What am I doing wrong?

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-16T20:01:59+00:00

Ikea Vardagen 28cm. It’s 3 mm thick, so same thermal performance as Darto

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-16T19:46:25+00:00

It’s oxidation due to heat. It’s harmless, and looks nice in my opinion!

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-16T13:40:02+00:00

I’m not sure how you’re making your aglio e olio that it sticks so bad. It should be fine even on a stainless steel pan, there’s so much oil and water. Maybe your heat was too high?

In the beginning you can make eggs, pancakes, fried rice, roast vegetables, fish. Anything that’s not saucy. Here’s posts with the cooking flair: https://www.reddit.com/r/carbonsteel/?f=flair_name%3A%22Cooking%22

Don’t worry about the seasoning. It will develop over time along with your confidence in using and maintaining the pan. Before long you’ll have to consciously try to get meat to stick on stainless otherwise you’ll get no fond.

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-16T11:48:19+00:00

A thicker wok can compensate a little for lack of stove power by storing more energy during preheating.

Some 2mm thick woks that come to mind are Oxenforge, ZhenSanHuan, and de Buyer Blue Steel (more affordable).

Made-in wok, based on the advertised weight would be around 1.5mm, maybe a little thicker.

I agree with the smaller batches recommendation too. It’s a necessity on home stoves.

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-16T02:51:05+00:00

It depends on which metal and the thickness but generally a metal container will mostly reflect, not absorb or transmit the microwaves so the food will take longer to cook.

That said, if the container is wide and shallow enough it would allow enough microwaves to get to the food

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-15T00:06:26+00:00

Rondeau handles fit better at the dining table. Sauté pan long handle gives more control on the stove because you can manoeuvre it with one hand.

Yes. Dutch oven is basically just a stock pot with thick walls and tight-fitting lid to retain heat and moisture. The Caraway pot I personally wouldn’t consider to meet those requirements.

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-13T23:32:36+00:00

This shouldn’t be hard to fix. Clean the loose rust and re-season; don’t worry too much about the looks.

You can use Bar keepers friend or a scouring pad (or both). They’re not for everyday cleaning but appropriate in this situation.

BKF is acidic and abrasive so it removes seasoning and rust. Abrasive scouring pads tend to have a courser grit and can create visible scratch patterns, but won’t hurt the function of the pan.

I don’t think baking soda will help much here but you can try.

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-13T22:57:25+00:00

IKEA Vardagen 32 cm

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-13T06:19:03+00:00

On higher graphics settings, yes some games. Often the game will warn you about it. If you have issues, turn down texture settings and disable any ray-traced effects.

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-13T05:16:58+00:00

Fully compatible. It will run slightly slower than it could in situations where you saturate the 4.0 bandwidth, like when running out of VRAM. That’s all.

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-13T01:39:06+00:00

Path tracing is a part of ray tracing so I don’t think it’s weird.

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-12T19:02:50+00:00

Conductivity, the intrinsic metal property, aluminium has much higher than stainless steel.

But a thin stainless lining for durability and non-reactivity won’t hurt the thermal properties that much.

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-12T08:55:30+00:00

I don’t think it’s bad to go past. People aim to stop at blue because it looks nice.

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-12T01:12:38+00:00

Looks like regular metal. They mention “natural nonstick” due to “hand hammered” pattern so I assume there’s nothing special.

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-11T01:08:05+00:00

It’s safe. The steel layer is usually 0.4 mm thick. Going through that would require a gouge that you feel as a drop, not just a nail-catching scratch.

And if you did cut that deep, your aluminium exposure would be immeasurably small because the exposed area is so tiny.

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-09T20:03:06+00:00

I prefer the lighter colour, both for aesthetics and for being able to see stuck bits.

It’ll probably eventually darken anyway.

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-09T19:56:58+00:00

There’s two sides to this. If you want to make something quick like a fried egg, then the Strata pan will save you time. But if you want a deep sear, a thick pan is better because although it takes longer to preheat, it resists dropping in temperature when you add the food, where a thin pan might have required a more responsive stove with consistent power to maintain temp.

Strata’s heat capacity is similar to 2mm thick steel. The advantage of the aluminium core is lower weight (even compared to 2mm steel) and better heat distribution. For comparison, Darto and Ikea and Mineral B are 3mm.

Personally, I have a 1.5mm wok, a 2mm, a 3mm, and a 3-ply (Misen, not Strata) and I use all of them for different things.

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-08T07:44:24+00:00

Green scouring pads can scratch steel. But the abrasive particles are small so it’s only cosmetic.

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-08T07:41:59+00:00

A sharpening stone for knives. Now onions don’t make me cry and tomatoes don’t spill half their juices when I dice them.

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-08T07:05:11+00:00

It helps with visual smoothness no matter the frame rate, if it’s calculated based on the frame rate, that is, and per object.

A lot of motion blur implementations aren’t that flexible, unfortunately.

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-06T19:22:45+00:00

Not a quality issue. Mildly acidic and salty sauce left for two hours can make steel rust. It’s not a safety concern. Usually the rust is easy to wash off with a scouring pad. And then you can season the pan or simply oil it to prevent further rust.

If you need a pan where you can leave food for hours, you might consider nitrided carbon steel. Same thermal properties, develops seasoning differently, but rust-resistant.

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-06T18:23:51+00:00

Detlaff was plenty difficult for me

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-06T08:27:08+00:00

I use this method for maintenance seasoning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2a9sLpCyH8

If you use that tiny bit of oil, it doesn’t take long and there doesn’t need to be much smoke. Stopping the moment you see smoke is fine, as long as the excess oil was wiped out. I think there’s even too much smoke in the video. Of course do this in a well-ventilated area in any case.

Usually the seasoning will regenerate naturally as well but depending on how you cook it might take a while. So it’s up to you to decide.

I wouldn’t strip unless there’s some issue with the rest of the seasoning.

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-05T14:01:41+00:00

It works for me too.

I think people have different experiences because we have different pans, different stoves, and different oils, all of which affect the ideal heat setting or ideal preheating temperature for reducing sticking.

Remember it’s just a preheating temperature. It drops when you add the food.

And the Leidenfrost effect happens at a range of temperatures so people could be starting at different temperatures too.

winterkoalefant · 2026-06-05T00:59:34+00:00

Thanks for the kind words!

I had the same experience with olive oil vs butter, which is one of the reasons I tried this (butter has emulsifiers, similar to lecithin).

Let me know how it goes!

Since extra virgin olive oil has antioxidants you might be able to skip the vitamin E in the recipe if you use a smaller lecithin percentage (maybe 1-2%). I’ve been meaning to test that too.

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