Stainless steel makes for healthy, durable, attractive and versatile cookware. Properly cared for, it will remain easy to care for and will last for decades. When selecting stainless steel cookware, there are a few important things to keep in mind.
One, stainless steel is always a healthy cookware option. Stainless steel is non-reactive, meaning it will not impart to food during preparation. Other cookware materials, for instance aluminum, can impart to food directly through scratching or from chemical reactions with acidic ingredients.
Two, stainless steel cookware is manufactured at more than one level of quality. The highest quality is labeled “18/10,” meaning it is 18 percent chromium and 10 percent nickel. This combination of alloys may also come with a label of ‘surgical quality’ stainless steel to denote high quality.
This level of chromium indicates thicker stainless steel that is more resistant to staining and corrosion. Nickel, on the other hand, is what produces stainless steel’s gleaming surface. High quality- 18/10 – stainless steel will cost more, but will resist scratching and corrosion over time and always look great.
Three, stainless steel does not have the best thermal properties, including how quickly it conducts heat and how evenly the heat is diffused throughout the material. One solution is to add an aluminum or copper ‘disc’ to the bottom of the pan to improve conduction. This does nothing, however, to improve diffusivity, or the even spread of heat throughout the pan – making hot spots still possible.
Stainless steel is often ‘cladded’ to maximize its performance, especially its diffusivity. The cladding process takes materials with better thermal properties – copper and aluminum – and sandwiches them between layers of stainless steel. This avoids hot spots in larger pots especially by assuring that heat spreads evenly from the heat source to the top of the vessel.
Cladding improves performance and is a staple of professional and home chefs everywhere, but, as you can guess, is also more costly. All-Clad Cookware and Calphalon Cookware are both producers of quality, cladded stainless steel cookware.
Finally, stainless steel is suitable for all forms of cookware, making an all-stainless steel kitchen an attractive reality.
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