CAST IRON VERSUS STAINLESS #1
Q Is it worth the extra cost to upgrade to stainless steel cooking surfaces with my new gas barbecue?
Garry
Darwin
Northern Territory
A A year or two back, I told a visitor with a similar question that the answer was no. I questioned the heat retention capacity of stainless and said I believed cast iron was the better all round bet.
Well, I was wrong. In fact, the case for choosing stainless over cast iron or vitreous enamel coated cooking surfaces became so compelling I purchased two new stainless plates for my personal gas barbecue just before Christmas 2004 (see pic below).
The simple truth is that while stainless product technology has improved in leaps and bounds, the quality of cast iron used for many plates has plunged. A lot of castings are now made from recycled materials and this often leads to the formation of tiny air bubbles that make the plates both porous and brittle.
In fact, the durability and heat retention properties of the less expensive, Asia-sourced cast iron plates are vastly inferior to the ‘new’ stainless plates which have become very sophisticated and make full use of different alloys and rolling processes to control the dissipation of heat.
Forget your ‘electric barby in the park’ sort of stainless steel plate that everything sticks to like Araldite. The latest stainless steel plates from leading Australian manufacturers such as Topnotch in New South Wales are so controllable you can turn out perfect fried eggs and even buttermilk pancakes and then boot them up to sear a steak a few minutes later.
So, are they worth the extra money? Only you can answer that one Garry but I justified the expense by telling myself that the new plates will probably outlast several barbys – and probably me!
Cheers
BBQ Blue