OT Stainles Steel

Two years ago I bought my wife a set of Stainless steel cookware (Rimini ??) and it has worked just fine for the first year, but lately we've noticed that the food is sticking much more than it did when new. Do they coat cookware stainless with anything special so that it may eventually wear off?
We have followed the cleaning instructions that were recommended but it still seems that it has lost something.
When new, the fry pan would nicely fry eggs in butter and it would easily clean; but now the eggs seem to absorb into the pan regardless of which type of cooking oil used.
What kind of treatment can I do to regain the 'newness'? Maybe oiling the pans as if they were cast iron skillets??
Any ideas?
Thanks

No Idea. I use SS pots primarily to cook soups, gumbo, stews and the like. Have to use the ones with the thick bottoms (1/2") as the thin ones want to burn; but they are like that when new.

Since you clean SS with steel wool (SOS pads) primarily (around here that is what is used to get the scum out) I doubt that any coating could stand up to it. Do stews and beans in cast iron cookware and breakfast foods cooked in teflon lined alum.

Mark

ive made a lot of smokers, pit bbqs and resaurant equipment and i never use stainless for cooking food contact. pots are fine, but a skillet, griddel, or grill rack will never season like cast iron. if id guess as to why it did fine but now dont is you have a water issue. too hard, too much calcium, iron etc. there is probly a thin layer you cant see has been burnt onto the bottom and is causing food to stick.

When I was in the plumbing wholesale business we sold an awful lot of stainless steel sinks. Some customers complained that the sinks were getting dull and even rusting. The manufacturer.told us to tell the customers to not use steel wool to clean stainless steel. Apparently very small particles of the steel wool which is not stainless get embedded in the stainless and cause the problem. It's better to use a powdered abrasive cleaner which will wash off clean.

On our stainless steel sink my wife uses a pad that looks like steel wool but its made of stainless steel.

Never had any trouble with cooking in the pots, (once I learned not to use hi-heat), but the fry pan and griddle always had problems with food sticking. Pork mentioned the possibility of minerals in your water, that may be a possibility, Our water has minerals in it and it will cause a film to build up.

We have been cooking on SS for several years with no problems.

Rick

I don't use it on my high Nickel content SS sink, just pots with stuff stuck and shine them up with it. It works for me.

Mark

SS is actually supposed to "stick" somewhat. That is how you build up the brown bottoms which you can then deglaze for a good sauce. The reason the eggs didn't stick originally was because the pan was probably fairly smooth and scratch free. Now that you have used metal utensils and scrubbed it, you have put tiny scratches in the surface with the egg loves to adhere to. If you were to polish the pan to a mirror surface again it probably would work like new until it got scratched again. As far as cleaning SS pans, I usually soak them and use one of the green scotchbrite pads. It helps to deglaze the pan as well when you are cooking even if you don't want a sauce. As soon as you have removed the food from the pan and it is still scorching hot, add some water to the pan. It should be hot enough you hear the water hissing for a few seconds. This should remove 95% of the baked on food and make cleaning much easier.

Don't try and season SS either. If you go and cook anything acidic (tomatoes) or do go and deglaze the pan you will remove any seasoning as well.

If you want something for eggs, get a good quality non-stick. Properly taken care of (nylon utensils; a bit of oil/butter when cooking, not cooking anything that gets hard like bacon), non-stick pans will last for years.

(quoted from post at 19:27:30 02/03/12) When I was in the plumbing wholesale business we sold an awful lot of stainless steel sinks. Some customers complained that the sinks were getting dull and even rusting. The manufacturer.told us to tell the customers to not use steel wool to clean stainless steel. Apparently very small particles of the steel wool which is not stainless get embedded in the stainless and cause the problem. It's better to use a powdered abrasive cleaner which will wash off clean.

Click to expand...

Is there a torch involved in getting steel wool to imbed into stainless steel?

(quoted from post at 09:39:34 02/06/12) Is there a torch involved in getting steel wool to imbed into stainless steel?

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Nope, just plain old steel wool hand rubbed into stainless can cause the rusting. You can get rusty stainless by blasting it in a cabinet that has done steel before too. The grit picks up little bits of steel and inpregnates it into the stainless which then rusts.

Depending on how bad the rusting is, you can reverse it by passivating the stainless again. Just get some Barkeepers Friend and have at it.