Oooops I did it again LOL

Cooking Discussions Cookware
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I once again got rid of my carbon steel pans LOL

What a relief. FINALLY OUT.

No more tinkering with potential rust issues…
No more dirty oil seasoning issues.
No more delicate cleaning of the pans.
No more anxiety over my wife accidentally will clean and soak the CS pans and let them rust over night.
No more uneven heating if I don’t heat the CS pan up for decades.

They’ll be replaced by a trio of pans that are superior to carbon steel in every way possible EXCEPT how they’ll look after a year or two or even a month of high heat searing usage and abuse.

My trio of Demeyere Proline pans.

The final nail in the coffin was hammered in yesterday.

Last week I accidentally soaked my Darto N30 for 4-5 minutes, while washing the pan I had to take a pi_zz and came back 4-5 minutes later.
My Darto N30 had rusted all over the bottom during these 5 minutes from soaking in the kitchen sink

Yeahhh I know you can’t soak raw iron, but sh_it happens sometimes and I’m tired of having to deal with a pan I can’t soak for just minutes to clean it.

Some of you may have CS pans with year old seasoning that’s not as delicate as mine. I’m not getting to that point ever because I’m getting rid of my CS pans now.
Too cumbersome for my household.

I removed the rust - took me 15-20 minutes to get it clean and seasoned.

Used the Darto N30 again last evening.
Without me knowing it my wife took it away from the stovetop and placed it on a damp rag/cloth and left it there overnight.

This morning it had totally rusted on the bottom once again. Took me 15-20 minutes once again to clean it from rust and season it again.

NO MORE CARBON STEEL PANS IN MY HOME !!!

OVER & OUT WITH CARBON STEEL PANS !!!

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What did you do with them?

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Selling them or giving them away.

If you’re in Denmark feel free to give me an offer.
I don’t ship them for obvious reasons.

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Hi Claus, sorry to hear about your disappointments with carbon steel! I’m sure you’ll do fine with only the Prolines - remember it’s all about the cook, not the equipment… :wink:

I personally always leave dirty carbon steel pans sitting on my stove, unless I’m able to wash and dry them immediately. Same for my stainless steel lined copper pans, as they have cast iron handles - at least most of the time. Sometimes I do let them sit in the sink for an extended time. The handles of my Falks have been tarnished by rust now as a result, but I don’t really mind as they are still as functional as ever. Somehow the cast iron of my Mauviel are less susceptible to rust.

B Y the way, those smaller pans on the left in your pic look mighty fine, with a nice seasoning!

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I didn’t soak my carbon steel in water and even then it can rush. I just somewhat remove the rust with Bar Keeper’s Friend. Without completely remove all rust spots, I apply oil and put it in oven and bake.

So you will be replacing them with stainless steel cladded cookware?

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I’m not really replacing them with anything as I already own their more than worthy replacements :wink:

My 3 Demeyere Proline 7-ply pans in 20/24/28 cm

I’ve never used my carbon steel pans as replacement for non stick labs, as I find carbon steel pans very much inferior to non stick labs for all type of eggs, starchy potatoes and delicate fish.

If I was left on a deserted island and had I my carbon steel pans in my possession, I would make them work on open fire (if I could make fire that is) for me - but carbon steel pans unfortunately are NOT able to produce as fluffy eggs and as even cooked delicate fish as my great non stick pans. In fact they don’t stand a darn chance in comparison.

You need more fat/oil for CS pans to work with eggs and starchy potatoes.

You need far more attention to heat control for CS pans to work with eggs and starchy potatoes. Even then the nature of dead raw cast iron (which carbon steel is and more so than what we call cast iron pans) still is very much less evenly heating than non stick pans.

Yes non stick pans are far more environmentally problematic to produce, but once you own the pan and cook with in a sanely manner where you avoid over heating it and use silicone utensils in it, in my opinion a great non stick pan is far more suitable for delicate items like eggs and soft delicate fish and starchy foods than a carbon steel pan will ever be.

So basically I’m not going to replace my CS pans but will just use the pans I already own instead (as a cookware enthusiast I own 50-60 other pans than carbon steel pans)

For delicate items - eggs, delicate fish and starchy potatoes: Demeyere Alu Pro and Mauviel M’Stone

For high heat meat searing: Demeyere Proline

For vegetable & mushroom sautéing I’ll continue to use my beloved great De Buyer Inocuivre 2.0 copper frying pans (these pans are really fantastic copper pans, so responsive and still so massively evenly heating for a 2.0 bimetall copper pan)

For pasta, sauces and other one pot dishes I’ll continue to use my great Falk 2.5 copper and Mauviel 2.5 copper sauter and saucier pans.

Thanks for reading my input.

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Ah got it. You don’t plan to buy more cookware to replace the carbon steel cookware. You will just shift to your existing cookware.

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What about paninis, pancakes, tortillas, rotis, etc.? I always use CI or CS for those.

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Hi Damiano,

So good to hear from you again.
Always a pleasure to read your intelligent input.

I do the exact same thing as you.

Once I’ve cooked my dinner I leave the pan on my stovetop, all soaked in warm water & detergent - with the exception of my carbon steel pans of course (or they’ll rust)

But my wife always clean up in the late evening or early morning. I’ve politely tried to inform her that she should just leave my carbon steel pans alone. But she’s a very helpful individual and sometimes forget or have trouble identifying what is carbon steel and what is not.

I really appreciate her initiative in helping with cleaning my pans, but it’s a PITA when she once again by mistake has soaked one of my carbon steel pans in water for hours. Trust me. But still I really really honestly appreciate her help. I really do.

This is just one of the reasons why I felt I once again had to get rid of my CS oans.
They are just too cumbersome for my little household and our OCD to actually clean and wash the pans we use.

They also need more fat/oil and more attention to heat control than my Demeyere Alu Pro and Mauviel M’Stone ceramic non stick pans and my Copper and Ply pans.

Fried potatoes in CS are just more oily than when made in my great non stick pans.

Quick seared turbot is just more delicate when made in a non stick pan with less oil but more butter at the end.

A basic fried egg is simply more fluffy and delicious when made in a non stick pan than in a CS pan where you need more fat to make it work.

I’ve nothing against fat, butter and oil - in fact I love it.
But I feel I need more of it than I necessarily like when I cook in CS pans than in my great great great non stick pans.

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I use my great great great Demeyere Alu Pro ceramic non stick pans for crepes and tortillas. They work fantastic for this. Trust me.

If I make panini sandwich I use my very very heavy Staub ECI grill pan and as a lid I use the even heavier Danish ECI cast iron pan from Morsoe.

In short what I want to get rid of in my cookware collection are pans that rust if you soak them and in general just pans that can rust. That’s it. Quite simply .

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Rust need not be an issue. Dry them on a burner or in the oven. Just until the water is gone if using stovetop or until oven hits a few degrees above boiling. Treat tinned steel things the same way but only use the oven.

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It might not be an issue for you, Tim - but it is for me now 2 weeks straight.

Yes it’s user error, but I’m human and so is my wife.

My wife has now rusted 4 of my carbon steel pans in the last 5-6 months.

I don’t want to spend a minute more on removing rust from a carbon steel pan.
I don’t want to baby my carbon steel pans when I wash them in detergent and afterwards having to dry them on the stovetop. Far too much work compared to my copper, non stick, ECI pans and ply pans and far too lousy performance (other than high heat searing where CS pans excel)

I simply do not want cookware in my house that can rust if soaked in hot water. It’s as simple as that.

Thus my carbon steel pans have to go.

I won’t miss them for a second.

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Oh no - your poor father will have to give up “his” two prolines then :wink:

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In my experience its also enough to wash in warm/hot water and then dry with a towel. The pan is warm enough this way, that it dries completely in my experience. Then I may or may not wipe it with a bit of oil afterwards depending on how it looks.

I often scrape the bottom of the pan already while cooking with a metal spatula for an easier cleanup. Then for washing, I use dish soap if necessary and in case there is stuck on bits I typically add some water to the pan and let it sit somewhere on the stovetop (turned off) or next to it for a while. Then wash it with a brush that has a scraper in it.

I don’t maintenance season my pans at all separately, but I have initially seasoned all of them. I don’t think thats necessary either though. I have a bunch of carbon steel though, so I don’t think I was wasting time there either, they are not all in constant use.

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Hi Pertti,

I’m not normal as a guy suffering from OCD, I have a hard time putting a carbon steel pan away which I’ve only rinsed in hot water. In my experience hot water isn’t enough to really clean a pan. The handle for instance - in my experience- still feels a bit greasy if I don’t wash it in detergent and hot water. Hot water isn’t enough for me to feel a pan us clean.

As I told you my father is the perfect candidate for using carbon steel pans. He uses his every day, only wash it very briefly once a week in detergent and couldn’t care less about a bit of grease on a handle or at the bottom of a pan.

I’m not built that way. I need a clean pan with a clean handle when I begin to cook.

Carbon steel pans were really only a solution and option for me to avoid splattering my copper and ply pans in hard to deglaze and remove oil splatter on the walls of the pans, when I high heat seared meat.

I never really liked the extra butter and oil I feel I have to use to make eggs, omelette and starchy potatoes non stick. I like butter but at the end and only in small quantities.

Perhaps others with deeper seasonings in their carbon steel pans who only rinse their pans in hot water are able to cook with less fat than I am.

But I totally acknowledge that carbon steel pans have their place in many kitchens and are a fantastic option for people, they just are not for me and my little household.

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I judge my equipment (heat sources as well as battery of pans, knives, etc) by how well it performs unnoticed. In other words, the perfect tool is something I use without having to give it special attention. Others have no problem with taking extra steps. No equipment is perfect for all/each of us. It can take time and a few purchases for one to find the stuff that works for them. Or better said, stuff that they work best with.

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I learned to cook with bare aluminum and cast iron. And probably some old Revere ware (Mom’s; I never owned any). Teflon was a curiosity when it came time to “stock” my college kitchen - the little saucepan I had was the partner in crime to my illegal college dorm room hot plate. I never had the urge for a complete set, probably because I don’t recall the first time I actually paid attention to the material I was cooking with. (probably after a lot of reading lol)I just cooked, and nobody died. In the end I reach for the stuff I’m comfortable with, whose performance is predictable to me. The rest gets exiled or rehomed. I cook on the stove that’s available to me. Sometimes I look in my pan cabinets and think, this is sparkly sprinkles on the icing on a very precious cupcake.

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Now, Claus, I understand you’re upset…

Let me just remind you, you once really liked you CS pans. And, IIRC, you didn’t have any use for Prolines.

You do whatever you need to do, but my advice is to hang onto 1-2 of your CS pans, and return to them every once in awhile. If only to test assumptions and compare.

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No problem Claus. SS pots and pans, tinned copper always present a clean slate and blank canvas for your work and there’s a whole lot to be said for that. I’ve worked in kitchens that rarely used carbon steel. It is by no means a requirement. You need an SS pan or two for high heat searing, the rest can be done in your tinned copper and stainless stuff if that’s what you have.

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Pertti also suggested this to me.

I’m getting rid of them all 6 once again. This time I’m just sick of having to remove rust from my CS pans time af after time.

I’ll be back here in 6-18 months with a regret post most likely LOL

But seriously, I’ve never been able to see what carbon steel pans excel at other than high heat searing.
I still can’t figure it out, if you love your non stick pans for eggs, delicate fish and starchy potatoes.

I won’t go into the production issues of making these non stick pans.