Mauviel tin lined copper

So I've been upgrading my cookware lately and I noticed that there's quite a few older tin lined Mauviel sauce pans out there. Are there any significant draw backs to the tin lined pots verses the newer stainless lined ones?

Mahalo,
Mikey

The French believe that tin-cooked food tastes better. It does wear out a lot faster than stainless, though.

The tin has a relatively low melting point. I wouldn't want to hard-sear steaks in a tin pan.

Also, it's soft and wears out over time. You would need to then send the pans to a place that does re-tinning, which I would imagine might be difficult on Hawaii. The newer stainless lined ones (I have a whole lot of them in the 2,5mm thickness versions) are thicker and won't wear out. I love mine, but they are damn expensive. In Denmark, a 20cm saute pan is around 350 dollars. While on a trip to Paris, I wandered into E. Dehillerin. All copper there was just under half price compared to the Danish stores. They get it delivered straight from the factory, and can sell at very nice prices. I bought copper cookware for 2500 dollars that day (in Denmark I would have payed over 5 grand for what I got) and drove it all home. I even made the calculation that if you just wanted a frying pan and a pot with a lid, it would be cheaper to drive the twelve hours from Denmark to Paris and back again than paying Danish prices.

I wouldn't buy the tin versions over stainless. You would never have to worry about overheating or wearing it out with the stainless. Though some to consider tin to be more "traditional".

The stainless you pretty much never have to worry about, unless you leave an empty pan on a very hot burner (which I've done, and even then the steel survived but is discolored). The tin you can get too hot and melt, and it does wear out over time.

That being said, tin is a much better conductor of heat than is stainless. So, the response time from a stainless lined pan will be slower than a tin lined one. I think I've also read that tin is very good at food release.

If you are getting a sauce pan or something that will always be used with a liquid in it (except for deep frying in oil, not sure about that), then a tin lined pan makes sense, as the water will keep the pan at 212 degrees. If you are going to be searing or something like that, I wouldn't go for tin, too easy to get the pan too hot and ruin the lining. Real copper lovers turn their noses up at stainless, but each has its pro's and con's.

I'm going to throw out a few questions, not to get a reply but things you should ask yourself.

1. Will you mind spending the money to send your piece out to get retinned? East Coast Tinning has a calculator to estimate how much. Plus you will have the shipping expense.

2. If you ended up buying a SS lined copper piece will you still think in the back of your mind that you wished you had gotten a tinned piece instead?

IMO, I think this is something that should be tried out. Also if you end up going this route I hope you have a place where you can leave it out all of the time because a fine piece of copper cookware is something to show off.

Well, why not upgrade to silver lined copper? Check out to pans & pots from Soy Turkiye. I am pondering one since a long time. The silver plated ones cost the same as tin plated ones, but the plating is much thinner, of course. But they do make pure silver pans should the application require that

I have currently a stainless clad Falk large sauce pan that I really like, their surface is like 'stone washed' and works very well, sticking is more than acceptable.