Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–glad you’re here!
Today, I’m continuing my posts comparing and contrasting carbon steel and cast iron pans. For the last few days, I’ve been putting my pans through their paces, gathering information on how they respond to heat, how they bake, sear, etc. Today, I’ll be sharing what I learned about how they respond to heat. I’ll be starting with the results I got from the Smithey 9″ Carbon Steel Farmhouse Skillet.
As I mentioned in my last post, carbon steel is a favorite of professional chefs. Carbon steel combines the versatility of being able to used on any type of heat source–from induction to electric, even to a camp fire–with the durability of cast iron, but with less weight. Plus, it has a longer handle (because it’s not cast as a single unit), giving the chef the ability to stand back from the heat source. But most critically, I think, while steel is not the best conductor of heat, carbon steel is well-regarded for its responsiveness to heat. That is, it responds efficiently to a heat source, or lack thereof–heating up quickly and cooling quickly when removed from the heat source.
I decided to do some heat-testing on the carbon steel and cast iron pieces that I own. And a quick note here–I did not receive any of these pans from the vendors–I bought them all with my own money and all my opinions and tests are derived from my own research and testing.
So let me introduce you to the contestants again–they are: The Smithey carbon steel 9″ farmhouse skillet, the Lodge carbon steel 8″ skillet, the Finex 8″ cast iron skillet, the Smithey 6″ cast iron skillet, and the Blacklock 8″ skillet.
Today, I’ll be sharing what I learned when putting the Smithey 9″ carbon steel skillet:
This is a gorgeous skillet with a gracefully sloped, hand-hammered bowl. My pan weighs in at just over three pounds and the handle is a generous eight inches. Compare this to the Finex 8″ skillet that weighs in at about 3.14 pounds and has a handle that is just over five inches. I was actually surprised at how much this pan weighs, which may explain some of the results that I got from this pan, but that’s for a later post.
I did a several tests on each skillet.
The first was to see how hot the skillet got after heating it on medium heat on my gas range for four minutes.
The Smithey 9″ farmhouse skillet reached a temperature of 381*F.
Next, I heated the skillet to 400*F, removed it from the heat to a cold, cast iron grate and tested its temperature after one minute, after two minutes, three minutes and finally after 5 minutes to see how quickly the heat dissipated. Here’s what I found:
After one minute, the skillet read a temperature of 324*F; after two minutes: 279*F; after three minutes: 244*F; after five minutes: 197*F.
I noticed that when I took the pan off the heat source, the handle was just barely warm. However, by the end of the heat dissipation test, the handle was hot, but not unmanageable.
Tune in tomorrow when I share results from the Lodge carbon steel pan and compare and contrast the results of each.
Until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
