Stock Pot: 6 or 8 quart? 3 or 5 ply?

Cooking Discussions Cookware
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Both of my All-Clad 5 ply skillets were thrift finds, I think one was marked $14 and the other $11. Side note, AC got sued a few years back for layer delamination from people who trusted their “Dishwasher Safe” advertising (some were not, and started delaminating), so don’t put them in the DW. Not that most of us here on HO put skillets in the DW anyway.

OTOH, I have two LC 7L Dutch ovens that I bought new. I got the 2nd intending to return the first, until someone here explained that pinholing in the top-most interior enamel coat was harmless, common, and not something LC considered a defect.

Since they were a good deal to me, about $200 vs typical “full price” of $480, I kept both and I’m figuring out which daughter is most likely to need a larger DO. D1 probably as she just had Kid2 and is talking about getting pregnant again sooner this time, and is talking about 6 kids total. I’ll give it to her and ask if she’s willing to give D3 her 5.5 Lodge ECI DO. D3 currently only has a 4 (I think) quart from Aldi, and D2 already has the Amazon Basics 6 quart ECI DO.

No matter what, to your point - I expect these will last several lifetimes, absent for example being dropped out of the back of an open-bed pickup truck at 70 mph…

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42

Is that the drugs talking?

Joke I like:

Wife: I love you.
Hubby: Is that you talking, or is it the wine?
Wife: What? You’re still here? I was talking to the wine.

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Yeah, with my current newish upstairs (kitchen) side-by-side, I’ve tried to be a bit more systematic. The broths I let chill in the fridge first, so the collagen sets up and I can stand them on edge like bookshelves. They (mostly) go next to the ice maker bin, but I’ve got some older overflow in the lowest drawer (and broths are all that are in that lowest drawer).

I’ve also started sorting the other shelves by type as you suggest, but it’s tough because I’ve got a traveling circus of the 3 younger kids bringing stuff here on holidays from college and over summer breaks, and they always need to jam stuff in there sideways. I have 3x5 cards now listing the contents of each shelf, but don’t do a great job of updating them. It’s not perfect, but still it’s working better now than my no-system-whatsoever of years agone!

On Sunday, we finally just cleaned out my oldest daughter’s kitchen freezer (lower drawer French freezer) which had been my MIL’s, who died 2 years ago. (We did clear out the basement upright deepfreeze shortly after they moved in in 2024). Unbelievable the stuff that was in there, especially all the blocks of cheese she’d frozen, “already cooked then frozen” steaks and pork chops (with no dates), and 7 Mason jars of mostly unidentified broth, soup, what not, plus almost 5 pounds of various pecan, walnut, almond, hazelnut, other nuts.

Lots of bagged frozen veg with “use by” dates in the 2010s. We tossed about 200 pounds of stuff. I kept and brought home all the jarred stuff (because I always need jars, now that classico has gone to a worthless neck/lid system), the nuts to see if rancid (haven’t checked yet), and some of the uncooked meats that didn’t look too freezer burned.

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44

(sigh)

to me, the more important fact is: “Like Dude, what size do you need?”
had a (gifted) Martha Stewart “brand” stock pot. worked great.
but it was just dang big for “cooking for two”
donated to a ‘soup kitcehen’ - downsized for “environment for two”

by definition, ‘stock pots’ - as referenced above - are used for long slow low ‘stuff’ - 3,4,5,6,10 ply is utterly meaningless in that regard.

pick a size based on ‘need’ - anything from a ‘disc’ to ‘ueber layers’ will work peachy keen.

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I just hefted a pot filled with 12 litres of stock components onto the burner. It weighs about 12 kg or just over 26 lb. I didn’t look at the brand on the bottom, but none of the steel cookware I have is anything special. If it works on induction (most pots do) it’s good enough for me. Many, many years ago, before it became popular, I had a le Creuset enamel stock pot. I hated it and chucked it out after a couple of years because it was hard to clean and the enamel chipped. I still wouldn’t get one today.

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Most home cooks using big pots make a weak, insipid, ditchwater stock not good for much of anything.

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That’s a rather blanket statement. Even lowly home cooks know how to reduce.

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Funny, the home cooks I know that make stock make a pretty good one.

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The home cooks we encounter here at HO are not representative of most cooks! If we are truly talking about most cooks, I fear Charlie has a point.

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It’s still just an assumption :woman_shrugging:t2:

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51

Same here.

My goal is to make a chicken soup as good as the one my elderly cousin Agatha made in Freudenberg near Cologne. My most recent chicken stock was pretty close.

She was making chicken stock before Chowhound or Hungry Onion came into existence.

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(post deleted by author)

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As much as I love LC, I wouldn’t get the enameled steel either. I had a 10qt stockpot and it chipped as well.

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54

You don’t need to reduce it. Make it strong enough in the first place. Try it. Try missing a little too strong and then tweak it back. Don’t rely on reducing the stock itself.

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I’ve participated in MealTrain type organized food scheduling, and was on the receiving end via my in-laws while they were sick. On the receiving end, it seemed to me that most home cooks were somewhere between mediocre and a bit less than that. On the delivery end, 2 of the 3 recipient families later hinted at that problem, and asked for my recipes.

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i think it really depends on the community and the recipients. When my vet’s 40something wife died of a brain tumour, and the meal train supported him and his 3 young kids, his family was grateful for the food. No complaints or critiques on the food. Sometimes it’s better to just be thankful instead of assessing and ranking other people’s efforts to help.

Part of the turn-off when I was participating in Canadian Chowhound Cake Days was the judging of other home cooks’ efforts. Of course some bakers are more talented, some recipes are better than others, some bakers have had more practice.

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When I make chicken stock the chicken carcass, wings, etc. and the various vegetables are barely covered when the water is just a bit below the midpoint of a 10 quart pot. The end product is about two and a half quarts of stock.

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I’m very happy with my stock and its level of flavor.

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Agree. And also here (in my and others’ derailment of your thread - sorry!), I failed to give any real context for my comment.

In my old post mentioning this here (few years ago) I categorized it as:

In all this stuff going on, we’ve had just a wonderful lot of people bringing meals. Both when her husband died, and now with her diagnosis. It’s her bridge group of old ladies. And her community center old ladies. Her church friends and her bible study friends.

(emphasis added).

But even though recognizing them as wonderful, willing-to-help people, I can’t help but note that the average cook is, well, pretty average. Which makes sense pretty much anywhere but Lake Wobegon (where all the cooks are above average).

P.S. I am a worse-than-mediocre baker, except my breads are good. My cakes fall, my pie crusts are like chewing through shingles, etc.

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I see this at Pittsburgh cookie tables, at my family’s weddings and some wakes.

I had to check my acquired Chowhound tendency to judge and rank, in order to find joy in all the cookies.