Tortilla presses

[adinfinitu]

My aluminum tortilla press has oxidized a bit, and I want to replace it. Is any one kind better than another? I've been looking around, and the metal ones all seem to be aluminum or tinned (?) cast iron. Is stainless steel available?

[MSRadell]

My aluminum tortilla press has oxidized a bit, and I want to replace it. Is any one kind better than another? I've been looking around, and the metal ones all seem to be aluminum or tinned (?) cast iron. Is stainless steel available?

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A little bit of oxidation won't hurt your press (or the food you make with it) a bit. Mias aluminum like yours and has had oxidation for years, to me it just makes it look used and not something I don't use. A friend of mine has a cast iron one that has a coating on it like you describe, in some places the coating has chipped or worn off and the cast iron is rusting which looks much worse than the oxidation on aluminum. I've never seen a stainless steel one, they probably exist but are also probably quite expensive.

[Dianabanana]

Mine is cast iron but I don't think it's actually tinned--it's more like silver spray paint, only thick, and it's flaking off in a worrisome way. I'd rather have aluminum. I've never seen stainless steel.

[fiftydollars]

I've seen wood, but not stainless.

[natasha1270]

No stainless but here's a heavy duty plastic one on amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Mexican-Heavy-Plasti...a/dp/B000GT6PG8

Cast iron gets my vote. I switched from aluminum and really like the weight and evenness of it.

N.

[Chris Hennes]

For years I've been using one of those aluminum presses: it hasn't broken or oxidized on me, but I was never quite satisfied with the tortillas. They always wound up a little thicker than I would have liked, and were rarely perfectly flat or perfectly round, and to get them even close I always had to press them a couple times, rotating them in between. Bit of a pain. So this week I finally pulled the trigger on the Imusa Victoria 6 1/2 Ince Cast Iron Tortilla Press, which did not cost any more than my original aluminum one, as it turns out. Wow, what a difference it makes. One push of the lever and out pop perfectly round, even-thickness tortillas, and I can make them pretty much as thin as I can get to release from the plastic. So making tortillas is now faster, and the tortillas are better. I highly recommend going with the cast iron variety.

Edited July 1, 2010 by Chris Hennes
Corrected link (log)