Cladded pan vs Disc pan

[Dan-]

I had a full set (like ALL of it) of MC2, and they were great. I used to think they were heavy. I ended up giving them to my brother, who doesn’t understand what I gave him, when I upgraded to Demeyere Atlantis using gift cards when Marriott bought SPG (a VERY sad day). Anyway, the Demeyere made me realize that MC2 aren’t that heavy and also that if I didn’t have a long-term plan to move to induction, I would never have done it.

As for WAF, she’s still mad I gave away the MC2.

 

[Jovidah]

Demeyere has lighter options too. You might easily forget because for some reason everyone always obsesses over the heaviest lines (like the proline), but they do have thinner & lighter options. Personally I actually have a mix, because the heavyweights are great when searing meat, but when I'm just sauteing some vegetables I prefer something a bit lighter that I can toss easier.

 

[sumis]

Demeyere has lighter options too. You might easily forget because for some reason everyone always obsesses over the heaviest lines (like the proline), but they do have thinner & lighter options. Personally I actually have a mix, because the heavyweights are great when searing meat, but when I'm just sauteing some vegetables I prefer something a bit lighter that I can toss easier.

exactly.

i have the choice of grabbing demeyere industry 5 or proline skillets. i only use the proline if i need to use two skillets.
if cooking results differ, it's not because of the pan … if there's a problem searing meat in an industry, a proline wont help. a new stove might though.

.

 

[coxhaus]

I also prefer saute pans deeper than all-clad's proportions. A-C is probably 3 to one height to diameter, fissler is more like two to one, it's MUCH better for braising and all matter of slow cooking. I'd have no problems making bolognese in a deeper saute pan, but I don't think the all clad proportion would work well.

I've never been too chuffed about the whole evaporation argument, my deeper saute pans seem to work out fine.

I had no problem cooking bolognese in my 5-quart All Clad copper core saute pan. I cooked it for around 10 hours. I like a pan to heat quickly so I got rid of all my silver disc pans. And in my way of thinking the lower sided pan is better in the oven if roasting a chicken or something like that. The chicken skin gets crisper further down.
But I can see higher sides on something like dry beans, so I use my Viking PRO 3.4-quart saute pan for them as it has higher sides.

I think wider pans are more energy efficient, so I tend to cook more with wider pans. I am also thinking copper is even more energy efficient since I bought a couple of copper pans with stainless steel liners. They heat really fast, and you use lower burner settings.

 

[rickbern]

I had no problem cooking bolognese in my 5-quart All Clad copper core saute pan. I cooked it for around 10 hours. I like a pan to heat quickly so I got rid of all my silver disc pans. And in my way of thinking the lower sided pan is better in the oven if roasting a chicken or something like that. The chicken skin gets crisper further down.
But I can see higher sides on something like dry beans, so I use my Viking PRO 3.4-quart saute pan for them as it has higher sides.

I think wider pans are more energy efficient, so I tend to cook more with wider pans. I am also thinking copper is even more energy efficient since I bought a couple of copper pans with stainless steel liners. They heat really fast, and you use lower burner settings.
View attachment 214325

I’m at the opposite end of the spectrum. I make this dish in a tall narrow pot made of clay. Having the pan bottom visible for long cooking would seem to me to be the very opposite of energy efficiency but what do I know?

 

[Jovidah]

In general I looked into this somewhat recently and I found stovetop cooking to be a negligible part of my energy consumption. Cooking related it was really all in the ovens.
If you really wanted to cut down on energy consumption from stovetop cooking I'd simply lean towards shorter preparations; quick stir-fry is king in that regard.

 

[Michi]

In general I looked into this somewhat recently and I found stovetop cooking to be a negligible part of my energy consumption.

At least over here (subtropical climate), the #1 source of energy consumption is air conditioning. In a colder climate, that might be less of an issue, but then you end up heating more. (Heaters here run only for a weeks at most, and then only for a few hours in the early morning and evening.)

Next on the list is the hot water system. These things eat a lot of electricity.

In third place are refrigerators, freezers, washing machines, and clothes dryers. Refrigeration doesn't consume that much power, but makes up for it by being turned on permanently. And clothes driers are really energy hungry.

Everything else (cooking, lighting, electronics) is a drop in a bucket compared to the first three.

 

[Jovidah]

At least over here (subtropical climate), the #1 source of energy consumption is air conditioning. In a colder climate, that might be less of an issue, but then you end up heating more. (Heaters here run only for a weeks at most, and then only for a few hours in the early morning and evening.)

Next on the list is the hot water system. These things eat a lot of electricity.

In third place are refrigerators, freezers, washing machines, and clothes dryers. Refrigeration doesn't consume that much power, but makes up for it by being turned on permanently. And clothes driers are really energy hungry.

Everything else (cooking, lighting, electronics) is a drop in a bucket compared to the first three.

Yeah in general lines I agree. The hot water was a big surprise for me; my central heating and hot water all comes from the same fairly efficient and reasonably new gas heater.... but even then my jaw dropped at how much it consumes. If I handwash a bunch of dishes I'll consume as much or more gas doing the dishes than doing the actual cooking. I never particularly minded taking long showers because 'water is cheap'... but now that gas prices have gone up that's becoming a different story.
Similar with the ovens; I have one big 90 cm stove with a big oven in it and my jaw dropped at how much energy that thing sucks down. It gets to the point where 'low and slow' cooking methods that are traditionally recommended to save money by going for cheaper cuts might actually not save any money at all.

IIRC when it comes to seperate boiling water systems in the kitchen it largely depends on how much of it you use in a day; for occasional use it's definitly a waste, but if you regularly consume a lot of hot water it actually becomes rather negligible.

When it comes to AC / heating it all depends a lot on how well insulated your house is. I'm lucky enough to live in a fairly new appartment building and as a result - even as night time temperatures have gone down to -8 it's still 17-18 degrees inside without using my heating at all. In my experience it took me about a week for my body to adjust to 1c lower temperature to be perfectly comfortable again. Generally speaking, regardless of insulation, the cheapest way to be comfortably warm (apart from the no-brainers like putting on a sweater and socks) is to drink hot beverages. Tea is cheaper than gas!

Freezers and fridges are highly dependent on how new / energy efficient they are... but I've definitly started reconsidering simply using my 25 year old freezer 'until it breaks down' after I put a kwh-meter on it.
Personally I never saw the point in having a clothes drier.... had access to one for a few years in one of my student homes, never saw a reason to get one myself after I moved out.

With electronics I'd say don't ignore it entirely. Yes, LED lights consume very little, but for example (non-mobile) computers and television setups can still consume a fair amount, especially when you haven't optimized efficiency settings. For example my GPU was sucking down a constant 60w even in idle due to a bug preventing it from going into a lower power state when having multiple monitors connected. And one of the cable providers here had a tv-box that had an idle usage of 230 kwh a year; that's more than an efficient modern refrigerator. But the best way to go abou tthis is to just systematically go through all your devices with a kwh-meter and see what they suck down in a few days.

 

[Michi]

But the best way to go abou tthis is to just systematically go through all your devices with a kwh-meter and see what they suck down in a few days.

I agree. I went through this exercise quite a few years ago, so I could start to get a handle on what consumes how much. I bought one of those energy consumption meters that allows you to piggy-back an appliance, and found a few things that drew a lot more current than I thought they would. For example, I used to own a Mac Pro (the cheese grater one from the late 2000s). It ate a cool 400 W permanently!

For hot water, we have a solar hot water system. It is passive, meaning there is no pump. For periods when we have extended bad weather, it includes a 2.5 kW heater, so we don't end up with cold showers when it rains. That system gets us 83% of our hot water from the sun. (Obviously, that is not an option in a cold climate.)

I installed a 6.6 kW PV system about ten years ago, and that has been making more energy than we use over a year, so we are a net exporter of electricity. (Again, we are fortunate with our climate.)

I've been trying hard to reduce our environmental impact in general. Lots of little things that add up. We separate recyclable trash; we don't use dishwashing liquid when all that was in contact with the board was a few carrots and celery sticks; we use as little dishwashing powder in the dishwasher as possible, and wash larger items by hand; we drive an electric car, take our own linen shopping bags to the supermarket, don't buy vegetables and fruit and reflexively put them into a plastic bag in the shop, use a SodaStream instead of endlessly throwing away more PU bottles. The list goes on…

With a little bit of thought, we can reduce our footprint by a fair bit without ever creating any inconvenience. It won't change the world. But it does help.

 

[Ruso]

don't buy vegetables and fruit and reflexively put them into a plastic bag in the shop

Where do you put them then, especially if you are on a weekly grocery run where a dozen+ of different produce can be bought.

 

[Dan-]

So you really don’t need to put anything but fragile green things in a bag. Almost everything gets peeled or washed anyway.

 

[Michi]

I bring my own linen reusable shopping bags. I avoid using the rolls of individual tear-off bags provided in the shop. Almost everything can go directly into the shopping basket without additional packaging and, from there, into my bags.

For large loads, the shop will put everything in cardboard boxes that, otherwise, they would throw away.

 

[Ruso]

Almost everything can go to a basket or bag, but its unfeasible to cash out with everything lying around and not sorted into bundles. Sure, if its 1 apple, 1 pepper and one tomato it works, but if the count goes into 10s for multiple items then it becomes a problem.

 

[Dan-]

If the counts are in the 10s, aren’t you buying that at wholesale or at least from Costco?

I like to put each clad and disc pan in its own bag

 

[Ruso]

If the counts are in the 10s, aren’t you buying that at wholesale or at least from Costco?

I like to put each clad and disc pan in its own bag

No, I do not, just a regular grocery. We eat a lot of produce.
But this thread made me thinking, I think I can reduce my use of those plastic bags from a roll to almost a half.

 

[coxhaus]

Yes, I was just thinking in terms of stove top cooking. I think a wider pan will transfer more heat from the stove burner to the contents of the pan before the heat rises past the pan.

A/C is our big expense in Texas 9 months out of a year for energy costs.

I did switch our water heater and dryer over to gas and I noticed a lower difference in our electric bill per month.

 

[user 16756]

Yes, I was just thinking in terms of stove top cooking. I think a wider pan will transfer more heat from the stove burner to the contents of the pan before the heat rises past the pan.

A/C is our big expense in Texas 9 months out of a year for energy costs.

I did switch our water heater and dryer over to gas and I noticed a lower difference in our electric bill per month.

it's been nice not having to hvac a 2500 sq ft modern Texas house. temps are a lot more stable in my >100 year old place and my bills are way lower in spite of rumors of MA being so expensive.

 

[blokey]

Just got something very interesting, the Zwilling Twin Olymp II pot. The body is imported from Belgium and looks like directly out of the Demeyere factory with the same sliver copper sliver construction, but the handle and lid is done in China. This line seems to be exclusive here since Demeyere is not sold here.
The discounted price is slightly cheaper than an equivalent Atlantis.

 

[rickbern]

I have the same basic pot from fissler and find it very useful.

Gotta say, your pictures make the pot look better than thé advertised ones do!

 

[bkdc]

My Copper Core still has a huge hot spot on my not-nearly-large-enough induction burner. Same with my AC D7. Unfortunately, a nice pan can't really compensate for the faults of small induction coils.

The downsides of cheap induction are so clear. But so is the downside of thin copper (or thin anything). I believe All-Clad chooses 1mm thin copper just to shave weight because most Americans do not cook on induction and they will be turned off by a 6 quart capacity pan that weighs 8 kilograms. There is also the perception of “responsiveness” that you get with half the thermal mass. It does heat and cool faster.

Most cheap induction coils use pulse width modulation. If you want a low setting, it is ALL ON and ALL OFF. For example, it is full power for 10 seconds followed by off for 30 seconds and then full power for 10 seconds followed by off for 30 seconds. You can imagine how easily this promotes warping and uneven heating.

To get advanced software/hardware, you have to pay $$$$. For something as simple as a portable induction plate, the minimum entry point for something even slightly more sophisticated is a Vollrath Mirage Pro 59500P.

You want larger coils (or dual coil) and the flexibility with the ability of an induction burner to function at partial strength (3%, 5%, etc) even when it is using pulses to control power levels.

I cook on both gas and induction, and even when using gas, I find fully clad pieces highly overrated. Fry pans? Sauciers? Ok. Smaller pots? Ok I see the potential benefit even though these are usually used to cook liquids and the sides are usually wasting energy acting like a large radiator rather than functioning to actually cook. For anything of moderate size and larger (20cm diameter+) I see very little drawback of disc bottom pans as long as they’re well made. My cheapo induction hot plates were discarded but I still prefer disc (Either Demeyere Silver or Atlantis or Fissler Profi) because I feel reassured they will not warp and they perform equally well on induction and on gas (except for the issue of heating time). For fully clad, I did settle on Falk Copper Coeur as the best compromise. The responsiveness of copper while still being thick enough for the benefits of reasonably even heating. It’s noticeably slower on gas than All-Clad Copper Core but the reason is clear. It’s got twice the copper/thermal mass.

 

[btbyrd]

The downsides of cheap induction are so clear. ....To get advanced software/hardware, you have to pay $$$$. For something as simple as a portable induction plate, the minimum entry point for something even slightly more sophisticated is a Vollrath Mirage Pro 59500P.

You want larger coils (or dual coil) and the flexibility with the ability of an induction burner to function at partial strength (3%, 5%, etc) even when it is using pulses to control power levels.

I don't disagree with anything you say. I use a Vollrath Mirage Pro and even that doesn't work well with pans 10" or over. Same with the Control Freak (not that I own one). I don't think the downsides are cheap induction per se; even the expensive 1800W units have problems. If you can run a proper hob off its own dedicated 240 line, you can get around virtually all the drawbacks. But anything that plugs into a standard US wall socket kind of sucks.

Thick disc bottoms can help moderate problems with hot spots caused by small induction coils, but you sacrifice responsiveness and that's not a small sacrifice (for many tasks). Of course, you mentioned this, so I guess find that to be more of an issue than you do.

 

[bkdc]

It’s all about compromises and there is no perfect tool for all uses. If I were a chocolatier or making sauces all day, I’d think differently.

 

[Ruso]

Keep in mind that he uses an electric glasstop stove; that does somewhat skew his perspectives.
That being said, both pan types have their strengths and weaknesses, also depends on what and how you're cooking.
I still wished there were more hybrid designs like the abandoned Lagostina Lagofusion.... best of both worlds.

I was looking for disk bottom frying pans and stumbled upon Hybrid Lagostina construction which reminded me of your post.
Looks like the new name for the hybrid line is: Lagostina Accademia

In addition, any recommendation for nice thick bottom disk SS pan with tall border similar to a saute pan for affordable price?

 

[Michi]

In addition, any recommendation for nice thick bottom disk SS pan with tall border similar to a saute pan for affordable price?

Fissler Profi Collection. Not cheap, but very good. You can get it with and without the textured surface. Domed lid available separately.

 

[Jovidah]

The old recommendation for 'bang for your buck' disk bottoms used to be Sitram. But I have no idea if that's still the case...or whether their cheap models even work with induction.
The name Paderno has also come up a lot in the past.

 

[stringer]

I was looking for disk bottom frying pans and stumbled upon Hybrid Lagostina construction which reminded me of your post.
Looks like the new name for the hybrid line is: Lagostina Accademia

In addition, any recommendation for nice thick bottom disk SS pan with tall border similar to a saute pan for affordable price?

Restaurant supply is your friend. I recommend the Thunder Group 5 quart stainless steel saute pan. Mine is 15 years old and gets used every day ahead of a bunch of All-Clad MC2 and D5 stuff.

 

[Jovidah]

Yeah but watch out if it actually works on induction (which...even if not relevant now, may become relevant in the future). Restaurant supply stores is one of the places where I still see at least some pans that have only a plain aluminium disk on the bottom.

 

[stringer]

Yeah but watch out if it actually works on induction (which...even if not relevant now, may become relevant in the future). Restaurant supply stores is one of the places where I still see at least some pans that have only a plain aluminium disk on the bottom.

This one is 100% stainless, no aluminum. But I haven't tested it on induction. So YMMV. I do have a few stainless steel pots and pans at work that won't heat up on induction.

 

[Michi]

This one is 100% stainless, no aluminum. But I haven't tested it on induction. So YMMV.

Take a magnet with you to the store, so you can check.

PS: Not keeping the magnet anywhere near credit cards and the like is a most excellent idea…

 

[stringer]

Take a magnet with you to the store, so you can check.

PS: Not keeping the magnet anywhere near credit cards and the like is a most excellent idea…

I was curious about your magnet test. It makes sense, just the empiricist in me wanted to test it out. I knew I had one pot at work that says it's stainless steel but doesn't work at all on my commercial induction hobs. So I checked and sure enough the disc bottom on this particular pot might be stainless steel but not the magnetic kind. I will double check with my Thunder Group pan when I get home. Although it's old enough that the data might not mean much. The formula could have changed over the last 15 years. Lol.