Matfer has updates to their carbon steel pans

Cooking Discussions Cookware
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It’s a month old Uncle Scott clip:

Tldw;

  • Concavity on the bottom to prevent warping on electric and induction. Older models missed this and there has been a quite a few mentions about warped Matfers on reddit comment sections for example that I have seen.
  • Cleaner look on the welds.
  • No hard to remove anti rust coating anymore, seems Matfer used to come with some of the hardest to remove coatings.
  • New handle texture (still uncoated steel).
  • Logo added to handle. Used to have no logo or brand name even?!?

All good changes to me and the pans are still 3mm as far as I know. I might have missed something… all this was according to the Uncle Scott video I just watched for the first time and I have no idea if these are selling somewhere already, but it was mentioned they would hit the market in Q4 when the old stock runs out, an initially on amazon or something (maybe meant the US market with that, I don’t know).

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Good

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I warped a Matfer Bourgeat carbon steel pan on my fathers induction stovetop 4-5 years ago.

De Buyer Mineral B pans solved the issue. No warping with them so far 4+ years of use.

I do own a Matfer Bourgeat carbon steel pan in 22 cm in my own collection, but I cook on gas and a very little 22 cm Matfer only has an effective cooking area of 12-13 cm, so it’s not likely to warp on any cooking surface.

I think the new Matfer carbon steel pan is a definite upgrade design wise to the old design, but let’s see how well it performs.

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Good to hear that Debuyer resolved the warping issue. Do you thinking it is simply because DeBuyer is thicker?

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don’t care for that design - a ten inch pan with a 6 inch cooking surface?
why such imposed weight on a teeny tiny fry pan?

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I’m not sure if the De Buyer 28 cm was actually that much thicker than the Matfer 28 cm carbon steel pan.

From eye measuring them up against each other, the Matfer looked a bit thinner than the de Buyer Mineral B.
So I would defintely say the thickness played a role in how easily the pan warped - but I’m not sure it’s the only reason.

This leads me to a question, I’ve been meaning to ask the forum.

Is carbon steel always made from the exact same material ?

Could it be, that two carbon steel pans, both measuring 3 mm in theickness and both 28 cm in size, are not made from 100% identical materials ?

What if Matfer make their carbon steel pans in slightly different carbon steel material than De Buyer do ?

Could this lead to a warping issue, that you don’t see so often in De Buyer Mineral B pans ?
Or the way the pan bottom is shaped from the factory - either an inward curve or an upward curve ?

Could this explain why some carbon steel pans are more prone to warping than others ?

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It’s called a french style frying pan and the flared sides make them great for jump sauteing vegetables and also the flared sides improves the sear on a steak, because the flared sides makes it easier for the steam to escape from the pan during a high heat sear.

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It seems the older Matfers would have had a rather straight bottom then and it was a bit warp prone. And supposedly they have fixed it with a slight upward curve to the bottom, just like on de Buyers for example.

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You’re probably right, Pertti.

But I’m still interested in whether different types of carbon steel material also could be the cause for warping issues in some brand carbon steel pans.

Let’s see if Matfer solve the problem with their updated version.

I wish Darto would make a N23 pan. I would buy it instantly.

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I don’t know about if there is big differences in the steels being used, I guess they’d use about the same steel at similar hardness between the French brands most likely though, but indeed I don’t know.

What I have noticed now after I sanded my Skeppshult 24 cm and 28 cm frypans smooth, is that these do not scratch nearly as easily my carbon pans with metal utensils. I sanded them as I had been enjoying the carbon steel smoothness and so it was kind of time then. Now I have nice and smooth cast iron also for thicker iron pan options. They clearly wont get to the same original black look easily anymore, but its fine and expected. I mean even if I scraped the old grainy surface with metal utensils (which I didn’t always, but did more towards the end) and the highs would get a bit greyer here and there, the lows remained “black” and the look was mostly uniform on my cast iron pans. I think what I mean is somewhat visible in this photo:

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So the Skeppshult pans kept seasoning quite well indeed considering I didn’t have any seasoning routines and just washed and dried them after use. I only smeared a little oil to them if they looked desperately dry after washing.

Now they are nice and smoooooth though and a pleasure to use with metal utensils, but I will probably oil them a bit more often after use now. I thought about sanding them pretty long and made my peace with the trade offs before hand, I am pleased with the result.

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Anyways back to the scratching, I ran some tests with my spatula and virtually nothing happened to the Skeppshults, while my de Buyers and Dartos got scratched with relative ease. Not that I’d care about the scratchiness, but cast iron is indeed harder (and more brittle) than carbon steel. I suppose these will scratch eventually also though from some more vigorous scraping perhaps.

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PS. I have also though that a Darto n23 would be great! The n25 and also de Buyer 28cm have quite perfectly sized bottom for my induction hob for my tastes. They are small enough on the bottom to be okay usable for me without induction heat diffusers. There is a bit colder area towards the edges still on those sizes, but its manageable to me and I give both CS and (bare) CI a free pass as I love cooking with them otherwise. The n23, or n22 would be nice on the back hob.

As a side point, I “can use” or tolerate the Skeppshults that are wider bottomed also without diffusers, but they actually work pretty well with diffusers as I have found! They can absorb the heat okay and sit evenly on them. The heat up time isn’t even so much affected, I can preheat on a bit higher setting than I would normally. Handling and keeping them on the diffusers is a bit awkward though, but I keep doing it pretty often for the evenness benefit, especially if I am pan frying fish for example on the 28 cm.

I was hoping to use my first diffuser also with my de Buyer 32cm country pan originally, but sadly it does not work anywhere close to as well as the Skeppshult with the diffusers. I think because there is more concavity in it and hence less contact. That and its also thinner so it doesn’t store heat so much…

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Thanks for posting this. My Matfer (bought 4 years ago) had a burr on the weld that I had to file off and then sand down with some steel wool.

No warping so far though (knock on wood).

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Okay, excuse me if this’s been covered, but what diffusers are you using on induction?

I have one from VonChef, and it does diffuse heat, but it’s intended to convert the hob to work with non-magnetic cookware.

Whatever you use, are you happy with how it evens heat under your pans?

Thanks.

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Long time, but I have an Ilsa 21 cm, which is about 3 mm total thick and has tiny legs to keep it slightly off the cooking surface, reducing the risk of overheating the appliance. That 3 mm is well enough to notice an increase in evennes and it doesn’t take so long to heat up.

It makes it so that I can for example pretty much guarantee rather evenly browned and crispy edge swedish pancakes with my Skeppshult 23cm cast iron pancake iron, with a cooking surface about 21,5 cm. Without it, depending on preheat, they could have lighter edge areas if I make a full surface pancake, and then start to get better to good from the second or third one or so.

Then I have a thicker and larger Kinghoff 6 mm, 23,5cm, this one enables me to use my 28 cm Skeppshult frypan with the pancakes. It really does improve the evennes quite a bit indeed, but it doesn’t have the tiny legs.

Here’s a photo with both the adapters in use for the mentioned pans. The back hobs are smaller than the front left, but the Ilsa is enough there also, without it there, no way to cook one like that, but on the front burner the wooden handle pan can do “pretty good” without it also as mentioned…

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I’m not saying I’d be a huge fan of using the adapters though… they make it more fiddly and I often make my swedish pancakes etc without them also. Since the adapters though, I am using them every time I pan fry for example fish fillets with my cast iron, for this purpose they are a very good help imo.

I’m not sure which one I like better if I am doing more general cooking with the 28 cm pan. The thinner and legged Ilsa appears faster in use and has seemed able to replenish heat faster, with “good enough” improvement in evennes. The Ilsa is now 1,5 years old and has not warped or anything.

Also not sure if the Kinghoff has a few times made my cooktop cycle off heat for a moment, but it made things things seem a bit slower on those occasions with bigger piles of food…

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Those cakes look scrumptious.

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Thanks, Pertti. Yours is a valuable data point for those who worry over converter disks.

How long have you had them? Have your appliances performed normally with them? No “overheat” errors or intermittent stoppages?

I urge the Doubting Thomases to mentally compare a 28cm x 3 mm converter disk with the -same-size-base 8mm-thick disk-base induction-compatible skillet. Why would one be a greater risk to an appliance than the other? I submit they’re equivalent risks. I would not leave either one–empty–on an active hob for extended periods; they both need to move heat away from the glass and sink it into food.

Your pancakes look fantastic, by the way.

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I’ve had the thinner one 1,5 years and the thicker one some half a year.

And since you asked, I now pulled out the manual of my cooktop. In case overheating protection would come into play, there would be an error signal about it and a need to restart the hob. That has never happened. A hob or the whole appliance has also never shut down while they are used and there has not been any error messages.

So I’d say I have probably not had any appliance issues with them. The adapters can get pretty hot, but don’t know how hot, during use. This is why I like the idea with the mini legs in Ilsa, but at the same time it makes it less stable.

Thanks, about that is how we like our pancakes :).

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Sure. They get about as hot as the floors of empty pans, especially thick disk pans without conductive sidewalls. But put a food-filled pan atop the converter, and much of the heat flows away.

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Yes, the adapters worked fine for my purposes of heating cast iron more evenly on undersized burners. Finally, on my new induction cooktop, I can now make passable pancakes on my cast irons without the adapters though, so that’s the end of me using them.

I like how the new large element on the right heats the now suddenly "undersized’ 28cm cast iron frypan pretty well. It’s refreshing to have proper heat around the edge areas on the flat surface.

Now on the large burner, the coldest area for pans of this size is in the middle of the pan, inside the inner “donut”. It’s been a much lesser concern, the heat spreads there to middle, where as I could have not used the 28cm cast iron to this effect on the old cooktop (or now the sidehobs), because the sides would have stayed colder. The 28 frypan has an internal cooking surface of about 23,5cm, a couple cm more than the flat iron on the left.

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Hey

Nice looking pan cakes!

What are your experience using your skepshult on induktion… you like it? Besides the he burner being too small on your old cooktop? :blush:

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