Enameled Cast Iron Skillet

nolaegghead

@eggcelsior - yeah, total fail on my part too.   Stokin' the fire between the CI vs FeC people and lost track of the OP.

Focker

@Eggcelsior and @nolaegghead,

"CS does a better job than CI."

Just because carbon steel thermally conducts the heat better than CI, does not necessarily make it best for all applications.  CI, is better, at covering these various styles of cooking.  Carbon steel is a one-trick searing pony.

"For sauteing and frying(for example), I'd rather have steel, so would most professional cooks." 

Come on man.  How do you fry chicken down there?  lol

Shallow fried in a CI skillet, no comparison.

Same for sauteing.  CI is king.  

Braising, CI.

Baking.  Again, CI.

 

Carbon steel is ideal for searing.  Think wok hei stir frying/searing.

But even for searing, you would think the addition of heat retention and radiation would give CI the slight edge?

This is all basic principles of heat transfer and thermal conductivity of metals. 

nolaegghead

@Focker man, I can't shake the feeling that you really like CI 

Frying is all about controlling oil temperature.  Less mass makes the temp more reactive.  That's both good or bad, but the food taste is based on it's contact with the oil and the temp of that oil.  More mass is good, but you can add more oil.  Easier to overshoot a temp with that extra mass.  Pretty much a wash. 

There are times when one is better than the other...They're both different tools with different properties.  CI is slow to react to temp changes.  That's a good thing for some things and a bad for others. If you're sauteing onions, you might want it hot, fast, to caramelize the onions.  Then you might want to throw in garlic where you want less heat.  CI is like an egg when it comes to dropping the temp.  The steel reacts faster. 

If you try to build everything with a hammer you make compromises.  You need to use the right tool for the right job.  CI and carbon steel, and aluminum, teflon, etc are all tools. 

Focker

Thermal mass is ideal with frying, not a wash, I'm sorry.  When do you need to change frying temps?  And wouldn't thermal mass in CI help with stabilizing the oil's temps when adding mass to fry?

When cooking onions, I have never started hot, then low.  Or low, then hot.  It is usually one or the other.  Garlic is usually added at the end. 

I agree, the steel reacts faster to heat.

I agree, you need the right tool for each job, see my above post.

Eggcelsior

Nola read my mind. I can do all things equally with the tools I have. Each one does certain things easier than others.

Except baking. Aluminum for baking, not CI(with the exception of cornbread). Much better conduction with aluminum.

caliking

nolaegghead said:

+1 on @caliking 's suggestion.  I almost couldn't see the forest through the trees. 

I have some home-made baking steels that I love.  One is core10, the other some unknown alloy, probably uranium, from an inductively coupled plasma spectrophotometer.  Both work great.  But you can buy baking steels.  I can drop them from a plane and they won't break.

See:

http://eggheadforum.com/discussion/1151065/introducing-the-tuff-guy

Not homebrewed per se, since I didn't make them myself, but you get the idea.

Eggcelsior

@caliking I tried to cheapskate it and went to a local metal fabricator with pics.

Quoted 250 bucks.

nolaegghead

@caliking - effin' sweet!

I love my 16" steel.  I put it in the plate setter to give me a bigger shadow on indirects.  Have to use with caution on pizza, I burned the f*ck out of the first one I cooked.  Too much heat transferring too fast for the temp I was using.

Focker

Eggcelsior said:

Nola read my mind. I can do all things equally with the tools I have. Each one does certain things easier than others. Except baking. Aluminum for baking, not CI(with the exception of cornbread). Much better conduction with aluminum.

Softer, more susceptible to hot spots, warping, melting.

Great choice.

Please explain how cornbread baked in CI is preferred over cornbread baked in aluminum, and why only cornbread for baking.

nolaegghead

'cause that's how g-ma used to make it!

Eggcelsior

What are you baking at 1200 degrees? Thick aluminum pans have no issues with hotspots or warping in a convection oven where baking is done between 300-450 degrees. Every standard bakery uses aluminum pans for 99% of their needs(I worked in 2).

CI for cornbread because it looks cool and that is how grandma made it. My goldtouch pans(aluminum) actually give a much more even crust than CI.

Focker

I have melted an aluminum drip pan in the egg.  It can be done, quite easily if cooking indirect with a barrier, at high temps.  This incident, was wings. 

I wouldn't conclude that commercial bakeries using a specific product make it automatically preferred.  Commercial bakeries have other priorities $$$. 

That is what I'm after, you're eggsperience with goldtouch.  Thanks for sharing, and glad they work well for you.  I too, have tried the metals, and if I had to pick one....

Got no beef with you or teflon don/nola.  Use what you feel is best and egg on bros.   

caliking

Eggcelsior said:

@caliking I tried to cheapskate it and went to a local metal fabricator with pics. Quoted 250 bucks. 

I paid about $180 for both. Just getting the steel discs cut without any frills would have been about $40. They charged me the rest for materials and labor to weld the handles and flat bar, and run the bead along the inside of the rims on both. Didn't end up saving that much (if any) money, but ended up with 2 very versatile pieces - can be used as steel platesetter, baking steel, griddle. I cooked lamb keema on the large one at Salado.

@nolaegghead - I tried some naan and pide one day, and found that about 500°F-ish is probably best. Thoughts?

Since I resorted to pimping my own threads:

http://eggheadforum.com/discussion/1151296/naan-and-pide-experiments-on-steel

Actually, I've been thinking about revisiting the naan issue, so reading that again is helpful... for me at least!

Focker

When will your shirt be available?  I want one, now.

caliking

Focker said:

When will your shirt be available?  I want one, now.

check with @henapple. It'll say " I cook on a tan door".

Taxes are done. Off to bed now.

Zmokin

I'm confused.  All steels are just an iron alloy.  Granted, stainless may not release iron into food as easily as CI does, but I think if I had an iron problem, I would ixnay all non-coated iron pans from my repertoire of cooking food.  Adios to my beloved RevereWare.  Aluminum's link to Alzheimer's I believe has also been debunked.  Either way, I would switch to glass, copper, aluminum, titanium and other materials for cooking if I developed a problem with too much iron in my blood.  Start eating with my real Sterling Silver dinnerware, buy a good set of ceramic knives for carving, etc.  Maybe it's overkill, but that is how I can be with some things.  Like gun safety, no such thing as being too safe when handling firearms.

nolaegghead

@caliking I read that thread, and I commend you for using the scientific method!

Based on my interpretation of the dough cooking without flipping and the physics of the materials and egg set up, I think Travis has a good setup.

In general, higher up in the dome the hotter the radiant heat and gas convection, IE, top of the pizza cooks faster.  The baking stone (versus a steel) transfers heat slower on the bottom of the dough, IE the bottom cooks slower.  The you can fine tune the cooking rate on the bottom through choice of material and by "shielding" it from heating.  For example you can "cook" that stone with direct or indirect heat, or insulate it by putting another stone and air gap under that.  It's all about the ratio of cooking, plus you have other variables such as how wet the dough is (steaming), how leavened it is (insulation) etc.

Anyway, the MacGyver method gives you infinite combinations.  An exciting endeavor and makes me want to cook some exotic doughs.

In general, based on my experiments, the steel cooks extremely fast, and it's great for oven pizza, but I'm not pursuing any more baking steel pizza in the egg because the stone cooks the bottom slower (and the steel usually too fast), at least for the dough I use.  Now a screen on a steel...haven't tried that but that seems like a possibility.

nolaegghead

Focker said:

I have melted an aluminum drip pan in the egg.  It can be done, quite easily if cooking indirect with a barrier, at high temps.  This incident, was wings. 

I wouldn't conclude that commercial bakeries using a specific product make it automatically preferred.  Commercial bakeries have other priorities $$$. 

That is what I'm after, you're eggsperience with goldtouch.  Thanks for sharing, and glad they work well for you.  I too, have tried the metals, and if I had to pick one....

Got no beef with you or teflon don/nola.  Use what you feel is best and egg on bros.   

No beef here either @focker.  I just like a spirited discussion with enthusiastic, educated peeps. 

One thing about me is I'm not loyal to any tool.  I'll be a devil's advocate for argument's sake, but I'm not the kind of guy to diss Primo's, Kamado Joes or any other tools just because they aren't BGEs.  CI is awesome and I use it all the time.  I just try to stay practical.

Focker

Likewise nola.  I'm no brand whore.

My dad's buddy Les Baer said it best out at his house.

"Performance, it's everything."

jgjones28

Focker said:

DO NOT USE IT, RETURN TO SUR LA TABLE AND ORDER HERE, 14", 15", and 16" will all work.  I have the 16", and would recommend the 15".

http://bakingsteel.com/shop/

I'm interested in ordering one of these myself, and I'm curious what it is about your 16" that you would recommend the 15" instead? I would have thought the 16" would be about perfect for a Large Egg using an AR.

ShadowNick

Back to the original question posed for this thread, I'd give titanium a serious look, provided it's not Teflon coated.