 kg/m³: https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/metal-alloys-densities-d_50.html https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/metal-alloys-densities-d_.... With specific heats of 0.91 kcal/(kg⋅K) for aluminium and 0.46 kcal/(kg⋅K) for cast iron, this works out to Aluminium: ~2500 kcal/(kg⋅m³) Cast iron: ~3100 - 3600 kcal/(kg⋅m³) So for a pan of the same thickness/shape, cast iron should have a heat capacity that's 25-45% higher.
  - balfirevic 5y ago
    When using pans, I don't particularly care if they are too thick bit I do care if they are too heavy. Aluminium pan could be lighter while having equal or greater heat capacity, if it were thick enough. I don't know if such thick aluminium pans are available, though.
    - 8note 5y ago
      It's not just the weight that you'll care about, it's also the moment of inertia, which will help/hinder your ability to reorient the pan
deleted 5y ago
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criley2 5y ago
>The main benefit was that cast-iron could be made before steel was invented, it does not retain heat better than aluminum alloys Actually, both "steels" and "cast iron" are iron-carbon alloys, and we have evidence of quench hardened carbon-alloy "steels" thousands of years before the first cast iron pieces. While we tend to think of bronze age as not featuring iron, the truth is that steel production dates back almost 4,000 years. While cast iron cookware predates other steel cookwares, it's likely because it was far cheaper and easier to cast cast-iron into pot or pan shapes than it was to work mega-hot steels, which was reserved for much more expensive and important uses.
- 8note 5y ago
  Isn't that wrought iron production? Too low of carbon content because the iron doesn't melt? We started getting cast iron once we could get the temperature up to melting, then the optimized steels once we figured out how to add oxygen to the cast iron and burn out the excess carbon. It's still possible to get higher carbon content out of a bloomery to get steel, but highly unlikely... And you'd get what, a nail's worth from 3 people's labour over a couple of days? {Mine the ore/grab it from a swamp, bake it, make charcoal, make the bloomery, run the bloomery, consolidate the bloom}

nicoburns 5y ago

If something conducts heat poorly then it seems to me that it would be better at retaining heat.

painlessWheel 5y ago
Aluminum actually has about twice the heat capacity (separate from conductivity) as cast iron.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  I haven’t seen an aluminum pan that was even half as heavy as a typical cast iron skillet is, though.
  - DubiousPusher 5y ago
    https://www.cutleryandmore.com/demeyere-proline/stainless-steel-skillet-p136386 https://www.cutleryandmore.com/demeyere-proline/stainless-st...
xyzzyz 5y ago
No, because they don’t mean “retain heat” in the same way you do. The goal is so that when you put something cold on a hot pan, it doesn’t immediately cool down, but rather that the surface stays hot and keeps searing your food. Thus, if the pan is not very conductive, the surface will cool down, and the heat “retained” in the interior of the pan will not be useful. In other words, the goal is to retain the hot surface, not the heat in general.
taeric 5y ago
Not sure I follow. Heat storage is not the same as conductivity. Consider a wooden trivet.

GavinMcG 5y ago

> it does not retain heat better than aluminum alloys You're missing the forest for the trees. Cast iron pans retain heat better than aluminum pans because cast iron pans are 4mm thick and aluminum pans aren't 6mm thick. (Also it does retain heat better. [EDIT: by thickness, not by weight. The comment below is also correct.]) https://www.centurylife.org/heat-retention-myths-and-facts-does-cast-iron-hold-heat-better-than-clad-is-clad-better-than-disc-base-at-retaining-heat-longer/ https://www.centurylife.org/heat-retention-myths-and-facts-d...

painlessWheel 5y ago
No, aluminum retains heat better. As you said cast-iron's thickness is what's doing the heat retention, not the material. https://www.makeitfrom.com/compare/6061-AlMg1SiCu-3.3214-H20-A96061-Aluminum/Ductile-Nodular-Spheroidal-Cast-Iron https://www.makeitfrom.com/compare/6061-AlMg1SiCu-3.3214-H20... For most day-to-day cooking where you're ingredients are in direct contact with the pan over a burner (sautés, searing etc) heat retention can actually be bad (it's difficult to adjust the temperature). For specific tasks, cast iron excels, that's why you don't see a lot of copper deep fryers. (This is mentioned in the 2 experiments that person runs in their kitchen that you posted)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
qbasic_forever 5y ago
Thick aluminum can be amazing though, I have a nonstick pan with a near half inch thick aluminum disc base and it's a fantastic pan. It heats up up to medium and higher heat in about the time it takes me to turn on the range and get ingredients out of the refrigerator.
- DubiousPusher 5y ago
  True. I borrowed a friend's top of the line Demeyere. It is a clad pan with a 4-5mm aluminum core. That pan could hold a lot of heat and dump it fast. It was too easy to burn your wrist just glancing it over the rim, even at conservative heat levels. In the end, it didnt cook that much better than my All-Clad D7. So I just stayed with that. But I have never cooked with anything so brimming with heat and ready to pour it into absolutely anything that came into contact with it.

bruckie 5y ago

Interesting! https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/specific-heat-metals-d_152.html https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/specific-heat-metals-d_15... says that aluminum has twice the specific heat capacity of cast iron, and another page on that site says that it has about four times the thermal conductivity. So if your goal is to dump as much heat into your food as fast as possible, aluminum is definitely the way to go. But if you want slower heating, iron may be better.

owalt 5y ago
This isn't a complete analysis. From the same site, cast iron has a density of 6800-7800 kg/m³, whereas aluminium is around 2700 kg/m³: https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/metal-alloys-densities-d_50.html https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/metal-alloys-densities-d_.... With specific heats of 0.91 kcal/(kg⋅K) for aluminium and 0.46 kcal/(kg⋅K) for cast iron, this works out to Aluminium: ~2500 kcal/(kg⋅m³) Cast iron: ~3100 - 3600 kcal/(kg⋅m³) So for a pan of the same thickness/shape, cast iron should have a heat capacity that's 25-45% higher.
- balfirevic 5y ago
  When using pans, I don't particularly care if they are too thick bit I do care if they are too heavy. Aluminium pan could be lighter while having equal or greater heat capacity, if it were thick enough. I don't know if such thick aluminium pans are available, though.
  - 8note 5y ago
    It's not just the weight that you'll care about, it's also the moment of inertia, which will help/hinder your ability to reorient the pan

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

criley2 5y ago

>The main benefit was that cast-iron could be made before steel was invented, it does not retain heat better than aluminum alloys Actually, both "steels" and "cast iron" are iron-carbon alloys, and we have evidence of quench hardened carbon-alloy "steels" thousands of years before the first cast iron pieces. While we tend to think of bronze age as not featuring iron, the truth is that steel production dates back almost 4,000 years. While cast iron cookware predates other steel cookwares, it's likely because it was far cheaper and easier to cast cast-iron into pot or pan shapes than it was to work mega-hot steels, which was reserved for much more expensive and important uses.

8note 5y ago
Isn't that wrought iron production? Too low of carbon content because the iron doesn't melt? We started getting cast iron once we could get the temperature up to melting, then the optimized steels once we figured out how to add oxygen to the cast iron and burn out the excess carbon. It's still possible to get higher carbon content out of a bloomery to get steel, but highly unlikely... And you'd get what, a nail's worth from 3 people's labour over a couple of days? {Mine the ore/grab it from a swamp, bake it, make charcoal, make the bloomery, run the bloomery, consolidate the bloom}