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Cookware Material: Silver

Cooking surface: 4/5 Very Good (comparable to stainless steel in stickiness)
Conductive layer: 5/5 Excellent (highest thermal conductivity among all metals)
External surface: 3/5 Good (silver is only about a hard as aluminum, so it scratches easily on stovetop grates)
Examples: Soy Turkiye (Soy Türkiye)
Health safety: 5/5 Excellent (ingesting trace amounts of silver is completely safe, and silver is naturally antimicrobial)

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This copper pan is lined with a thin layer of silver
This copper pan is lined with a thin layer of silver

DESCRIPTION AND COMPOSITION

Silver is the most thermally conductive metal in the universe that we know of. It even beats copper by about 10%, depending on metal purity. (In order of highest to lowest thermal conductivity: silver (406 W/m*K), copper (385), gold (314), aluminum (205), typical cookware-grade aluminum alloy (~160), platinum (72), tin (67), cast iron/carbon steel (~50), stainless steel (16), enamel/ceramic/glass (~1), water (0.6), and PTFE such as Teflon (0.25). [Read more…]

All About Coffee: Coffee Beans, Storage, Preparation (Grinding), and Brewing

I worked as a professional coffee scientist for several years and sometimes people ask me for coffee advice. I’ll briefly share some tips here. We’ll go over the process of coffee-making, from start to finish. There are four main parts: bean quality, storage, preparation, and brewing. For the best cup of coffee, you want the freshest coffee beans, ground right before you brew them, using the best water temperature.

[Read more…]

In-Depth Product Review: Induction Interface Discs: The Inefficiency of Induction Converter Discs (aka Induction Interface Discs or Diffusers) and What Your Real Alternatives Are

THE SHORT STORY OF WHY INDUCTION CONVERTER INTERFACE DISCS ARE A SCAM AND WHAT YOUR REAL ALTERNATIVES ARE

There are two main instances in which you might even think about using induction converter discs (also known as induction interface discs):

  • You already have some non-induction compatible cookware and want to use them on your new induction stove. (If a kitchen magnet strongly sticks to the bottom of your pots and pans, then they are induction-compatible.)
  • You have an induction stove, but you heard that copper cookware is the best. And unfortunately, most copper cookware is not induction-compatible. (Exception: Prima Matera, which I reviewed here.)

[Read more…]

CenturyLife.Org Cookware Thickness Database: How thick is (insert brand, e.g., All-Clad) cookware? How thick is the disc base? Where was it made, is it induction compatible, and how long is the warranty?

Q: So how thick is All-Clad, really? Or any other brand?

A: See below for a sortable list of cookware thickness. My preferred way of estimating thermal performance of cookware (heat-spreading ability) is to use thermal imaging, but that takes a long time to perform. You can see the results for induction/electric and gas.

Even without thermal images, you can still do some guesstimation of how a particular piece of cookware performs relative to other cookware by looking at the thickness of the cookware. If we assume that everyone is using the same grade of aluminum/copper/thickness and the same thickness of stainless steel, then all else equal, the thicker cookware is more thermally conductive. Obviously those assumptions are shaky, but they can be good enough for a guesstimate if no thermal data is available.

[Read more…]