Thinking of a copper pan - need some help

Hi,

our Greenpan (28cm, 8cm tall) seems to be approaching its end and I am looking to replace it with a different one. The surface on the Greenpan (some sort of ceramics) held up reasonably long, but its anti-sticking properties diminished quite a bit. On top of that the pan takes ages to heat up on our glass stove (not inductive).

After I have heard about the copper pans I became interested about them. It just seems that there are different types and quite a few makers and I am getting a bit lost. I have started to first look at Mauviel, but obviously there are quite a few others.

For the start - what is the difference between stainless clad copper (like Mauviel Herigtage) and tinn clad one (like Mauviel Tradition)? And what about the pans with silver surface (like Mazzetti)?

I am opened to your advices and suggestions.

thanks

Tinn and silver clad conducts heat a little better compared to stainless clad. But I am pretty sure you will not notice a difference.
The thickness of the copper is more important.
With tinn you might need to re-tinn the pan after years of abuse.
De Buyer and Ronneby Bruk also have nice copper pans by the way.
The Demeyere Atlantis low sauce pan has copper only in the bottom of the pan and is very easy to maintain because it is completely stainless.

Ever since I saw this thread pop up I've been racking my brain. I've seen some killer copper cookware made in the USA but I couldn't remember where I saw it, so I quit thinking about it and bingo! Hammersmith copper cookware. Kind of expensive, but it looks like it's worth it.

Well, scratch that one off your list for the time being anyway. Looks like the economy has recovered and they are not accepting any new orders. Good for them, sad for you.

Interesting. But since I am located in Germany, ordering a heavy copper ware from USA would probably be very expensive.

One general though of mine on the thickness of the copper. It seems that the preference is - the thicker the better. That can however only serve one purpose - and that is heat distribution (in horizontal direction, so the pan will have more even temperature across its surface) and of course mechanical stability. It does not aid heat transport from the stove to food being cooked.

I have read that tin surface is less 'sticky' than stainless one. What are the other relevant differences from user point of view?

My Mauvieal sugar pan is solid copper, the heat transfer is very even and predictable. I'm no expert, but I think its a case of you get what you pay for. I aquired it very second hand ( the handle had snapped off after 15 years in a super busy pro kitchen) and after riveting the handle back on its given me another 5 years and shows no sign of giving up.

I would do some research first as retinning is expensive IF you can find someone to do it.

OK, I have read some more and found out that another option would be a so called 'multi clad' pan which has 3 layers (SS, aluminium, SS). It should work about the same as SS clad copper, but for less weight and lower cost.

Anyone having experience with multi-clad pans like e.g. All-Clad?

In my opinion, there is no way a multi-clad would react to heat/cold as fast as copper.

Since you are located in Europe, I suggest that you look at E. Dellerin prices. Their Mauviel copper/tin pans are much cheaper than what I saw anywhere else. You can also send them an e-mail if you are looking for a product that is not listed.

Qualifications: I have 12 copper mauviel, some all clad, carbon steel, viking. I started collecting copper 25 years ago and have a mix of thickness and tin/steel.

Comments:
I use a 10" carbon daily especially for omelets and high temp searing. Anything that requires some finesse, say like something lightly breaded or fish that could burn is done in copper. I believe there is a difference in that tin is a bit less sticky but I couldn't prove that.

I read, I think in modernist cuisine that the thickness is not very important with respect to heat dispersion. The material would have to be and inch thick for the geometry to make a difference. I will track this down if needed. I bring this up because if you do a lot of flipping, the thickest 10" or 12" pan will get to your wrist pretty quickly. My 10" thick copper/tin weighs a ton. The 12" copper/steel is thinner for this reason.

As you are in Europe I would find out who does tinning and the cost, just to know. It is a dying art here in the US. After 25 years of home cooking, some of the tin should be redone but is still in good shape.

I appreciate your comments. Thank you.

Tin -vs- SS - if there is not considerable difference in sticking, than I would probably go with SS cladding - in particular if it is going to be lighter than tin-clad copper.

I have checked out E. Dellerin. Are they actually producing the land for Mauviel? The design seems identical and prices very similar (I am comparing to German Amazon).

I have also 'discovered' pans from German maker called Weyersberg, but their products cost nearly double what Mauviel does.

When it comes to well know ones like Mauviel, De Buyer, Fulk (or others) - what would be the reason to choose one over the other?

And of course there are some lover cost options, but I think I would rather get a pan from makers that I can get some references for.

Falk owns the process for laminating SS to copper and they supply the raw material to both Mauviel and Bourgeat. Falk's pans have a brushed exterior finish which many prefer over the bright polished finish on the Mauviel and Bourgeat which can take a lot of work to maintain. There are other minor differences in handle shape, handle attachment method (rivet vs. welded). Since the manufacturers all use the same basic material, performance is more or less identical and choosing between the 3 is really a matter of aesthetics and personal preference.

As far as tin or silver-lined copper - both melt at a lower point than SS so there are limitations as to how they can be used.

One known issue with the SS used by Falk is that it is prone to salt pitting, the pits are harmless but visible.

I have a variety of Falk pieces, they are a luxury but I enjoy cooking with them and look forward to using them every day. My favorites are the oval roasting pans.

This is a very informative write-up of the materials and construction techniques used for cookware and how/what to select for various cooking tasks: Understanding Stovetop Cookware.

Matus said:

I have checked out E. Dellerin. Are they actually producing the land for Mauviel? The design seems identical and prices very similar (I am comparing to German Amazon).

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The copper products that E. Dehillerin are selling are from Mauviel. But their prices on tin lined products, from my experience, are much lower than anywhere else, including other shops in France. Are you sure that you are comparing the exact same products on amazon.de? For instance, their 24cm / 2.5mm tin lined saute pan is 105 euro at Dehillerin. And 88 euros if you are a tourist from ousite of the euro zone.

Anthony, thank you for the advice and the link - I am just reading through. Very helpful.

Bef, you are right, but as usually with Amazon, the prices vary wildly even with similar products. I was looking at 28cm sauté pan and there the price difference is really quite small. But I will keep eye on that webpage and once I know what I want/need.

Another vote for Falk. I have a saute pan and a saucier from them and as Anthony said, I actually look forward to using them. Plus, you can make the saute pan part of your daily fitness routine...bloody heavy.

I hate cooking on an electric stove but that is my lot in life right now (home cook). Is cooking with copper pans useless on electric as it is hard to control the heat, or are there still advantages.

Adirondack said:

I hate cooking on an electric stove but that is my lot in life right now (home cook). Is cooking with copper pans useless on electric as it is hard to control the heat, or are there still advantages.

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Same here... There is an advantage, only you don't benefit from the copper as much as you would with gas. But still, there is a perceptible difference. You can feel the heat much more rapidly, and when you remove your pot from the stove, it also colds much faster.

I was thinking about switching to copper at some point, but I think that it's quite possible that I would use induction some day, say, in 10-20 years. So copper pans might not be a good investment in that context...

Matus said:

It seems that the preference is - the thicker the better. That can however only serve one purpose - and that is heat distribution (in horizontal direction, so the pan will have more even temperature across its surface) and of course mechanical stability. It does not aid heat transport from the stove to food being cooked.

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Thermal mass. You have a temperature buffer the heavier the pan is. Which will reduce the effect of throw food on pan, it cools down a few degrees and then catches up. This was big problem for my crepes. Until I moved to heavier pans the resulting pancakes were always stingy and tough.

I have indeed forgot the thermal mass (capacity). But the more heat capacity the pan has, the slower it will react to change (on the stove) as that heat capacity needs to be dumped or re-loaded. So I guess that the optical thickness would depend on the use.

Concerning pancakes (crepes) - I do them with very good success on thin aluminium non-stick Tefal pan. Just keep it hot through out the process and only take it off the stove to turn or remove the pancake. Even the minuscule heat capacity seems enough (when hot enough) to solidify the dough nearly immediately once poured in. But of course my expectations on the result may be quite a bit different than yours.

As far as I understand if the copper is not thick enough, you lose the thermal reactivity to the inside cladding which much more inert, that's why you would still want thicker copper pots.

When it comes to crepes, I get the best results from seasoned cast iron pans

So from Modernist Cuisine, a few comments:

"In a typical copper pan, the temperature across the bottom will vary by no more that 40 degrees. But if the pan were made of stainless steel, then it would need to be more 7 cm thick to perform similarly...

"When it comes to heating food evenly, the metal the pan is made from is the least important factor. What matters more are the thickness of the meal, the size of the pan, and the size of the burner heating the pan.

But then he goes on to say: "The thicker a pan is, the more uniform the temperature across its surface....[but less agile...]

So I guess the ideal is a pan made of transparent copper, 2 inches thick, that weighs nothing, and sits on a burner with 120 micro jets...

At the beginning of this section he basically says even heat on copper is not so much the advantage, it is really response time; heating up and reacting to adjustments.

RE: Apathetic. That may be why some people prefer tin; I suspect it is thinner than a steel cladding.

Apathetic - I have suspected that iron pan is the way to go with crepes - but I have not yet got that far just yet

Coating:
I have scratched the tin off the list because of lifetime considerations (re-tinning in Germany will probably cost more than a new pan anyhow).Look at prices more closely - Falk is considerably more expensive than Mauviel. It is actually at the level of silver plated copper pans from Mazzotti. That brings me to the following question - how is the mechanical and thermal stability of silver compared to stainless steel? The silver not only has much better thermal conductivity, it is also much thinner (15 micrometers compared to 200 micrometers of stainless steel cladding). What would be the up and down sides?

Handles:
Falk seem to have better (is it?) handle design - one at leas has 2 options as the stainless handles have different shape than the iron cast one. I would be curios to hear more on the handle shape. Heavy pan with wrong handle design is probably a bad choice. So - what is your opinion on the handles of the pans mentioned?

Matus, you hit the nail on the head "Heavy pan with heavy handles." I have several versions of pans with copper. They all behave differently. The Allclad copper core to me, cook like triply aluminum SS pans. Maybe be a little better heat distribution, marginal.

Falk copper pans cook very differently from anything else I ever used. You have both thermal mass and a metal that is very responsive to heat.

For me the handles aren't really a big issue because I don't flip and toss them about anyway. When I'm cooking on the Falk's I use utensils to maneuver the food, as opposed to using the pan to maneuver the food.

So they're really heavy (even without food), not easy to maneuver and a PIA keep perfectly shiny and cannot be washed in the dishwasher. That's the main reason they only get used a hand full of times a year. But when they do come out, Its like driving a Ferrari around my stove top.

Thanks Mucho - you do have a point. The pan will be way to heavy to move around when not absolutely necessary - I completely missed that point. I am actually wondering how big of an advantage of the Falk would be the helper-handle on the larger pans (which weight about 3 - 4 kg)

Mauviel: 1.5mm vs 2.5mm
One more question conceding the Mauviel pans. These seem to come in 1.5 and 2.5 mm thickness. I would love to hear some user experience with larger pans (28 and 30 cm) in these thicknesses. The 1.5 is obviously both lighter and cheaper, but how are other properties including mechanical stability? I will be using the pan on electric (glass) stove, so the flatness is of importance.

Matus said:

Thanks Mucho - you do have a point. The pan will be way to heavy to move around when not absolutely necessary - I completely missed that point. I am actually wondering how big of an advantage of the Falk would be the helper-handle on the larger pans (which weight about 3 - 4 kg)

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A helper handle is a must on the larger pots/pans.

Consider also the two loop handle versions of the saucier and saute pans - Falk calls them 'stew' and 'casserole' respectively - they take up far less space and are much easier to carry.

Good point with the double loop handle saucier pans. Given the weight of the pan the pan will not be moved during cooing (our current pan weights 'just' 1.6 kg and it does not see any movement either). I guess I just need to overcome the mental block since it the does not look like a pan anymore even though it has the same shape

The 12" sauté I have has a helper handle, its useful for carrying the pan, from the stove to the sink, not so much for flipping food. If I did it again, I's prob. go with would go with the stew pot config in the 3 QT saucier.

I have been just checking up on the weight and, surprisingly, the thickness of the pan makes quite a difference . The Mauviel M150 frying pan in 30cm size weights 'just' 1.5kg, but go M250 AND saucier pan instead and the weight nearly triples.

Even though I have not decided yet whether to get frying pan or a sucier pan, but I am pretty sure that if it will be the saucier pan it will be with two loop handles. No way I will be able to comfortably lift 4kg pan with 1 kg food in it with just one hand - I can do that with a pan that weights (empty) 1.5kg - I guess I need to work out more . And I can probably forget from the very beginning that my wife would ever use a pan that heavy.

http://www.mauvielusa.com/cookware-sale/Warehouse-Sale.html

If you are in the neighborhood....

To my surprise, eBay has quite nice article on copper cookware - here

Matus, Great article. I concur