Forum: cooking.stackexchange.com
Tags: <equipment><cookware>
Title: How can I measure the performance of my stovetop pots and pans?
Question: Am I looking for the ratio of burnt dishes to fine dishes? Well-cooked to not? My general happiness? When should I replace a pot or pan? I am unsure where to begin.

Answers:
sents: text: I second Joe's advice.
text: Your pans may be too thin, that would make your dishes burn easily.
text: You can test your pans with a simple experiment.
text: Place a thin layer of water in your pan (an eighth of an inch, or just enough to cover the bottom).
text: Turn on your burner to high.
text: If you have an electric stovetop let the burner glow before placing the pan on the burner.
text: Watch how the bubbles form in the pan.
text: If they are uneven over the bottom, you have hot spots.
text: This photo is actually uneven heating from the burner, not from a bad pan, but it shows the idea: you have hot spots.
text: If your pans have hot spots you need to stir more often and maybe lower the heat from what the recipe calls.
text: Pans with thicker bottoms and made with good electric conductors (copper or aluminum) have fewer hot spots.
text: Then there is what I call the Remick Maxim .
text: Three years ago when I decided I would learn to cook better, I went through many cookbooks and asked a lot of people for advice.
text: A great friend (a French restaurant level cook) told me the best advice he ever got was from the actress Lee Remick , a good cook herself.
text: She said: “the secret to great food is to cook it in low heat.”
text: Best advice I got on cooking.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/183/papin
score: 10
sents: text: Cook something in a relatively thin layer on the bottom.
text: See if it is obviously hotter in some places than others.
text: Or see if you're constantly cleaning burned food off of some places and not others.
text: The major selling points of pricey pots are heat distribution and nonstick.
text: You already know if you want more nonstick, so what you want to look for is heat distribution.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/149/bmargulies
score: 7
sents: text: This seems like it would be a difficult thing to objectively measure.
text: I personally have never done that.
text: However, I will offer some nerdy ideas and suggestions.
text: These are approaches I would actually try myself if I ever had the time or inclination.
text: First, I think bmargulies suggestion to try cooking things is a good approach.
text: The intent is to see if there are hotspots.
text: However, I think you might be better off with objective measureable results.
text: I'd suggest getting a hand-held infrared thermometer (e.g. Fluke 62
text: Mini Infrared
text: Thermometer
text: [I haven't personally used this]) and measuring different things.
text: Some ideas: Measure heat distribution and try to find hot spots.
text: A good pan will have an even distribution, and should have no strong hot spots.
text: If there are hot spots, how much hotter are they?
text: Timing how long it takes the pan to reach a specific temperature, given a specific flame setting.
text: Turn off the heat source once the pot is at temperature and measure how well it retains heat.
text: Does it cool evenly?
text: I surmise this is likely to be related to the previous ideas.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/60/hobodave
score: 5
sents: text: @Harlans's flour trick works, but the problem is in looking at it afterwards, as it might get stirred up too much to give a good picture.
text: I would think a crepe would be a good test -- you'd be able to flip it out and get a good picture of how the heat was across the bottom of the pan.
text: An omelet might work well, as well, but they both sometimes have problems with sticking.
text: You could also try a thin layer of water (maybe 2cm or 3/4"), and put it over high or medium high heat, and watch to see which areas are bubbling.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67/Joe
score: 2
sents: text: +1 to the flour trick.
text: An IR thermometer would be nice to test the temp of your pans, but for evenness the flour trick is best.
text: Although I am curious about how hot they actually get--just not $85-curious.
text: Here are my results with the flour test:
text: My cast Iron pan has a huge hot spot right in the center.
text: I tested 3 different levels, high (9), medium (5), and low heat (3) on an electric range.
text: The high heat had the greatest hotspot and the coolest edges.
text: The lowest setting heated more evenly but took a long time to heat up, 25+ min.
text: Cast iron conducts heat poorly and unevenly but retains it.
text: I also believe the hot spots occur because the high sides sap heat away from bottom's outer edge.
text: It would be interesting to compare a the pan to a griddle.
text: My stainless steel pan with the aluminum sandwich core heated very evenly on medium (5).
text: I only tried one setting.
text: Yes, there were minor variances, but nothing compared to the cast iron pan.
text: Also, it heated much faster.
text: Overall I was really impressed by the pan's ability to heat quickly and evenly.
text: The photos speak for themselves.
text: This is the cast iron on 3, 25+ min vs. stainless w/alu core, ~8 min.
text: Edit: I tried to post images
text: but I can't because I'm a "new user".
text: I wish SE would let me carry my Stack Overflow credits into other forums.
text: I'll try to post images once I have the 10 points. :(
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/6613/Jason Wirth
score: 1
sents: text: New answer to an old thread since commercial conditions have changed: The actual heat distribution in a cooking vessel (in combination with heat source) can be well examined with a thermal imager - technology which was hardly commercially viable ($1000+) to the curious enthusiast in 2010, but has gotten more affordable looking at it from a 2017 standpoint (especially devices using existing smartphones as platforms, available below $200).
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/35312/rackandboneman
score: 0

Summary of the answers:
If you regularly burn food, the pans may be too thin or have uneven heat distribution. Thermal imagers are now a lot more affordable, and can show you if the surface is heated evenly.
Think about if you are often cleaning burnt food off pans. You can test heat distribution with a thermal imager, infrared or thermometer.