Any cooks on here?

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Rivets!!  The handle off of one of our Stainless Steel sauce pans dropped off.  The SS rivets holding the handle on are actually aluminium with SS caps on the head/tail.  The dishwasher “soap” attacked the aluminium under the heads !

The pans also have a SS/AL/SS composite base and you can see where the Al is being eaten away. Powerful stuff soap!!

Bob

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, I don’t like aluminium cookware, so I’m now going to cook my breakfast, with my hash Brown and Onion ring in my steel non stick pan. and my egg in my small cast iron pan, in Olive oil, and my Turkey rasher will be done on my non-stick Salter health grill. The two pans I bought from TK Maxx several years ago, and never have had any sticking problems with them, the health grill came from Tesco’s, using my Club Card points, which I’ve had since March this year.

Regards Nick.

[larry phelan 1Participant @larryphelan1]

Who would have thought that a simple item such as a frying pan could attract such interest ????????

I never knew they were such interesting objects !

[larry phelan 1]

On larry phelan 1 Said:

Who would have thought that a simple item such as a frying pan could attract such interest ????????

I never knew they were such interesting objects !

Not really about frying pans!  ‘Men in bar’ are discussing the possibility that Vic’s pans are a fashion accessory rather than a technically sound value for money product.

Given that ordinary cooking utensils are effective and cheap, I’d want Titanium to be very special.  Such as

• Food tastes better.   Unproven.
• Pans last longer.   Unproven.
• Improved non-stick.  Unproven.

So far the forum is just guessing – no-one owns a pan of the type Vic is interested in!  Our personal experience is of little value.  Best we can do is compare the thermal properties of the metals.   Problem is, these pans are a composite.

• The inside is Aluminium probably because it’s the cheapest metal with good thermal conductivity.   Copper or Silver would be better.
• The outer layer is Stainless Steel, presumably because it’s cheap and resists bashes and is dishwasher proof.
• The food contact layer is Titanium, which stops Aluminium getting into the food, for those who worry about that.  Titanium also has good non-stick properties,   but is it that much better than ceramic or plastic?
• Being of composite construction makes it difficult to predict how good or bad the thermal performance might be.  My guess, not worth much, is that Stainless and Titanium layers will both degrade the pan’s thermal performance compared with Aluminium.

Is it important how long pans last?  Not in my kitchen.  I’m still using a set of saucepans that were a wedding present 50 years ago.  Mother’s pots and pans date from the 1950’s, maybe earlier, all Aluminium.   Frying pans lose their plastic non-stick after about 5 years, but remain useful for rough work.

To find out if food tastes better, a proper double-blind test is needed, not an internet forum.  Human opinion is highly untrustworthy!  Works like this:

• A group of tasters are selected at random by an independent organiser, then randomly split into two
• Group A are taken to a restaurant and fed meals made with Aluminium, or Ceramic or Aluminium cookware.  The group are not allowed into the kitchen, the meal each individual gets fed is selected at random, and he is given a score-sheet with a randomised identifier that does not link to the eater or the group.  Care is taken to ensure that the group get no hint whatever about how the food was cooked.
• Group B are taken to the same restaurant and only fed meals made with Aluminium.  Otherwise the test conditions are identical.
• Eaters do not know if they are in Group A or Group B
• The score-sheets are shuffled together and sent for analysis.  He isn’t told which Group the score-sheets came from, or who the eaters are.  Ideally, he isn’t told the purpose of the trial.   He uses the scores to identify correlations, but doesn’t know what they are.
• The correlations go back to the organiser.  He knows who was in each group, and how each meal was cooked.   If there is a genuine difference, the analyst’s results correlate with how the food was cooked.  As Group B were only fed Aluminium cooked food, it’s possible to identify random patterns, such as believing tasty risottos must be Titanium!  If the analysis and fact don’t correlate, then the product is a dud.

Three ‘maybe’ examples of bias from this topic:

• That Vic started the thread suggests he’s positively biased in favour of Titanium cookware, a possibility reinforced by his tart response to John.
• Nigel has a strong negative bias.
• Though not as blunt as Nigel,  deep down I too suspect these pans aren’t worth it.  As do others.

The double-blind process is necessary because we are all unconsciously biased.  Denying test groups information undermines participants the ability to steer answers.  By excluding opinions, beliefs and previous experience, double-blind testing keeps us strictly honest.

Double-blind testing often demolishes subjective opinion.  Expensive classical violins do not sound better than modern ones and professional wine tasters are unreliable.  Many other examples.  One common bias is the belief that paying lots of money guarantees “quality”, and Titanium pots and pans might be an example.   In sales speak, it’s called “reassuringly expensive”, after the Stella Artois ad-campaign.  It’s all smoke and mirrors – Stella used to be called “Wife Beater” because, as a strong beer, it was associated with drunks knocking their wives about.   Now it’s posh!  Just an example, we are being manipulated all the time.

To Vic’s question “Just wondered if this might be worth trying“, my answer is “yes, if it makes you happy“. Subjective answer because I can’t confirm the pans perform any better than cheaper alternatives. I’m not aware that any cookware has been double-blind tested.  Given time, the truth might emerge.  If a million people buy these and are disappointed over the next decade, word will slowly spread.  Possibly very slowly: people who’ve been conned don’t like admitting it – another common bias!

🙂

Dave

 

 

[Fulmen]

On Fulmen Said:

@Charles: I’m not seeing any obvious logic for that.

High thermal conductivity should provide more uniform heating per volume, which isn’t really relevant to anything but the thickness of the pan. We usually care more about the weight, but unfortunately I can’t seem to find any tables of “weight specific thermal conductivity”.

I think you want, and mean, density and thermal conductivity. You need the mass (not weight) and volume. I am sure in my earlier life I have seen tables of “thermal conductivity/density” for different materials.

Any heat transfer sums would be interesting. The change of the pan surface conditions during frying would be complex, being time and chemistry depended.

I like the idea of a taste test. Can someone organize one, please.

JA

JA

[Nigel BennettParticipant @nigelbennett69913]

I discovered that the bottoms of aluminium frying pans are ideal for making replacement flanges for worn Burgess bandsaw wheels. She found out sooner than expected; it took a week or two before I could take off the bandages and see enough out of my black eyes to use the bandsaw again…

[howardb]

On howardb Said:

Traditionally, the best non-stick coating on a cast iron or steel pan is the burnt-on coating of countless past meals cooked in that pan, don’t scrub them out, just wash with water and mild detergent and wipe them out with kitchen paper and a little veg oil to stop rusting.

I’ve got a steel wok – Ken Hom – remember him? Must be 40 years old.

I use it a lot for cooking chinese-style food and curries, food doesn’t stick in a seasoned steel wok.

I also have a teflon coated aluminium wok which I use for lower temperature cooking of veggies for chinese and curries

I too have an old steel wok, which cost less than a fiver, and agree that nothing sticks to it provided you get it really hot, with the oil just starting to smoke a little before adding the raw food.  Never found the need for a teflon coated wok although I do use Tefal Ingenio pans for slow cooking curries and occasional Engish breakfasts.

Russell

[JA]

On JA Said:

I think you want, and mean, density and thermal conductivity.

Correct. Physics requires precise language, thanks for correcting me.

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

SOD – am I missing something? There appears to be no Titanium-prepared meals in your test?

Rob

[Lee RogersParticipant @leerogers95060]

50 years pro on the stove so still learning but ….. Use any pan you like ,cut a circle of silicon baking parchment to fit the pan. Put a little oil in the pan then the parchment and then a little more oil. If you’re sealing a steak you can take the parchment out once the meat is well seared and it won’t stick, carry on and cook to taste or go in with ingredients for your sauce. Never ever pay silly money for pans, knives or kitchen gadgets, pro’s don’t.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Cor! You learn summat new every day on this site!

The metallurgy, physics, health-arguments, taste effects, cost and fashion of household cooking utensils….

All ignoring one big factor: thermal efficiency.

It will depend on the type of stove but much of the heat from a conventional gas-ring at least, is lost around the sides.  I was taught when but a lad never to have the flames protruding beyond the perimeter of the pan.

And years later a former hotel chef gave me the same advice as Lee’s, about not needing costly pans, etc.

 

As for old pans… I have seen the base of one used as the ashpan on a 2″-scale Sentinel steam-wagon. I would not have known had the owner not told me….

 

Hmm, there’s a piece of steel plate next to the computer. I’d better get my overalls on and start machining it as intended, and worry about dinner later. Le Creuset from Harrods? Nah – stainless-steel pans from the charity-shop.

[SillyOldDuffer]

On SillyOldDuffer Said:

On larry phelan 1 Said:

Who would have thought that a simple item such as a frying pan could attract such interest ????????

I never knew they were such interesting objects !

 

• That Vic started the thread suggests he’s positively biased in favour of Titanium cookware, a possibility reinforced by his tart response to John.

 

🙂

Dave

 

 

As you know Dave, I very rarely read you posts as you always waffle, on and on, coming to lots of false assumptions. Case in point. I’m not biased towards Titanium cookware, I just wondered if it might be better than the stainless steel pans I’m currently using for cooking things like eggs etc.

As for John, he made what I thought was a silly comment – you would obviously differ.

As is often the case on here things have gone off on a tangent. The original question was really simple but your imagination has gone into overdrive as usual, to support your desire to post reams of irrelevant information whilst not actually coming close to answering the original question.

[Author]

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