boilsover

My advice is not to waste your money. IMO, the only way such a hob-straddler thing will work well is perched atop a sheet of copper or aluminum. Without something to even the heat, you'll be playing musical pancakes...

As you learn to play with your new toy, you will probably find that 5 or 6 does equate. Copper makes very efficient use of whatever btus your hob is putting out. The flame is always the same temperature, turning the control up means more of them. Reasonable preheating of a bimetal pan should be completely worry-free. But if you leave it empty on an active hob for long (more than a few minutes), there is a risk of delamination. Multi-colored heat discoloration on gas is totally normal.

Yes, I meant the U-shaped notch. As for the moat water, sulfiting it keeps spoilage bacteria from growing there.

Is the inner rim of your crock's moat lower than the outer rim? If so, you may be overfilling the moat, with the extra going inside. The Ohio Stoneware version of the Gairtopf not only has a higher inner rim, but also a drain notch so that you can't overfill or swamp water into the crock. I also suggest you sulfite your airlock water.

See, http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/781663 Cheers.

Thanks, Everybody (and 'specially andie) This is the one I got, a New Standard Corp. #50 from Mt. Joy PA. USA. I decided I wanted 'cored' cherries rather than 'torn', so I went with a plunger-style. Couldn't find a Steinomat, and this vintage goes with my "new" Lehman's apple peeling machine better anyway. 5 lbs of Rainiers await!

Andie: Thank you VERY much. As between the Westmark and the "Lehman's" style, which do you prefer? Thanks!

WHEREAS, Having the Jones for cherry jam, pie, Jubilee, Old Fashioneds, etc..etc.; and Having now acquired a dehydrator and a Belgian copper preserve pan; and Cherries now being in and of Season, BE IT RESOLVED that I need a cherry pitter/stoner. There seem to be two types: (1) a ram-type, whereby a ram or rod drives the stone out through the fruit, leaving the fruit mostly intact; and (2) a wheel-type, which tears or splits the fruit seemingly in two halves, freeing the stone. Which type and model do you good people recommend? Bonus points for vintage, non-plastic and high capacity. Thanks! ,

"I was both surprised and happy to realize that the pan she is using is the same model pan I own." The one she cooks in is a lesser pan than the bare cast aluminum behemoth she shows off. They still can be purchased from the Pan Shop of Boston. I have virtually the same pan, made by Club and bearing the name "Rudolf Stanish" (not the painted one, but the restaurant-grade bare aluminum with steel handle). Seasoned and cleaned properly, it's so non-stick, you can just shake an omelet loose after it sets. Working 2 of these thick aluminum pans, Stanish could plate 180 omelets in an hour.

I just found one of these Lehman's "Reading 78" apple peelers, NIB, at an estate sale this past weekend for $12. On sale at Lehman's for $180. If you doubt these work, check out the video: Ten apples peeled in under a minute.

OK, I thought your point was that polished pans convey they are unused wallhangers, whereas tarnished pans convey their owners use them. My bad.

"I've seen restaurant kitchens in Paris and NYC where some poor worker had to polish all the pans every night. And I have a close friend who was both a serious cook and a compulsive polisher." Neither anecdote exactly illuminates your point above about polished copper pieces being "trophies" that don't get used. I'm sure there are many tarnished trophies which aren't used, and there are many pans polished after every use as a way of showing pride of place or sorting employee wheat from chaff.

Hi, Paul: Looks can be deceiving. If you visited my kitchen at the 2-3x a year I polish, you'd get the wrong idea. Also, if I get drip marks, I've been known to give my pans a quickie with Bar Keeper's Friend 'twixt polishes. Slop marks look... well... sloppy.

Hi, rane: This may be a rare instance of me disagreeing with Andie. Based on what I see on my small laptop screen, I think these linings are probably stainless. I say this because the linings' reflections indicate to me that they've been wire-brushed by the maker. If you see concentric rings of fine scratches and light reflects from a lining like twin beams from a lighthouse, you're either looking at copper-SS bimetal, or copper-plated aluminum. In the latter case, the pans would feel absurdly light. New hand-wiped tin tends to look somewhat irregular and sworl-ey. Electroplated tin (a la Baumalu) tends to show a brighter, smoother, more mirror-like finish. A more complicated issue is distinguishing electroplated nickel and silver from tin linings.

Avast, Captain: --Cheaper to buy? Check. --More versatile? Debatable but disagree. --SS doesn't retain heat [as] well? Largely irrelevant and incommensurable because of the internal conductive layers in clad. Thicker aluminum disk bases tend to hold heat better than (available) straight-gauge copper because aluminum has fantastic specific heat by weight. --Copper is great at retaining heat? In "extra-fort" and above thickness, actually yes (copper actually has very respectable specific heat measured by volume). In 2.3mm thickness and less, not so much. --Aftertaste? I'm with weinoo on this one. What are you talking about? --Pain to maintain? Only if you consider hand-washing a pain or require a mirror polish at all times. --Discoloration? Copper discolors immediately with heat whether washed or not; tin slowly discolors no matter what. It's the nature of the beast. Id. Arrghhh

Let's bump this thread, hmmm? I was in Eugene last year for the Country Fair, and when I posted about where to eat in Eugene on Chowhound, everyone bitched about how bad the food was there, how big a culinary wasteland it is, etc., etc. So I stumbled around, and randomly found a couple of places I thought were pretty damn good. The first one was Papa's Soul Food Kitchen. NB: The bar across the street is a great place to wait for your table at Papa's. I can't remember the name of the second, but it was a small breakfast place very near U of O with al fresco dining and a dilapidated wood floor, about 1/2 hippy coffeehouse, but hey, all Eugene is 1/2 hippy. Anyone know tjhe name? Had a great b'fast there. I'm going back this summer to the ECF in a Wavy Gravy tie-dye, Jesus sandals and Lennon glasses. Any other suggestions? Thanks!.

BTW this is what i currently covet : http://eshop.e-dehillerin.fr/en/induction-copper-curved-saute-pan-24-cm-xml-243_269-1243.html ... [W]hat might come out of the above pan will taste exactly like what currently comes out of my older AllClad MC2 aluminum sauciers. Well, maybe. Obviously the pans' constructions don't impart any different tastes from one another. However, if evenness and responsiveness or the ability to turn the pan on a dime counts for anything in a prep, you improve the odds of a better outcome with copper. For the preternaturally gifted cook who makies no mistakes, perhaps there is little difference. Alas, I find there is sometimes a difference in outcome--in taste or texture or timing. Have you also salivated over deBuyer's Prima Matera line?

Hi, fvandrog: No, it's the opposite of sensible. Above, rototus argued that copperware is unaffordable compared with other materials for cooks starting out. My point was that if you're willing to patiently scrounge for vintage copper, it can easily be cheaper than buying new clad or ECI. And at that point, you HAVE copper which should outlive you. That's really good you've apparently scrounged your own LC and Staub. You therefore saved a LOT of money, because the resale value for these pieces is quite low. We could explore the reasons for this in detail, but IMO the basic answer lies in the wide gulf between the two in terms of practical culinary use. Really good vintage copper tends to hold its value (or appreciate), whereas the minute you use an ECI piece, the resale value drops away sharply. If you want to compare the costs of acquiring vintage copperware with vintage ECI, you might save some money. But you'd still be cooking on ECI.

That's a valid point if you assume everyone starting out needs to buy new copper. I now have around 50 pieces in my batterie, all but one of which are vintage pans. I used to keep a running total comparing what I spent on the copper pieces with what like pieces from All-Clad, Demeyere and (the horror!) Le Creuset cost at retail. At least until I stopped keeping track, I had spent less on used copper than I would have on new first-rate clad or enameled cast iron.

Hi, Anna: Yes, a jambonniere is to ham what a turbotier is to flounder. Here is a photo. Another can be found in Jean-Claude Renard's "Les Cuivres de Cuisine" (Les Editions de l'Amateur, 1997). I would scan the latter for you, but I have no working scanner.

Wow, what great memories! And a family heirloom, to boot. As a young boy, I was captivated whenever my grandmother cooked on my great-grandmother's wood cookstove. There was something primal about it--it involved all of the senses, and you had to prepare for it. I vowed that one day I would have one, learn its cadence, apprentice to its dampers and drafts, and feed it well. I finally found my stove 2 years ago (and a house to put it in), and it's been an absolute joy to cook on. I smile to myself every time I "adjust" the heat by moving pans. Trivets, warming cabinets, a cavernous oven--features no longer generally available. You mention the "lids"... I recently discovered how well my pow wok sits down into the firebox. Above a good coal fire, I can get as good wok hei as over my gas wok burner. Do you have other pans with histories similar to your preserve pan? If you tell me you have a family jamboniere, I'll be terminally jealous.

You better alert the chefs at the state kitchens of France. I don't think they got the memo.

Hi, Andie: What make is your preserve pan? The shape looks Belgian to me. Perhaps Pommier Bruxelles? What stories this pan must have to tell! Be sure to pass it along to someone who will add some chapters, rather than use it only as a showy beverage/kindling tub.

Hi, Little Chef: Melting tin is, IMO, an overblown concern, which is remedied almost entirely simply by: (a) not preheating a completely empty pan; and (b) choosing the correct size pan for the preparation. I routinely use tinned copper for everything save *very* high searing, and even use it for oven use above the magic 437F. Mistakes can happen which can bubble or smear the tin, but they are rarely catastrophes or require retinning. Bi-metal pans, OTOH, can be destroyed forever by pitting and delamination. The best I can say for the bimetal construction is that you can use metal utensils with impunity. The chief advantage of tin-lined pans, IMO, is that you can find tinned vintage pans that are thicker than any bimetal pans in current production. A vintage, lathe-turned and planished 3mm or above tinned pan in sound condition is almost always better than a new stamped 2.3mm bimetal pan, and the former can be found for 1/4 the price of the latter. There's also the "Red Violin" aspect of owning a hotel-grade pan that already has 100 or more years of care lavished in and on it; I think that is worth something... Also, with induction stoves being rammed down the throats of our French friends, the brocantes can offer some 99th percentile pans for little money. As for concerns about lead, this is also completely overblown. Food grade tin contains about 0.002% lead. It is theoretically possible that an evil, unscupulous tinner used hazardous metal, but not bloody likely. A hardware store test kit should allay any fears.

The thickest copper bimetal pans in current production are 2.3mm of copper with a SS lining that runs to 0.2mm. I don't think the Sitram core is that thick, although Profiserie is very good clad. My simplistic rule of thumb is that good aluminum wares need to be half again as thick as good copper. I say simplistic because copper is superior at conducting heat, yet aluminum (by weight) is better at holding it.