They were considered premium, but the way they’re produced is horribly unethical, even by coffee sourcing standards. The novelty was the fermentation that the beans would undergo after being eaten, and producers are now doing far more controlled fermentations on beans to get some insane flavors. They’re still a premium, but if you’re ever in the mood for something a little funky, you should look for an anaerobic fermentation or a co-ferment from a local roaster.
I’d caution against buying any of them for pans that large, honestly. Manufacturers are not required to match the size of the coil to the ring that indicates the ‘cooking surface’ on the cooktop. I bought the Duxtop one that all the review sites seem to recommend, and while it’s still a capable burner, the actual coil does not extend to the full diameter of cooking surface (it’s a lot closer to the minimum pan diameter, about 4 inches). No pan is actually going to adequately compensate for this, I’ve tested it across several different cookware materials, and multiple different brands of multi-ply stainless steel. You end up needing to treat pans somewhat like a wok, with hot/cold zones and a very clear temperature falloff when not in the center of the pan. I didn’t have issues with warping, but I was also extremely careful when it came to preheating pans that were 10 inches or more.
If you do decide to purchase one, you need to find the size of the actual coil itself. Most manufacturers don’t readily provide this information, taking advantage of the fact that most consumers are unfamiliar with the technology or won’t nitpick about the uneven heating. I hate it, because it can lead to an experience so bad that it turns people off from induction.
It seems like you’re making the assumption that in saying it’s disingenuous to make the claim, I’m casting some final moral judgment about the OP or their overall trustworthiness. Correct me if I’m wrong about that, you just seem to have taken issue with me potentially accidentally having called OP dishonest. To be clear, I was calling them dishonest (with regards to only the claim they made about their stainless steel pan being more nonstick than a nonstick pan, at least for the scope of my comment). It’s just patently untrue that a stainless steel pan is more nonstick than a Teflon nonstick pan, no matter what you do to the stainless steel pan (except applying a nonstick coating). I don’t have to make any unfounded assumptions about any mental state here. To make the claim requires that you are either innocently misinformed/uninformed or purposely making a misrepresentation about this particular issue.
And, for the record, I’m not assuming that the OP is malicious or intentionally set out to mislead people. It’s exciting to achieve little to no sticking in a stainless steel pan and you want to share that achievement with others, hopefully to encourage them to achieve the same thing. All I did was correct some innocent exaggeration. And if it was malicious, well, at least I still used disingenuous correctly.
Good luck finding an article on point for this sort of thing. I looked for a bit to try to find something to link here, but couldn’t find anything that directly addressed cooking oil polymers. I just wanted to say that you won’t necessarily be eating burnt fat. Seasoning cast iron/carbon steel isn’t necessarily about burning fat onto the surface of the pan, since what you’re trying to do is create a polymerized layer of cooking oil on the surface of the pan. Polymerization can occur well below the smoke point of an oil, you just apply heat to speed up the process. Applying too much heat can actually be counterproductive, since the polymer will carbonize, but you’ll probably never reach this point unintentionally without leaving a pan on the burner unattended. Under normal cooking conditions, any heat degradation of the polymer layer will be made up for with the fresh cooking oil that you’ve used, refreshing the seasoning. If you’re going to use cast iron or carbon steel, you should thoroughly clean any burnt on bits after cooking with dish soap. Modern dish soaps don’t have lye, so you won’t be doing any damage to the seasoning and you’ll only be left with polymerized oil, not burnt fat.
If you do decide to do more research and find something on point, please do share! I wasn’t able to find anything that explicitly pointed towards it being unhealthy, and I’m alright with making a somewhat informed assumption of the risk.
Apologies to all the small omelette enjoyers out there! Depending on the texture you like on your omelettes/scrambled eggs, you may want to consider a small carbon steel pan as well. If you like your eggs softer or with small curds, it’s going to be a much less finicky experience.
Honestly, I’d recommend against buying a cookware set unless you think you’ll really use every piece in the set or it’s too good a price, because manufacturers tend to bundle in something that you probably won’t get too much use out of or is a bit redundant (like an 8 inch fry pan).
As far as brands go, most of them are going to be pretty similar at the entry level price points, so I’d pick based on how comfortable/attractive the handles are and whether the rivers are flush or not. I wouldn’t pay much attention to 3 vs. 5 ply when it comes to different brands, but instead to focus on the weight and thickness of the pan itself. Generally, a thicker pan will sear better than a thinner pan, but will also be less responsive to changes in temperature (these will probably be minor differences except with something extreme like a Demeyere Atlantis, so don’t get too caught up on this).
If you’re looking to put the pans in the dishwasher, you might want to splurge for a brand with sealed rims. This helps to prevent delamination of the layers, which can happen in the dishwasher (see All-Clad lawsuit). However, this process does add quite a bit to the cost, so if you don’t plan on throwing them in the dishwasher regularly feel free to save money by getting unsealed rims. The cheapest brand that I’m aware of with sealed rims is Misen, but someone please chime in if you’ve seen a cheaper one.
Unfortunately, scrambled eggs are one of those things that are a bit harder to cook in stainless. If you’ve been using oil, switching to butter can help with some of the sticking, but you might end up using more butter than you’d like and some heat management is still necessary. Honestly, a lot of people keep a single nonstick frying pan just for things like eggs, seared fish, or sauteed tofu, so don’t feel pressured to make it work on stainless.
If you really feel compelled to move off Teflon completely, a carbon steel or cast iron pan will be much better suited to replacing nonstick for the instances where you’re getting excessive sticking, at the cost of needing to avoid acids in the pan. But if I were you, I’d just keep using my Teflon pans until there’s any flaking or chipping before making up my mind.
First of all, congratulations on the baby! :) If you don’t mind me asking, what sorts of dishes are you struggling to make on stainless steel?
I’m going to be presumptuous here and make a few suggestions, so feel free to push back if you’ve tried some of these things and they haven’t worked or aren’t as easy as I’m presenting. If you do still want to transition to stainless, it’ll be easiest to start by only doing it bit by bit, rather than all at once. Dishes that naturally contain some acidic element (like tomatoes, citrus juice, vinegars, or wine) will be easiest to cook without a bunch of sticking. I’d recommend starting with a tomato-based pasta sauce. If, as it reduces, you notice bits sticking to the sides, it’s easy enough to loosen up just by stirring a bit of the sauce onto it. Once you’re more comfortable with this, you can try sauteing vegetables in the pan. Even with preheating, it’ll might result in some stuck on bits, but adding a splash of lemon juice or champagne vinegar at the very end and agitating all of the ingredients should both brighten up the overall dish a bit as well as lift most (if not all) of those browned spots you saw. When it comes to searing meats, you might also have to adjust how often you’re flipping. If it feels stuck when trying to flip it for the first and second time, waiting a bit longer will eventually lead to the meat releasing from the pan. After the initial release on both sides, it won’t be anywhere near as sticky and you can flip as often as you’re used to. I wouldn’t worry about any browned spots either. While resting the meat, you can toss a bit of wine along with some stock in, turn up the heat, and stir continuously to loosen those bits up as well as flavor your pan sauce. Once it’s reduced to about your desired consistency, you can throw a slice or two of cold butter in and stir for a relatively low effort but still tasty pan sauce. Plus, you make washing the pan much easier. I think this tends to be easier than trying to achieve a nonstick effect with stainless, and sort of demonstrates that there’s ways to work around the issues some people have that aren’t strictly heat management.
My cat really wanted to press the submit button halfway through and force me to edit it to complete the thought as quickly as possible. Sorry if it isn’t quite helpful, and I’d be happy to follow up on any of it.
I’d posit that your well-loved cast iron looks even better than new. For me, moving off nonstick pans was about sustainability (and money waste, who wants to buy a 2 year subscription to cooking?), but I can’t get over how beautiful some cookware gets just from being used. The patinas on cast iron/carbon steel pans reflect the dedication of their owners to a craft, which I’ll take any day over a colorful pan whose surface flakes just from looking at it.
You won’t find any disagreement from me there. I just think that when you set the expectation too high (stainless steel can actually be more nonstick than Teflon), people will give up and just go back to nonstick pans when they can’t achieve those results.
Regarding dishes that are solely the domain of Teflon, I think it definitely has a place for dishes that already have a high bar for execution. A perfect French omelette is hard enough on a nonstick that adding another layer of heat management puts it out of reach for most people. But like you said, there’s not much that I’d use Teflon for, so I just don’t have one after switching to induction.
I think it’s a bit disingenuous to say that any other cookware material outperforms Teflon nonstick, and actually harms the conversation when trying to convince people to switch to an alternative. Nothing is going to beat the nonstick performance a fresh nonstick pan, and that’s perfectly fine. I don’t need a pan so nonstick that I could start an egg in a cold pan with no oil. Well-meaning people run the risk of frustrating less experienced cooks when they assert that they’ll get the exact same or better results from a stainless steel pan, which just isn’t true, especially right from the start. Stainless has plenty of other benefits that make it more than worth the learning curve to use. Sometimes you want some stick, to build fond for a pan sauce. Or you need a pan that can go from stovetop to oven to finish cooking.
This post wasn’t aimed at you specifically, I just wanted to vent at what I feel like has been an uptick in cookware bros flexing their ability to reduce sticking on stainless steel (“I’m so smart I name dropped this little-known thing called the Leidenfrost effect”). I quite like your video and post because they show an alternative way to reduce sticking on stainless that is definitely more forgiving for a beginner than trying to hit a specific temperature range.
Internet Shaquille is something that hasn’t been mentioned yet that I think really resonates with what you’re looking for. All of his videos are short, focused, and aimed at helping regular people in the kitchen (with the exception of his April Fools videos, which satirize clickbait videos). There is some humor, but the information density of his videos reflects his ethos of not wanting to waste your time. To this end, sponsor reads appear at the end of the video (if they’re sponsored at all), so you can completely skip them.
I’ve been using a Klean Kanteen for a decade now, and I have nothing but positive things to say about them. The straw lids come apart very easily for cleaning, and each of the parts is separably replaceable. When my partner needed to replace the silicone mouthpiece but couldn’t find it on the website, we just emailed their support and they were more than happy to send us a replacement free of charge.