I was one of those who crowd funded Strata. When they finally showed up, 2 of my 3 kids snatched them up (my son being a creative cook). I've carefully keep track of their satisfaction and can report their approval. I appreciate your well documented and reasoned reviews. Please keep up the great work.
I was a backer of Strata on Kickstarter. I bought a 10". I have a nice cast iron pan I love, but it is incredibly heavy. The cast iron is awesome for searing a steak. The Strata is for when I normally would use a nonstick pan. It heats evenly (most nonstick is thin, and has a pronounced hotspot, or is really expensive and since the Teflon coating will die in a couple years, is not a wise purchase.), is light, and that loses heat quickly, I find as a plus, it responds quickly when I change the burner temp, unlike thicker cast iron or carbon steel only pans. If you can cook with stainless, you will catch on to Strata very quickly. I like it so well, decided to also buy there smaller pan, It is I believe 8.5"... looking forward to it for omelet making. No more having to throw away a Teflon pan every two years. I really think stainless, cast iron and the Strata all have earned their place in our kitchen. With those in a couple select sizes, not much we cannot do perfectly.
I think it's a good concept and it's basically a ideal iteration of carbon steel pan for home cooks. It just still can't completely replace stainless steel pans because of the acidic food concerns
@@stevealexander8010agree to disagree with one use case: carbon steel woks. Good stir fry with carbon steel woks are absolutely going to be exposed to acidic sauces/marinades... Get take out instead of delivery next time you pickup some orange chicken and observe the cooks lol
@ Asian restaurant use powerful burners and cooks large amount of food every day. Which means your orange chicken sauce only touches the wok for like 30 seconds before it finished cooking, and then they quickly wash, re-season and cook the next thing. the seasoning comes and goes very rapidly in restaurants. This way the acidic food doesn't affect how they uses carbon steel cookware that much. But for home cooks that doesn't want to worry about this, it's easier to just use stainless to handle acidic food.
I backed the project on Kickstarter. Opted for the bundle, and I must say that it's been living up to my expectations so far. Love that the exterior is SS and it's lightweight. I wouldn't sear a steak with it, but for eggs, sauteing and pancakes etc. it's perfect. Unfortunately, inside the handle of one of the pans has a tiny metal piece inside that drives me nuts when i flip or shake the pan (really not that big of an issue once the heat is on and the kitchen fan is running). A general downside I find particularly prominent is that with the De Buyer Pros of mine I can easily hover my hand above the cooking surface to feel how hot the pan is before putting the ingredients in. However, with my 2 Stratas I haven't quite got the feel yet because they do not extrude the heat in the same noticeable way.
@@CoolJay77 I mean, if that was the only pan I had, of course I wouldn't hesitate to use it for searing. However, as I do have other pans for that purpose with quite better heat retention I therefore prefer those.
@@CoolJay77It would be fine for a reverse sear, where you heat the steak to nearly cooked before searing it; but if you put a cold steak in a hot carbon steel pan, the temperature is going to crash. That's the heat retention drawback.
@@quakerwildcat That may not matter. There is a cold pan steak cooking technique as demonstrated by America's Test Kitchen cooking a steak over a thin nonstick pan, with a great crust, a method developed by Andrew Janjigian. I don't see why it can't be done on a carbon steel pan, but perhaps with the addition of some cooking oil.
@@susvortin There is an interesting blind taste test on Made In's page, cooking steaks on four different types of pans, carbon steel has won. If I am not mistaken, their carbon steel pans are not even as thick as Matfer and De Buyer.
I have the 10” version of this pan and it has quickly become one of my favorites. I also like the handle, and the wide cooking surface. I have also seen how quickly it cools off compared to some of my other CS pans, but it’s worth the trade off for how light and maneuverable it is!
I also bought the 10" & love it. I burnt oil in it, scraped, scrubbed & picked it off, reseasoned it by just cooking in it & it's back to great. The light weight & smooth curve to the sides make it a pleasure.
Love my 12" Strata, I give it a 10/10! It's easily my favorite pan, and I haven't touched my nonstick pans, cast iron pans, or stainless steel pans since I bought it (except to cook a tomato sauce).
I own this pan, and I can tell you, its my favorite! I think its well worth the money, considering this pan will not wear out. My food taste better, my sauces heat evenly, its just a better pan to cook with.
Very well-explained review. I've been eyeing the pan, and this confirms it's about what I expected: lightweight and similar thermal performance to clad stainless, but with the benefits (and downsides) of seasoning. I think it's cool that there's a new type of pan out there.
A large and light carbon steel pan that heats evenly sounds great for delicate cooking that requires a quick response to temperature changes. Hope they come out with a version with tall curved sides.
I ordered the 12" pan via their kickstarter. I liked it so much I ordered the 2 smaller ones. For me the main advantage is weight. I wanted something my GF would be more comfortable using. (+ I'm hoping to move her away from non-stick pans!) She had gotten used to cooking salmon in the carbon steel pan so I'm slowly winning her over!!!!
Hands down best review I have seen of this pan!. That said I rarely need carbon steel since I have learned to use stainless steel as you have demonstrated in your video. When I do need carbon steel ( fish and stir-fry) I simply use a 1/8" thick heat spreader/diffuser which gives me most of the benefits and I can use it with different pans. I prefer responsiveness to heat-retention but if you are so inclined, heat-spreaders can also be used to resolve your heat-retention issues(which to me is only meaningful if you have under-powered burners)
Great summary. I learned a lot. It's a tempting purchase if for nothing other than fish. (I'm pretty adept with stainless, but my track record of searing fish without sticking OR overcooking is spotty.) And I have no trouble maintaining a seasoned CS wok.
Thanks for the review - they sound wonderful but absolutely don't belong in my kitchen. I've had to threaten bodily harm to keep my cast iron safe, I can't imagine how far I'd have to go to keep there things out of the dishwasher....
Might be overkill, but yeah i mean, i got into a commentor who was talking over and over about the 'superiority of conductivity', i tried a stainless steel that i was lucky to get for 15$ vs 90-140$, and it wasn't a bad pan, but it burnt my fingers and food extremely quick. My thin 9$ ceramic all aluminum lightweight pan is much more 'responsive' and my cast iron is slower, but the stainless steels feels like a middle end. But the main reason i got a 9$ aluminum and cast iron anyways was because my roomies used to destroy like 4x teflon pans a year by using steel tools over them, then using knives and metal utensils on other's teflon pans, like violent country 18 year olds at college for first time out of a leadtown. It was the other way around for me, but the reason i got into cast iron was it was 9-20$ for a pan i was told could withstand knives, be re seasoned, last lifetimes. And you know what, they were right, it blunted the knives and broke silicon tools for the first year since i got the crappiest 9$ ozark and didn't know how to season it yet, so i sanded it and it's super smooth. But when i think about going through 4x 200$ pans a year, or having them 'borrowed' (permanantly), yeah im not unhappy. Im still happy to try out a similar pan at a clearance of 15$ vs 90-140$, but at the same time i wonder. why are so many pans 200$?
One thing you got wrong is the heat retention. This is a feature, not a bug. Being able to change the temperature of a pan quickly is an incredible boon for many types of cookery. That is why chefs have both copper or aluminum pans and iron, for different purposes.
The only time I want heat retention.....for a frying pan, is say cooking a couple of steaks. Essentially heat retention means it drops less in temp when adding food. Other than that, I want reactive pans. Its the reason copper pans are held in such high regard for higher end restaurants.
It's a balance, for sure. I think because they're trying to upsell this as an improvement on reg carbon steel, the fact that the heat retention is worse could be viewed as a negative to that crowd.
Heat retention is usually based on mass, more than pan material. Interestingly, carbon steel as a material actually retains heat better than cast iron. Also, cast iron transfers heat better than carbon steel. This is a paradox for most people, but this is the reason why cast iron skillets are made thick and carbon steel pans work well being made a bit thinner. Due to the material and the thickness, cast iron transfers and retains heat very well. Carbon steel can be made thick (2,5-3mm) like deBuyer Mineral B or thinner like deBuyer Blue (1-2mm). Thicker steel is comparable to cast iron. While still being usually thinner than cast iron the heat retention is very high and comparable. Being thinner makes also sure the material transfers heat very well. Still, at 2-2,5mm thickness, a carbon steel pan is no featherweight. A thicker pan can deliver high initial stored heat and easier to control constant even heat. Baking bread, roasting big birds, searing steaks, making crepes/ tortillas and so on benefit of this. Thinner steel pans are lighter with higher walls. Stir-frying and sauteing work very well. High end Woks are usually made on the thinner side (1,5mm). Thinner pans season quicker too. Unlike cast iron that can take many different and unique shapes, carbon steel usually has the typical pan shape, unless handforged. When handforged unique shapes are possible but the purchase cost will be substancially higher. My recommendations: - The ideal cast iron skillet is a thick bottomed pan with thinner and high walls (around 2 inches, 5cm). Heavy but not unnecessary heavy: for convenience and quicker seasoning, while still performing as it should. In the market, I only find some of the old antique cast irons filling this caracteristics, but also a newer one called Field Company. - The ideal carbon steel pan is a versatile pan.Thick enough to store heat and be warp resistant but also thin enough to react to temperature changes when cooking more delicate foods. High enough walls to be versatile enough to cook a range of many different things. Lyonnaise shape is ideal: around 2 inches (5cm) high walls. Thick bottom, 2-2,5mm. Important that the bottom is thick enough for good performance. Thinner sides around 1,5-2mm. This takes a considerable amount of unnecessary weight from the pan. Pans that are spinned instead of pressed usually have thinner side walls compared to the bottom. Handforging is also an option. The brand that I highly recommend is Alex Pole from the UK. Skottsberg, concretely the 28cm version is also great. But there are also other options, including handforged pans that meet this criteria in the US and Europe.
If you have an induction cook top, the heat retention shouldn't be an issue. The heat is instant, and the heat range is barely hot to nuke with the touch of a button. In other words, induction can simulate high, medium, or low heat retention effortlessly.
I have both the 10 & 12 and am happy with them because of the more even heating. I hope they eventually make both a flat bottom wok and a second line that has a thicker aluminum layer. There should be a point where they match the heat retention of a cast iron pan but still be lighter weight.
I bought a 12" Strata pan about a month ago from their website when they had 40% off for the pans with minor cosmetic imperfections. Mine came with no imperfections that I could notice and at about $90 total this was a fair price for this pan. I didn't like it that much at first because despite three rounds of seasoning per instructions it was still somewhat sticky. Ok, I continued cooking with it anyway and basically after every wash (just hand wash with mild soap and water) I give it a quick seasoning round, e.g. dry it with a towel, put it on a stove to heat up to about 400F, apply whatever fat I feel like (ghee, beef tallow, lard or grape seed oil), wipe it almost dry and let it smoke a little bit. This method reproduces regular frequent cooking. I don't know, was it because of my seasoning technique or because I've learned to manage temperature for this skillet better, but it is much more nonstick now. Overall I like it a lot, it is easy to lift with my left hand, has a very good shape for spatula use, handle is ergonomic and doesn't get too hot. It is a beautiful pan too, with my maintenance routine carbon steel inside is shiny and of a rich dark bronze color. I reach for this pan more often than for carbon steel Matfer. Still, for the sous vide steak, nothing beats good old cast iron Lodge that leaves grill marks.
I also like that the handle is not too long and it doesn't slope upward at a very steep angle. Some pans do that and it makes them annoying to use in the oven, especially a toaster oven. There should be no reason at all for a 10 inch pan to not be able to fit into a countertop oven such as a Breville. 12 inch may be more of a tight squeeze, although cast iron should work due to the small handles on those (traditional ones anyway)
Great review. One question on your heat retaining test: I am only assuming when you took the pans off the burner for the rest time, that you placed it on the granite counter top as it appears in the video. That can be a cold surface and steal away the heat. But also it looked like you placed the other 2 pans in the same spot during their rest time. My thought is, did the strada pan warm up the cold surface of the counter so that when the other pans were placed on, they had a warmer surface to rest on than the strada? Thus less heat loss??
That’s a great question and you are right, the granite retains heat and would impact the results. Because of that, I always wait until the granite cools completely before testing another pan. In this case, the pans were tested on different days.
Some interesting info that I posted somewhere else too. Heat retention is usually based on mass, more than pan material. Interestingly, carbon steel as a material actually retains heat better than cast iron. Also, cast iron transfers heat better than carbon steel. This is a paradox for most people, but this is the reason why cast iron skillets are made thick and carbon steel pans work well being made a bit thinner. Due to the material and the thickness, cast iron transfers and retains heat very well. Carbon steel can be made thick (2,5-3mm) like deBuyer Mineral B or thinner like deBuyer Blue (1-2mm). Thicker steel is comparable to cast iron. While still being usually thinner than cast iron the heat retention is very high and comparable. Being thinner makes also sure the material transfers heat very well. Still, at 2-2,5mm thickness, a carbon steel pan is no featherweight. A thicker pan can deliver high initial stored heat and easier to control constant even heat. Baking bread, roasting big birds, searing steaks, making crepes/ tortillas and so on benefit of this. Thinner steel pans are lighter with higher walls. Stir-frying and sauteing work very well. High end Woks are usually made on the thinner side (1,5mm). Thinner pans season quicker too. Unlike cast iron that can take many different and unique shapes, carbon steel usually has the typical pan shape, unless handforged. When handforged unique shapes are possible but the purchase cost will be substancially higher. My recommendations: - The ideal cast iron skillet is a thick bottomed pan with thinner and high walls (around 2 inches, 5cm). Heavy but not unnecessary heavy: for convenience and quicker seasoning, while still performing as it should. In the market, I only find some of the old antique cast irons filling this caracteristics, but also a newer one called Field Company. - The ideal carbon steel pan is a versatile pan.Thick enough to store heat and be warp resistant but also thin enough to react to temperature changes when cooking more delicate foods. High enough walls to be versatile enough to cook a range of many different things. Lyonnaise shape is ideal: around 2 inches (5cm) high walls. Thick bottom, 2-2,5mm. Important that the bottom is thick enough for good performance. Thinner sides around 1,5-2mm. This takes a considerable amount of unnecessary weight from the pan. Pans that are spinned instead of pressed usually have thinner side walls compared to the bottom. Handforging is also an option. The brand that I highly recommend is Alex Pole from the UK. Skottsberg, concretely the 28cm version is also great. But there are also other options, including handforged pans that meet this criteria in the US and Europe.
I love my Strata pan. The lack of heat retention actually makes it perfect as an egg pan. I can even do a french omelette on it with my crappy electric glass stovetop -- a task that's much much more difficult on regular carbon steel or stainless steel pans. A french omelette needs to be cooked without browning, which means you need the pan to be more responsive. A regular carbon steel or cast iron pan retains too much heat which can overcook the eggs. A stainless steel pan requires a higher temperature in order to get the leidenfrost non-stick effect.
Great pan if you’re looking for a lightweight nonstick pan that will last forever and require even heat distribution. The stoves at the kitchen section on my floor or the portable induction cooktop that many of us use when we’re too lazy to leave our dorm room have tiny heating elements. Cast iron and traditional carbon steel pans are only heated in the middle for our situation so many students only use those stoves/portable induction cooktops to boil water, cook eggs, or heat soup. Either that or we get teflon/ceramic pans with an aluminum core but those don’t last. I’m waiting for my 10” strata pan to come in so I can do some real cooking in my dorm room after basically living off my air fryer/microwave for most of my meals lol.
I cook and clean dishes everyday though I don't particularly enjoy either. I enjoy my regular full time non-kitchen related job a lot more. I've learned to cook in stainless steel pans without sticking and feel it's all I need. I've never used carbon steel or cast iron, as I don't enjoy cooking or cleaning their needs for immediate washing, cleaning and seasoning keep me away, I know I'd just ruin them or ignore them to rust.
What matters most is that you're cooking and it works for you. I use stainless, nonstick, cast-iron, and enameled cast iron. I dont have one of these and it looks a little gimmicky to me
@rehamkcirtap I used to use nonstick and ceramic but neither last. Since I learned how to cook with stainless steel, nonstick just doesn't seem to brown or sear well by comparison. I just bought a bigger stainless steel pan and am getting rid of all my nonstick. I can even cook eggs in stainless steel pans these days. Nothing gimmicky and I will affirm this again with all certainty - I've never ever used carbon steel or cast iron, their heavy weight always turned me off and away.
I have gotten a Star-Gazer pan,I dont think its heavy,buy my 12 lodge is right to it,I happily cook on both,rinse with hot water after cook with scrub brush
There is nothing like the one perfect pan. Like there is no one perfect shoe or car. There are different purposes of cooking (e.g. eggs, tomato sauce, meat, …) and each of them deserve a specific pan. Especially, if you want to avoid non-stick garbage. The Strata pan solves an important issue of traditional carbon steel pans: weight (and as you mention uneven heating). That is huge. Thanks for your investigation 👍
Both good, but two very different pans. Hestan NanoBond performs more like a traditional stainless steel pan - it doesn't need to be seasoned and you can cook acidic ingredients. Strata can become more non-stick overtime as the seasoning build and is about a half pound lighter when comparing the 12.5-inch fry pans. Hestan is made in Italy and is more than twice the price.
If the pan heats up quick it means it will cool down quick. That's physics. I thought I bought the greatest pan in a Debuyer Pro. Now I'm not so enamored since it's started to warp and things slide outward. Also I've noticed it's much cooler towards the handle.
The low heat on the sides isn't a bad thing. That's a good thing. Sometimes you don't want something to cook as fast as something and to gradually get hotter rather than it be hot everywhere. ie maybe butter or garlic. Because garlic burns quickly and butter just becomes a disaster if overcooked. So you kinda have it go on less hot areas. So yeah, overall this isn't much better than an Allclad Stainless steel pan.
I would have a hard time with this pan cause of the acidic foods which I cook often. I stick with my All-Clads and Made In. Just pulled the plug on a Smithey Farmhouse skillet. I hope it justified buying it cause of the price for the pan. Over $300. And, there are very few reviews of them. And, I am very unsure about trying new brands. But, you have sold me on Made In.
I’m testing the Smithey Farmhouse skillet and will have a review on it soon. FYI - in case you need other stainless steel pieces, Made In just launched a big sale.
Good catch. You're right. I converted the difference in F to C. I should have just took the difference between the two C temps. My mistake! Doesn't change the point though.
I have heard the Heston non-stick is guaranteed for life including normal wear and tear. That sounds too good to be true. What have you heard about the Heston lifetime guarantee for nonstick?
I would like to buy one, but the shipping to EU countries + VAT and customs is a big no for me unfortunately. Your review was so good however that it makes me reconsider!
Yep I guess I would have bought it if Strata only could ship their pans without additional costs to consumers in the EU like Darto in Argentina and some other pans made in China do.
I've been looking for a carbon steel pan with rounded edges for ommelet and this looks great, but really pricey! Do you know of any other brand that have rounded edges?
Debuyer makes omelette pans with rounded edges, in both their Mineral B and their Mineral B Pro line. I just bought a 9.5" Pro version for eggs and it's working very well for me. Hope that helps.
So you'd want this pan specifically for food that benefits from a nonstick surface AND a quick to heat up and responsive surface? So basically it's an egg pan lol. A little expensive for my blood I gotta say, especially when you can get extremely high quality all clad cookware used for a song.
This is a perfect non-stick replacement, more than a regular carbon steel. I can't believe no one thought of this before. I will personally wait for a company to copy this, hopefully made in Europe or the US
The heat retention is not a con for me. If anything, it's a pro. Better get hot fast and lose the heat fast. But in any case, nonstick ftw. I don't cook in very high temperature and I don't use anything that damages its surface.
Heat retention is not a good thing. This is something you come to believe when your technique is off. The only time it's desirable is when youre serving your food directly in your cookware and you want it to keep warm on the table
Ehh as a ceramic vs teflon vs cast iron tryer. I respectfully disagree. Try a crispy pizza from a pizza stone or cast iron stone/griddle vs a teflon/aluminum pan. Responsiveness is nice, but while it sounds like a oxymoron, 'heat retention and slower conduction' sounds worse for food, but in side by side cooking comparisons. From crispy Chicken to crispy tots, a preheated cast iron pan crisps up the outside of food easier while the teflon burns the outside surface layer while leaving the insides often uncooked much more easily. The nonstick teflon/ceramic are superior qol for cooking eggs / boiling water / sauces imho and it takes time to adjust to either. If you're trying to cook eggs in 2 minutes, teflon /aluminum is better, if you have 5 minutes to preheat a pan, the hands on can be less since you just preheat, do something else for a few minutes, and watch your food consistently cook. The difference is something you have to see and try in person or a comparison video to believe, a pan is a pan and it's 90% the same, but for a cast iron (slow conducting) vs aluminum (quick conducting) pan. Cast iron and pizza stones conduct heat like a oven, radiating it slowly and cooking parts above the surface like a campfire. Hell i even made smores over a heated cast iron pan once like a fire lmao. My aluminum ceramic nonstick pan cools down within seconds vs minutes, but on the same tests, the outside layer with direct contact tends to blacken while the insides are often pink. now if you baby it to find the equibrium for heat energy in vs heat energy out, it works. But it's a debate on if you prefer to fiddle with a pan or let it preheat for a few minutes to a consistent temperature and then have it finish. Even deep frying, which is mostly oil as 90% of the medium, have a few people who still for some reason prefer to use old chicken frying cast iron pans or dutch ovens sometimes for frying. Their reasoning being that while deep frying is 90% oil temperature, in a thin pot their recipe for say, 350F oil might become 304F oil in a aluminum pan and cook their fries inconsistently, from golden brown to pasty white, while in a bulky dutch oven / chicken fryer pot. They fry and it comes out golden each time. Cast iron on bread is surprisingly good too. I struggled with bread in a aluminum pan to get the 'artisanal golden brown crust' vs pasty white of a aluminum pan for years, when i tried cast iron, it naturally ended up super crispy. It sounds like a oxy moron but before anyone says poor heat conduction = bad, take a slice of pizza or bread from a pizza stone vs a teflon pan before you say teflon is better.
Once it’s fully preheated, it cooks really evenly because it holds heat well and the temperature doesn’t go up and down as much. But it heats slowly and as it’s heating up, it’s not as even as aluminum, copper, or aluminum-core stainless steel.
There’s no such thing as a perfect pan, they all have their pros and cons, you just need to understand what yours are and allow for them when using them. Personally I have two frying pans, one non stick if I’m doing something that will strip the seasoning off, and one carbon steel debuyer mineral B carbon steel pan that I use for frying eggs, meat etc. my saucepans are all non stick but these are only ever used for boiling and simmering.
Yeah honestly i hated my rough 9$ cast iron at first after going through 4x 7$ pans my roommates destroyed with steel utensils. But after rage sanding them with a 1$ sanding stone block, it became a lot smoother and eggs could slide with a drop of oil, but not bare. But random stuff sticks when the oil dries. But i'd still say it's worth having 2x 9-30$ pans over 1x 150$ pan though, a ceramic pan treated well gives a lot of benefits, i also lucked out on a 15$ vs 150-300$ enameled cast iron from our local store but i got a health scare hearing that apparently le cruset potentially used extremely high levels of cadnium/lead like nearly 500x the normal suggestion to color pans red/orange/yellow. Apparently it's just older pans and the tested ones were 2013 but idk, i just want a pan that's nonstick, doesn't kill me (teflon/lead/cadnium), is qol to clean (teflon/seasoned cast iron/enamel" Thankfully they said that it was only the yellow/red/orange parts(?) i think, and the white inner layer should be fine(?), well maybe it's like 200 parts of lead in a billion vs 40 recommended vs 20,000. But idk, People still seem to eat out of them fine and not report any problems and they say it should be a mostly old enamel issue with lead being used in glazes. I guess it's a matter of pick your poison. Cast iron gets better the more you use it, but can be a pain to clean/season/set up, especially the first 4-10 seasons/cooks. (2-10 hrs of use) Stainless steel sticks a little but it's durable and lasts and never rusts, but it sticks. Teflon is nonstick without oil but scrapes. Ceramic conducts heat quickly and can be scratched easily, but it's a good pan and only like 10$-20$ for 1-5 years of use. that's 1-2$ a year. Carbon steel is a lot of pluses without heat retention but not a lot of cons. But can be limited to find.
Why is heat retention a good thing? Thermal inertia is a poor substitute for even heating. Thermal inertia tries to mimic even heating by simply not letting any part of the pan change temperature quickly. This makes the whole pan slow to react. What you really want is a pan that quickly and evenly changes temperature with the control knob on the stove. Heat retention is only ideal when you have a stove that needs to cycle on and off to achieve low temps.
It sounds like a paradox but when you add meat into a cast iron style pan, the edges crisp brown maximizing the crispy bits / malliard reaction instead of quickly going from cold to hot and lighting contact points to blackened bits while the inside is raw. Cast iron cooks slower kind of like a oven or 20% of a slow cooker, it feels like it bakes food like a oven as it radiates heat and i've also noticed heating my cast iron seems to warm up nearly objects like a lamp when seasoning it for 10-30m or so. it seems to radiate heat while the other pans mostly 90% conduct it, and that helps cooking the middle, giving you time to react while keeping things crispy, rice can end up crispy in there like clay pot rice. But it sucks at eggs and i think imho it's worth having 2x 10-20$ pans, a nonstick pan for eggs / sticky sugar sauces / sticky foods / acidic, a 3$ silicon spatula, and maybe a daily use pan like cast iron / stainless steel or carbon for daily use. Thermal conductivity is good for quickly boiling water or quickly toasting the outside layer of something though. It's just like the difference of a baked roast vs a cattle brand being pressed into food though.
@@Notyouraveragename if your stove is weak then it’s possible that your food sucks out heat faster than the stove can produce it, thus cooling the pan. You can compensate by using thermal mass like a heat battery. You charge it up with heat and it discharges into the food faster. However pretty much any semi decent stove is more than strong enough to maintain the desired temp so there’s really no reason to waste time charging a large thermal mass. You can get the exact same malliard reaction with any pan. Whether it is even across the meat depends on how even the heat distribution is not the heat retention. The reason you heat cast iron on medium/low for a long time is to allow time for the heat to spread evenly. If heat were to spread quickly and evenly in cast iron then everyone would recommend you warm it up on high. If you find that you’re burning the outside and not cooking the inside, it just means you set the heat too high on the lighter pan. More conductive pans simply transfer more heat to the food so you need a lower stove setting than cast iron. All pans radiate heat like an oven. If you want a light pan to radiate more slowly you just turn down the heat. I have multiple cast iron and multiple clad and aluminum pans. They all sear (except i don’t sear with nonstick) perfectly with the right adjustment. Please try adjusting your technique with a high quality clad pan and see how it goes. Cast iron is easy to cook with because it’s so slow, but the downside is that it adds a lot of heat up and reheat up time to your meal prep. Conductive pans do require more input on your part, but you will find it very intuitive once you start doing it. Just stop trying to cook with it like its cast iron and you’ll be amazed at the control you now have.
@@refusalspam Instructions unclear eating the crispiest bread and seared meats of my life with no burned horrible black marks, just crispy delicious crispy brown bits, Sourdough that legit looks like the artisanal rolls of a bakery with fluffy white speckled exteriors vs dried up or mushy bread. And all i have to do is preheat for 2-10 minutes while i do something else then put food in it. Vs fiddling on and off high to low temperatures to rubber band the frying pan according to how much thermal mass a hot pocket vs air fryer does. Not saying there's anything wrong with building up a feel and i love nonstick for eggs and boiling water but with a seasoned cast iron, legit i thought all the hype around cast iron making wonderful bread was bs. My aluminum pan retains heat for about 10 seconds, my cast iron retains heat at room temp for about 12 minutes. Preheating time is passive and hands off and it cooks the inside beautifully and now that it's seasoned and smoothed to a glossy black finish, it's as nonstick as oiled enamel and it never rusts.
@ you’re not actually saying why heat retention is good, you’re only saying that your CI has a lot of it and your aluminum pan doesn’t. I feel like if you’re rubberbanding your temperature then it’s a telltale sign that you’re still trying to cook like its cast iron. With CI you need huge adjustments to compensate for the thermal inertia. It’s like when you jump in a hot car and crank the A/C as low as it will go but then have to readjust it again or it gets too cold. If the car had little thermal inertia then you could just keep the A/C setting at room temp cuz the temp would get there quickly on its own. Cooking with a reactive pan is like that, just set it to the temp you actually want. If you want to gently cook fish all the way through then blast it with high heat to build a crust, you can do that. If you want to sear sous vide steaks so that you get just the browning and only the thinnest layer of well done meat, you can do that. You can even take the drippings from that high temperature sear, add butter and herbs to make a pan sauce without burning it, all because you have total control. This is not some fiddling thing. Like I said, it’s very intuitive once you accept that it’s gonna behave differently than CI. One tip to finding the right temp is to start a little lower and keep increasing little by little. Since your food will react quickly to the changes. Don’t just take my word for it, try it and see. Not sure why ur bringing up bread baking, I’m only talking about the uselessness of heat retention as it pertains to stovetop cooking with pans.
Thanks for your review of this interesting pan. The fact that you can't use it for certain foods, like tomato based sauces, is a bit of a killer. So unless you have lots of room in your kitchen (and budget) for yet another pan...
The slight advantage in food release over a SS isn't worth it. IMO, carbon steel is only really worth it if you're stir-frying because you can't let the food rest and develop a sear causing natural release. The Western shape of the Strata means that you can't use it as a wok. If you're just searing large cuts of meat, then there's no reason not to use SS. SS is just so much easier to work with and maintain.
Seems like the current beloved pans are Durability/daily use: Stainless Steel / Broken in Cast iron o (Stainless steel is convenient and out of box smooth, but can slightly stick at times), Cast iron can literally stick for hrs when it's unseasoned / being broken in, but once broken in (ex: sanding and baking 400F in a oven with a layer of canola a few times), it can smoke but get glossy smooth. Convenience: Ceramic (Super non stick, no teflon/toxins), / Teflon. All good pans, you really only need a couple maybe. Im happy with cast iron but with stainless steel, some parts are redundant. Cast iron sucks to use for the first 1-2 years and has a learning curve, especially the cheaper than lodges ones that are often sandpaper rough and terribad. I got into smothing my 9$ cast iron because i got a ozark or mainstays cheap pan and they sucked, super rough, destroyed utensilis, i ragesanded it with a 1$ knife sharpening stone from the dollar tree and it worked like a charm. But they might have made the newer stones rougher since my older one is much smoother than the one i got a few months ago. A little roughness helps seasoning stick to a pan though, like a scratched woody texture vs scrape your finger's skin off concrete. It got glossy smooth but Stainless steel is basically the same thiing but unreactive, heard you can leave it out in a storm and nothing will happen to it and a lot of professional chefs like Stainless steel as well. It tends to be more expensive but never needs long clean up, never rusts, it retains heat like cast iron, but it also tends to have a more expensive buy in (50-200$) vs 9-20$ for a cast iron.
Thanks for this helpful review. The price is more than ridiculous for a chinese product. At that price I‘ll get 2-3 pans from de Buyer here in Europe, where they cost less than in the US.
Unfortunately overpriced. They make it in china and charge more than the established brands made in europe. This pumps their profit margins to the point where they are fleecing the consumer.
What's with 150$ premium pans anyways? I hand sanded a 9$ cast iron i used to hate and i love it and got a enameled off clearance for 15$ vs 60$. But every hobbyist pan is 150-200$, smoothed cast iron out of factory vs 1 hr sanding (butter pats, hexclad, etc.). seems like 150$ is the price point for pans, then there's Le creuset selling pans for 300-400$ their competitors seem to make for 20-40$.
That's true, you can't beat stainless steel in terms of versatility. Strata is better if you want a pan to season and transform into non-stick over time.
I assume they’re going for a product that is different to distinguish itself from existing options. Unless I have a need for a pan that heats evenly and can become nonstick, I will also skip this since I have too many pans already! 😅
why Strata was visualized heated only to 160/150 and the others to even 450 degrees? If after 2 minutes it heats up only to 150/160, then it's a trash🚮
The temps at 1:32 that I recorded with the surface thermometer are much more accurate. Reflective surfaces like Strata are difficult to measure with the thermal camera because of the low emissivity. The point of that was more so to see the heat visually and look at the difference between point 1 and point 2 rather than the absolute numbers. I should have explained that.
@@christopherstreet6709 I don't care what you hope for. Non stick is only when you don't have to use oil. If your pan requires oil then it's not non stick. That's a fact.
There are different emissivity settings for different surfaces (matte, glossy, etc) but I agree that it’s not the best way to measure the temp (the surface thermometer is much more accurate). That said, I think the camera is great to see how evenly the heat spreads and to see the relative difference between two points.
They're a small company with lots of expenses, especially if they're applying for a patent. Also, the idea is easily stolen, regardless of patents, so they have to try to recoup their expenses before the copy-cats steal the idea and ramp up production. Also, that's MSRP, and I'm guessing they're going to have sales that'll bring the price down just like all the premium brands do.
And it's the first pan of its kind, with that set of layers. There are no other companies competing directly, it only competes against other technologies (the closest of which is carbon steel since that's the cooking surface). So I think it commands a market segment right now.
Is that an infrared hob? What an awful way to cook! Especially with a shiny stainless steel base which will reflect the heat back into the hob. With gas and induction the heating would be much more even so the test is irrelevant to most people. Nobody serious about cooking has such an awful cooker.
All the so called "Carbon Steel" stamped pans are cheap shit that cost next to nothing to make. THRESHOLD FACT: ALL steel is carbon steel. There is no Steel that isn't carbon steel. Stainless has chromium in it, Super alloys like inconel monel metal hastalloy etc., have nickel in them ( among other things) The phrase "carbon steel" IS pure marketing bullshit to bamboozle you into thinking you are getting something nice or special. It's not it's probably A 36 Steel the cheapest and most plentiful steel on the planet. The pans are stamped and the nicest thing about them is the handle. They are a waste of money, not because they are no good, but because not one made anywhere by anyone is worth more than $12.00 retail.
I was one of those who crowd funded Strata. When they finally showed up, 2 of my 3 kids snatched them up (my son being a creative cook). I've carefully keep track of their satisfaction and can report their approval. I appreciate your well documented and reasoned reviews. Please keep up the great work.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience!
I was a backer of Strata on Kickstarter. I bought a 10". I have a nice cast iron pan I love, but it is incredibly heavy. The cast iron is awesome for searing a steak. The Strata is for when I normally would use a nonstick pan. It heats evenly (most nonstick is thin, and has a pronounced hotspot, or is really expensive and since the Teflon coating will die in a couple years, is not a wise purchase.), is light, and that loses heat quickly, I find as a plus, it responds quickly when I change the burner temp, unlike thicker cast iron or carbon steel only pans. If you can cook with stainless, you will catch on to Strata very quickly. I like it so well, decided to also buy there smaller pan, It is I believe 8.5"... looking forward to it for omelet making. No more having to throw away a Teflon pan every two years. I really think stainless, cast iron and the Strata all have earned their place in our kitchen. With those in a couple select sizes, not much we cannot do perfectly.
I love your attention to detail! The IR camera is an excellent addition to your review of their claims.
Thank you! Trying to look at all angles :)
i see the low heat retention as a plus, means it stays hot when you want it and cools down faster when you want to prevent burning
There are definitely pros and cons. Pans that are responsive don’t retain heat well and vice versa.
I think it's a good concept and it's basically a ideal iteration of carbon steel pan for home cooks. It just still can't completely replace stainless steel pans because of the acidic food concerns
Right. In a carbon steel pan, acid foods will ruin the seasoning layer. They aren't meant for that.
@@stevealexander8010agree to disagree with one use case: carbon steel woks. Good stir fry with carbon steel woks are absolutely going to be exposed to acidic sauces/marinades... Get take out instead of delivery next time you pickup some orange chicken and observe the cooks lol
@ Asian restaurant use powerful burners and cooks large amount of food every day. Which means your orange chicken sauce only touches the wok for like 30 seconds before it finished cooking, and then they quickly wash, re-season and cook the next thing. the seasoning comes and goes very rapidly in restaurants. This way the acidic food doesn't affect how they uses carbon steel cookware that much. But for home cooks that doesn't want to worry about this, it's easier to just use stainless to handle acidic food.
I backed the project on Kickstarter. Opted for the bundle, and I must say that it's been living up to my expectations so far. Love that the exterior is SS and it's lightweight. I wouldn't sear a steak with it, but for eggs, sauteing and pancakes etc. it's perfect. Unfortunately, inside the handle of one of the pans has a tiny metal piece inside that drives me nuts when i flip or shake the pan (really not that big of an issue once the heat is on and the kitchen fan is running). A general downside I find particularly prominent is that with the De Buyer Pros of mine I can easily hover my hand above the cooking surface to feel how hot the pan is before putting the ingredients in. However, with my 2 Stratas I haven't quite got the feel yet because they do not extrude the heat in the same noticeable way.
Just curious why you don't sear steaks in a Strata?
@@CoolJay77 I mean, if that was the only pan I had, of course I wouldn't hesitate to use it for searing. However, as I do have other pans for that purpose with quite better heat retention I therefore prefer those.
@@CoolJay77It would be fine for a reverse sear, where you heat the steak to nearly cooked before searing it; but if you put a cold steak in a hot carbon steel pan, the temperature is going to crash. That's the heat retention drawback.
@@quakerwildcat That may not matter. There is a cold pan steak cooking technique as demonstrated by America's Test Kitchen cooking a steak over a thin nonstick pan, with a great crust, a method developed by Andrew Janjigian. I don't see why it can't be done on a carbon steel pan, but perhaps with the addition of some cooking oil.
@@susvortin There is an interesting blind taste test on Made In's page, cooking steaks on four different types of pans,
carbon steel has won. If I am not mistaken, their carbon steel pans are not even as thick as Matfer and De Buyer.
I have the 10” version of this pan and it has quickly become one of my favorites. I also like the handle, and the wide cooking surface. I have also seen how quickly it cools off compared to some of my other CS pans, but it’s worth the trade off for how light and maneuverable it is!
It’s easy to see why it’s a favorite. I’m really enjoying it so far.
I also bought the 10" & love it. I burnt oil in it, scraped, scrubbed & picked it off, reseasoned it by just cooking in it & it's back to great. The light weight & smooth curve to the sides make it a pleasure.
Love my 12" Strata, I give it a 10/10! It's easily my favorite pan, and I haven't touched my nonstick pans, cast iron pans, or stainless steel pans since I bought it (except to cook a tomato sauce).
I own this pan, and I can tell you, its my favorite! I think its well worth the money, considering this pan will not wear out. My food taste better, my sauces heat evenly, its just a better pan to cook with.
Very well-explained review. I've been eyeing the pan, and this confirms it's about what I expected: lightweight and similar thermal performance to clad stainless, but with the benefits (and downsides) of seasoning. I think it's cool that there's a new type of pan out there.
Thank you. Yes it’s nice to see something new hit the market that isn’t a gimmick.
A large and light carbon steel pan that heats evenly sounds great for delicate cooking that requires a quick response to temperature changes. Hope they come out with a version with tall curved sides.
They have 3 fry pans right now but I’d expect more shapes and sizes to come out at some point
I ordered the 12" pan via their kickstarter. I liked it so much I ordered the 2 smaller ones. For me the main advantage is weight. I wanted something my GF would be more comfortable using. (+ I'm hoping to move her away from non-stick pans!) She had gotten used to cooking salmon in the carbon steel pan so I'm slowly winning her over!!!!
Love it!
Hands down best review I have seen of this pan!. That said I rarely need carbon steel since I have learned to use stainless steel as you have demonstrated in your video. When I do need carbon steel ( fish and stir-fry) I simply use a 1/8" thick heat spreader/diffuser which gives me most of the benefits and I can use it with different pans. I prefer responsiveness to heat-retention but if you are so inclined, heat-spreaders can also be used to resolve your heat-retention issues(which to me is only meaningful if you have under-powered burners)
Great summary. I learned a lot.
It's a tempting purchase if for nothing other than fish.
(I'm pretty adept with stainless, but my track record of searing fish without sticking OR overcooking is spotty.)
And I have no trouble maintaining a seasoned CS wok.
Same here. Eggs are easy but fish is challenging in SS. Skin-on Salmon is the way to go but you can't get that in almost any other fish
Thanks for the review - they sound wonderful but absolutely don't belong in my kitchen. I've had to threaten bodily harm to keep my cast iron safe, I can't imagine how far I'd have to go to keep there things out of the dishwasher....
Might be overkill, but yeah i mean, i got into a commentor who was talking over and over about the 'superiority of conductivity', i tried a stainless steel that i was lucky to get for 15$ vs 90-140$, and it wasn't a bad pan, but it burnt my fingers and food extremely quick. My thin 9$ ceramic all aluminum lightweight pan is much more 'responsive' and my cast iron is slower, but the stainless steels feels like a middle end.
But the main reason i got a 9$ aluminum and cast iron anyways was because my roomies used to destroy like 4x teflon pans a year by using steel tools over them, then using knives and metal utensils on other's teflon pans, like violent country 18 year olds at college for first time out of a leadtown.
It was the other way around for me, but the reason i got into cast iron was it was 9-20$ for a pan i was told could withstand knives, be re seasoned, last lifetimes. And you know what, they were right, it blunted the knives and broke silicon tools for the first year since i got the crappiest 9$ ozark and didn't know how to season it yet, so i sanded it and it's super smooth.
But when i think about going through 4x 200$ pans a year, or having them 'borrowed' (permanantly), yeah im not unhappy.
Im still happy to try out a similar pan at a clearance of 15$ vs 90-140$, but at the same time i wonder. why are so many pans 200$?
Thorough and reasonably objective reviews
Indeed it is a clever design. The negatives apply equally to carbon steel pans, and even cast iron.
That's what I was thinking too.
One thing you got wrong is the heat retention. This is a feature, not a bug. Being able to change the temperature of a pan quickly is an incredible boon for many types of cookery. That is why chefs have both copper or aluminum pans and iron, for different purposes.
The only time I want heat retention.....for a frying pan, is say cooking a couple of steaks. Essentially heat retention means it drops less in temp when adding food.
Other than that, I want reactive pans. Its the reason copper pans are held in such high regard for higher end restaurants.
It's a balance, for sure. I think because they're trying to upsell this as an improvement on reg carbon steel, the fact that the heat retention is worse could be viewed as a negative to that crowd.
If you want a pan to retain heat, that mean it hard to make the pan fluctuate temperature
Heat retention is usually based on mass, more than pan material.
Interestingly, carbon steel as a material actually retains heat better than cast iron. Also, cast iron transfers heat better than carbon steel.
This is a paradox for most people, but this is the reason why cast iron skillets are made thick and carbon steel pans work well being made a bit thinner.
Due to the material and the thickness, cast iron transfers and retains heat very well.
Carbon steel can be made thick (2,5-3mm) like deBuyer Mineral B or thinner like deBuyer Blue (1-2mm). Thicker steel is comparable to cast iron. While still being usually thinner than cast iron the heat retention is very high and comparable. Being thinner makes also sure the material transfers heat very well. Still, at 2-2,5mm thickness, a carbon steel pan is no featherweight.
A thicker pan can deliver high initial stored heat and easier to control constant even heat. Baking bread, roasting big birds, searing steaks, making crepes/ tortillas and so on benefit of this.
Thinner steel pans are lighter with higher walls. Stir-frying and sauteing work very well. High end Woks are usually made on the thinner side (1,5mm). Thinner pans season quicker too.
Unlike cast iron that can take many different and unique shapes, carbon steel usually has the typical pan shape, unless handforged. When handforged unique shapes are possible but the purchase cost will be substancially higher.
My recommendations:
- The ideal cast iron skillet is a thick bottomed pan with thinner and high walls (around 2 inches, 5cm). Heavy but not unnecessary heavy: for convenience and quicker seasoning, while still performing as it should. In the market, I only find some of the old antique cast irons filling this caracteristics, but also a newer one called Field Company.
- The ideal carbon steel pan is a versatile pan.Thick enough to store heat and be warp resistant but also thin enough to react to temperature changes when cooking more delicate foods. High enough walls to be versatile enough to cook a range of many different things.
Lyonnaise shape is ideal: around 2 inches (5cm) high walls.
Thick bottom, 2-2,5mm. Important that the bottom is thick enough for good performance.
Thinner sides around 1,5-2mm. This takes a considerable amount of unnecessary weight from the pan.
Pans that are spinned instead of pressed usually have thinner side walls compared to the bottom. Handforging is also an option.
The brand that I highly recommend is Alex Pole from the UK. Skottsberg, concretely the 28cm version is also great. But there are also other options, including handforged pans that meet this criteria in the US and Europe.
Except 99% of the time poor heat retention is a big negative..
I see no reason to give up my all clad D3. Nice to see people trying to bring new products though.
Stainless is the best all around pan..buy just one pan and not be a collector
If you have an induction cook top, the heat retention shouldn't be an issue. The heat is instant, and the heat range is barely hot to nuke with the touch of a button. In other words, induction can simulate high, medium, or low heat retention effortlessly.
I have both the 10 & 12 and am happy with them because of the more even heating. I hope they eventually make both a flat bottom wok and a second line that has a thicker aluminum layer. There should be a point where they match the heat retention of a cast iron pan but still be lighter weight.
If you want it to heat quicker it will inevitably cool quicker also.
I bought a 12" Strata pan about a month ago from their website when they had 40% off for the pans with minor cosmetic imperfections. Mine came with no imperfections that I could notice and at about $90 total this was a fair price for this pan. I didn't like it that much at first because despite three rounds of seasoning per instructions it was still somewhat sticky. Ok, I continued cooking with it anyway and basically after every wash (just hand wash with mild soap and water) I give it a quick seasoning round, e.g. dry it with a towel, put it on a stove to heat up to about 400F, apply whatever fat I feel like (ghee, beef tallow, lard or grape seed oil), wipe it almost dry and let it smoke a little bit. This method reproduces regular frequent cooking. I don't know, was it because of my seasoning technique or because I've learned to manage temperature for this skillet better, but it is much more nonstick now. Overall I like it a lot, it is easy to lift with my left hand, has a very good shape for spatula use, handle is ergonomic and doesn't get too hot. It is a beautiful pan too, with my maintenance routine carbon steel inside is shiny and of a rich dark bronze color. I reach for this pan more often than for carbon steel Matfer. Still, for the sous vide steak, nothing beats good old cast iron Lodge that leaves grill marks.
I’m finding myself reaching for this pan more and more.
I also like that the handle is not too long and it doesn't slope upward at a very steep angle. Some pans do that and it makes them annoying to use in the oven, especially a toaster oven. There should be no reason at all for a 10 inch pan to not be able to fit into a countertop oven such as a Breville. 12 inch may be more of a tight squeeze, although cast iron should work due to the small handles on those (traditional ones anyway)
Agree!
Great review. One question on your heat retaining test: I am only assuming when you took the pans off the burner for the rest time, that you placed it on the granite counter top as it appears in the video. That can be a cold surface and steal away the heat. But also it looked like you placed the other 2 pans in the same spot during their rest time. My thought is, did the strada pan warm up the cold surface of the counter so that when the other pans were placed on, they had a warmer surface to rest on than the strada? Thus less heat loss??
That’s a great question and you are right, the granite retains heat and would impact the results. Because of that, I always wait until the granite cools completely before testing another pan. In this case, the pans were tested on different days.
@PrudentReviews thanks!
I think the same
I would like to see its performance on an induction cook top.
Some interesting info that I posted somewhere else too.
Heat retention is usually based on mass, more than pan material.
Interestingly, carbon steel as a material actually retains heat better than cast iron. Also, cast iron transfers heat better than carbon steel.
This is a paradox for most people, but this is the reason why cast iron skillets are made thick and carbon steel pans work well being made a bit thinner.
Due to the material and the thickness, cast iron transfers and retains heat very well.
Carbon steel can be made thick (2,5-3mm) like deBuyer Mineral B or thinner like deBuyer Blue (1-2mm). Thicker steel is comparable to cast iron. While still being usually thinner than cast iron the heat retention is very high and comparable. Being thinner makes also sure the material transfers heat very well. Still, at 2-2,5mm thickness, a carbon steel pan is no featherweight.
A thicker pan can deliver high initial stored heat and easier to control constant even heat. Baking bread, roasting big birds, searing steaks, making crepes/ tortillas and so on benefit of this.
Thinner steel pans are lighter with higher walls. Stir-frying and sauteing work very well. High end Woks are usually made on the thinner side (1,5mm). Thinner pans season quicker too.
Unlike cast iron that can take many different and unique shapes, carbon steel usually has the typical pan shape, unless handforged. When handforged unique shapes are possible but the purchase cost will be substancially higher.
My recommendations:
- The ideal cast iron skillet is a thick bottomed pan with thinner and high walls (around 2 inches, 5cm). Heavy but not unnecessary heavy: for convenience and quicker seasoning, while still performing as it should. In the market, I only find some of the old antique cast irons filling this caracteristics, but also a newer one called Field Company.
- The ideal carbon steel pan is a versatile pan.Thick enough to store heat and be warp resistant but also thin enough to react to temperature changes when cooking more delicate foods. High enough walls to be versatile enough to cook a range of many different things.
Lyonnaise shape is ideal: around 2 inches (5cm) high walls.
Thick bottom, 2-2,5mm. Important that the bottom is thick enough for good performance.
Thinner sides around 1,5-2mm. This takes a considerable amount of unnecessary weight from the pan.
Pans that are spinned instead of pressed usually have thinner side walls compared to the bottom. Handforging is also an option.
The brand that I highly recommend is Alex Pole from the UK. Skottsberg, concretely the 28cm version is also great. But there are also other options, including handforged pans that meet this criteria in the US and Europe.
I love my Strata pan. The lack of heat retention actually makes it perfect as an egg pan. I can even do a french omelette on it with my crappy electric glass stovetop -- a task that's much much more difficult on regular carbon steel or stainless steel pans. A french omelette needs to be cooked without browning, which means you need the pan to be more responsive. A regular carbon steel or cast iron pan retains too much heat which can overcook the eggs. A stainless steel pan requires a higher temperature in order to get the leidenfrost non-stick effect.
an infrared camera really would go a long way here, and some standardisation with your stove when comparing it with other pans
There is a Black Friday sale currently. 12.5" pan is now $126.65.
Great pan if you’re looking for a lightweight nonstick pan that will last forever and require even heat distribution. The stoves at the kitchen section on my floor or the portable induction cooktop that many of us use when we’re too lazy to leave our dorm room have tiny heating elements. Cast iron and traditional carbon steel pans are only heated in the middle for our situation so many students only use those stoves/portable induction cooktops to boil water, cook eggs, or heat soup. Either that or we get teflon/ceramic pans with an aluminum core but those don’t last. I’m waiting for my 10” strata pan to come in so I can do some real cooking in my dorm room after basically living off my air fryer/microwave for most of my meals lol.
I cook and clean dishes everyday though I don't particularly enjoy either. I enjoy my regular full time non-kitchen related job a lot more. I've learned to cook in stainless steel pans without sticking and feel it's all I need. I've never used carbon steel or cast iron, as I don't enjoy cooking or cleaning their needs for immediate washing, cleaning and seasoning keep me away, I know I'd just ruin them or ignore them to rust.
What matters most is that you're cooking and it works for you. I use stainless, nonstick, cast-iron, and enameled cast iron. I dont have one of these and it looks a little gimmicky to me
@rehamkcirtap I used to use nonstick and ceramic but neither last. Since I learned how to cook with stainless steel, nonstick just doesn't seem to brown or sear well by comparison. I just bought a bigger stainless steel pan and am getting rid of all my nonstick. I can even cook eggs in stainless steel pans these days. Nothing gimmicky and I will affirm this again with all certainty - I've never ever used carbon steel or cast iron, their heavy weight always turned me off and away.
Would like to see a heavier seasoning test. Innovative product
The Temperatur Difference on 1:33 in Celsius are wrong!
I like your Content very much. Greetings from Germany!
I wish pans with sealed edges were more common. The edges aren’t dishwasher safe and the sharp edges wear down your dish rack.
I have gotten a Star-Gazer pan,I dont think its heavy,buy my 12 lodge is right to it,I happily cook on both,rinse with hot water after cook with scrub brush
Stellar review. Thanks!!
Thanks for watching!
You need to test solidtecnics 100% wrought iron pans, no rivets, indestructible, just great. Very different to other pans.
There is nothing like the one perfect pan. Like there is no one perfect shoe or car. There are different purposes of cooking (e.g. eggs, tomato sauce, meat, …) and each of them deserve a specific pan. Especially, if you want to avoid non-stick garbage. The Strata pan solves an important issue of traditional carbon steel pans: weight (and as you mention uneven heating). That is huge. Thanks for your investigation 👍
The one perfect pan definitely does not exist but a nice 10~12 inch stainless steel sauté pan (with a lid) comes pretty close as a great all-rounder.
Great review thanks.
Thanks for watching!
Great videos! Can you tell me where you get that thermometer from?
How does it compare to a Hestan Nanobond?
Both good, but two very different pans. Hestan NanoBond performs more like a traditional stainless steel pan - it doesn't need to be seasoned and you can cook acidic ingredients. Strata can become more non-stick overtime as the seasoning build and is about a half pound lighter when comparing the 12.5-inch fry pans. Hestan is made in Italy and is more than twice the price.
Thanks for the question, came for PRECISELY THIS
@PrudentReviews thank you so much for responding. I Really want nanobond so I'm looking at everything cause it's all "budget" in comparison
What is this stove?
Are there 2 12 inch burners?
I would be very interested in one of these in a small 8 or 9 inch for eggs
They have 8.5-, 10.5-, and 12.5-inch pans
@ yea I saw you can pre order the little one this is a great way for me to stop using non stick
If the pan heats up quick it means it will cool down quick. That's physics.
I thought I bought the greatest pan in a Debuyer Pro. Now I'm not so enamored since it's started to warp and things slide outward. Also I've noticed it's much cooler towards the handle.
The low heat on the sides isn't a bad thing. That's a good thing. Sometimes you don't want something to cook as fast as something and to gradually get hotter rather than it be hot everywhere. ie maybe butter or garlic. Because garlic burns quickly and butter just becomes a disaster if overcooked. So you kinda have it go on less hot areas. So yeah, overall this isn't much better than an Allclad Stainless steel pan.
When are you going to check out the new Ti coated non-stick pan?
Great, helpful review. I'd been considering to get one.
What about Mauviel copper core pans?
I would have a hard time with this pan cause of the acidic foods which I cook often. I stick with my All-Clads and Made In. Just pulled the plug on a Smithey Farmhouse skillet. I hope it justified buying it cause of the price for the pan. Over $300. And, there are very few reviews of them. And, I am very unsure about trying new brands. But, you have sold me on Made In.
I’m testing the Smithey Farmhouse skillet and will have a review on it soon. FYI - in case you need other stainless steel pieces, Made In just launched a big sale.
The table at 1:32 is incredibly wrong for all the celsius readings in the temp difference column, strata should have a 32C difference etc
Good catch. You're right. I converted the difference in F to C. I should have just took the difference between the two C temps. My mistake! Doesn't change the point though.
How does the carbon steel surface still look shiny?
It's a very thin layer of seasoning.
Pretty new pan he's using. Not much seasoning built up by the time of the video, just enough to cook with.
What about Merten and Storck?
Nice concept. If it weren't made in China I'd buy it.
I have heard the Heston non-stick is guaranteed for life including normal wear and tear. That sounds too good to be true. What have you heard about the Heston lifetime guarantee for nonstick?
I would like to buy one, but the shipping to EU countries + VAT and customs is a big no for me unfortunately.
Your review was so good however that it makes me reconsider!
Yep I guess I would have bought it if Strata only could ship their pans without additional costs to consumers in the EU like Darto in Argentina and some other pans made in China do.
heat retention isnt always good ya know
Thx for doing this.
Black Friday sale is going on now: 15% off
good tims,,very very detailed review thanks
Glad it was helpful!
I've been looking for a carbon steel pan with rounded edges for ommelet and this looks great, but really pricey!
Do you know of any other brand that have rounded edges?
Misen carbon steel is a similar shape and costs less
@@PrudentReviews Thanks! I"m checking their products
Debuyer makes omelette pans with rounded edges, in both their Mineral B and their Mineral B Pro line. I just bought a 9.5" Pro version for eggs and it's working very well for me. Hope that helps.
@@zrazieli Thanks, I didn't notice they have a regular Mineral B option, 75 USD for the 9.5" is reasonable. Pro is priced like the Strata though.
I'd rather have this than Hexclad. In any case, I'm quite happy with my carbon steel pans.
So you'd want this pan specifically for food that benefits from a nonstick surface AND a quick to heat up and responsive surface? So basically it's an egg pan lol. A little expensive for my blood I gotta say, especially when you can get extremely high quality all clad cookware used for a song.
How about reviewing the Titanium Always Pan® Pro from Our Place?
I reviewed that recently. Here it is: ruclips.net/video/DdpXbrPj0GQ/видео.html
This is a perfect non-stick replacement, more than a regular carbon steel. I can't believe no one thought of this before.
I will personally wait for a company to copy this, hopefully made in Europe or the US
solid review
Thank you for watching!
@@PrudentReviews thank you for making content worth watching
Thanks, Patrick. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on Always Pan fixing those design defects with the lid & handle. Then I'll be investing in one.
The heat retention is not a con for me. If anything, it's a pro. Better get hot fast and lose the heat fast.
But in any case, nonstick ftw. I don't cook in very high temperature and I don't use anything that damages its surface.
I am not convinced enough to try it.
That was a ton of oil/butter. If the SS was used correctly, there is no way it should have stuck.
Summit Japan is very good pans to
I get a warning on the strata site that it may contain elements that could impact my security.
Heat retention is not a good thing. This is something you come to believe when your technique is off. The only time it's desirable is when youre serving your food directly in your cookware and you want it to keep warm on the table
Ehh as a ceramic vs teflon vs cast iron tryer. I respectfully disagree. Try a crispy pizza from a pizza stone or cast iron stone/griddle vs a teflon/aluminum pan.
Responsiveness is nice, but while it sounds like a oxymoron, 'heat retention and slower conduction' sounds worse for food, but in side by side cooking comparisons. From crispy Chicken to crispy tots, a preheated cast iron pan crisps up the outside of food easier while the teflon burns the outside surface layer while leaving the insides often uncooked much more easily.
The nonstick teflon/ceramic are superior qol for cooking eggs / boiling water / sauces imho and it takes time to adjust to either. If you're trying to cook eggs in 2 minutes, teflon /aluminum is better, if you have 5 minutes to preheat a pan, the hands on can be less since you just preheat, do something else for a few minutes, and watch your food consistently cook.
The difference is something you have to see and try in person or a comparison video to believe, a pan is a pan and it's 90% the same, but for a cast iron (slow conducting) vs aluminum (quick conducting) pan. Cast iron and pizza stones conduct heat like a oven, radiating it slowly and cooking parts above the surface like a campfire. Hell i even made smores over a heated cast iron pan once like a fire lmao.
My aluminum ceramic nonstick pan cools down within seconds vs minutes, but on the same tests, the outside layer with direct contact tends to blacken while the insides are often pink. now if you baby it to find the equibrium for heat energy in vs heat energy out, it works.
But it's a debate on if you prefer to fiddle with a pan or let it preheat for a few minutes to a consistent temperature and then have it finish. Even deep frying, which is mostly oil as 90% of the medium, have a few people who still for some reason prefer to use old chicken frying cast iron pans or dutch ovens sometimes for frying. Their reasoning being that while deep frying is 90% oil temperature, in a thin pot their recipe for say, 350F oil might become 304F oil in a aluminum pan and cook their fries inconsistently, from golden brown to pasty white, while in a bulky dutch oven / chicken fryer pot. They fry and it comes out golden each time.
Cast iron on bread is surprisingly good too. I struggled with bread in a aluminum pan to get the 'artisanal golden brown crust' vs pasty white of a aluminum pan for years, when i tried cast iron, it naturally ended up super crispy.
It sounds like a oxy moron but before anyone says poor heat conduction = bad, take a slice of pizza or bread from a pizza stone vs a teflon pan before you say teflon is better.
I knew you’d come to the comments, good boy
how does it compare to the Demeyere pro line???
Did you watch the video?
@ yes. Wrote this before the end . Sorry , thanks
Here I am thinking cast iron was supposed to heat MORE evenly.
Once it’s fully preheated, it cooks really evenly because it holds heat well and the temperature doesn’t go up and down as much. But it heats slowly and as it’s heating up, it’s not as even as aluminum, copper, or aluminum-core stainless steel.
Here we go again.
There’s no such thing as a perfect pan, they all have their pros and cons, you just need to understand what yours are and allow for them when using them. Personally I have two frying pans, one non stick if I’m doing something that will strip the seasoning off, and one carbon steel debuyer mineral B carbon steel pan that I use for frying eggs, meat etc. my saucepans are all non stick but these are only ever used for boiling and simmering.
Yeah honestly i hated my rough 9$ cast iron at first after going through 4x 7$ pans my roommates destroyed with steel utensils. But after rage sanding them with a 1$ sanding stone block, it became a lot smoother and eggs could slide with a drop of oil, but not bare. But random stuff sticks when the oil dries.
But i'd still say it's worth having 2x 9-30$ pans over 1x 150$ pan though, a ceramic pan treated well gives a lot of benefits, i also lucked out on a 15$ vs 150-300$ enameled cast iron from our local store but i got a health scare hearing that apparently le cruset potentially used extremely high levels of cadnium/lead like nearly 500x the normal suggestion to color pans red/orange/yellow.
Apparently it's just older pans and the tested ones were 2013 but idk, i just want a pan that's nonstick, doesn't kill me (teflon/lead/cadnium), is qol to clean (teflon/seasoned cast iron/enamel"
Thankfully they said that it was only the yellow/red/orange parts(?) i think, and the white inner layer should be fine(?), well maybe it's like 200 parts of lead in a billion vs 40 recommended vs 20,000. But idk, People still seem to eat out of them fine and not report any problems and they say it should be a mostly old enamel issue with lead being used in glazes.
I guess it's a matter of pick your poison.
Cast iron gets better the more you use it, but can be a pain to clean/season/set up, especially the first 4-10 seasons/cooks. (2-10 hrs of use)
Stainless steel sticks a little but it's durable and lasts and never rusts, but it sticks.
Teflon is nonstick without oil but scrapes.
Ceramic conducts heat quickly and can be scratched easily, but it's a good pan and only like 10$-20$ for 1-5 years of use. that's 1-2$ a year.
Carbon steel is a lot of pluses without heat retention but not a lot of cons. But can be limited to find.
Why is heat retention a good thing? Thermal inertia is a poor substitute for even heating. Thermal inertia tries to mimic even heating by simply not letting any part of the pan change temperature quickly. This makes the whole pan slow to react. What you really want is a pan that quickly and evenly changes temperature with the control knob on the stove. Heat retention is only ideal when you have a stove that needs to cycle on and off to achieve low temps.
Heat retention is good when you’re trying to quickly sear something.
It sounds like a paradox but when you add meat into a cast iron style pan, the edges crisp brown maximizing the crispy bits / malliard reaction instead of quickly going from cold to hot and lighting contact points to blackened bits while the inside is raw.
Cast iron cooks slower kind of like a oven or 20% of a slow cooker, it feels like it bakes food like a oven as it radiates heat and i've also noticed heating my cast iron seems to warm up nearly objects like a lamp when seasoning it for 10-30m or so.
it seems to radiate heat while the other pans mostly 90% conduct it, and that helps cooking the middle, giving you time to react while keeping things crispy, rice can end up crispy in there like clay pot rice.
But it sucks at eggs and i think imho it's worth having 2x 10-20$ pans, a nonstick pan for eggs / sticky sugar sauces / sticky foods / acidic, a 3$ silicon spatula, and maybe a daily use pan like cast iron / stainless steel or carbon for daily use.
Thermal conductivity is good for quickly boiling water or quickly toasting the outside layer of something though. It's just like the difference of a baked roast vs a cattle brand being pressed into food though.
@@Notyouraveragename if your stove is weak then it’s possible that your food sucks out heat faster than the stove can produce it, thus cooling the pan. You can compensate by using thermal mass like a heat battery. You charge it up with heat and it discharges into the food faster. However pretty much any semi decent stove is more than strong enough to maintain the desired temp so there’s really no reason to waste time charging a large thermal mass. You can get the exact same malliard reaction with any pan. Whether it is even across the meat depends on how even the heat distribution is not the heat retention. The reason you heat cast iron on medium/low for a long time is to allow time for the heat to spread evenly. If heat were to spread quickly and evenly in cast iron then everyone would recommend you warm it up on high. If you find that you’re burning the outside and not cooking the inside, it just means you set the heat too high on the lighter pan. More conductive pans simply transfer more heat to the food so you need a lower stove setting than cast iron. All pans radiate heat like an oven. If you want a light pan to radiate more slowly you just turn down the heat. I have multiple cast iron and multiple clad and aluminum pans. They all sear (except i don’t sear with nonstick) perfectly with the right adjustment. Please try adjusting your technique with a high quality clad pan and see how it goes. Cast iron is easy to cook with because it’s so slow, but the downside is that it adds a lot of heat up and reheat up time to your meal prep. Conductive pans do require more input on your part, but you will find it very intuitive once you start doing it. Just stop trying to cook with it like its cast iron and you’ll be amazed at the control you now have.
@@refusalspam Instructions unclear eating the crispiest bread and seared meats of my life with no burned horrible black marks, just crispy delicious crispy brown bits, Sourdough that legit looks like the artisanal rolls of a bakery with fluffy white speckled exteriors vs dried up or mushy bread.
And all i have to do is preheat for 2-10 minutes while i do something else then put food in it.
Vs fiddling on and off high to low temperatures to rubber band the frying pan according to how much thermal mass a hot pocket vs air fryer does.
Not saying there's anything wrong with building up a feel and i love nonstick for eggs and boiling water but with a seasoned cast iron, legit i thought all the hype around cast iron making wonderful bread was bs.
My aluminum pan retains heat for about 10 seconds, my cast iron retains heat at room temp for about 12 minutes.
Preheating time is passive and hands off and it cooks the inside beautifully and now that it's seasoned and smoothed to a glossy black finish, it's as nonstick as oiled enamel and it never rusts.
@ you’re not actually saying why heat retention is good, you’re only saying that your CI has a lot of it and your aluminum pan doesn’t. I feel like if you’re rubberbanding your temperature then it’s a telltale sign that you’re still trying to cook like its cast iron. With CI you need huge adjustments to compensate for the thermal inertia. It’s like when you jump in a hot car and crank the A/C as low as it will go but then have to readjust it again or it gets too cold. If the car had little thermal inertia then you could just keep the A/C setting at room temp cuz the temp would get there quickly on its own. Cooking with a reactive pan is like that, just set it to the temp you actually want. If you want to gently cook fish all the way through then blast it with high heat to build a crust, you can do that. If you want to sear sous vide steaks so that you get just the browning and only the thinnest layer of well done meat, you can do that. You can even take the drippings from that high temperature sear, add butter and herbs to make a pan sauce without burning it, all because you have total control. This is not some fiddling thing. Like I said, it’s very intuitive once you accept that it’s gonna behave differently than CI. One tip to finding the right temp is to start a little lower and keep increasing little by little. Since your food will react quickly to the changes. Don’t just take my word for it, try it and see.
Not sure why ur bringing up bread baking, I’m only talking about the uselessness of heat retention as it pertains to stovetop cooking with pans.
7:20
Great video, thanks. Innovative concept -- but, as someone who can taste and smell carbon steel, it's not on my shopping list.
Thanks for your review of this interesting pan. The fact that you can't use it for certain foods, like tomato based sauces, is a bit of a killer. So unless you have lots of room in your kitchen (and budget) for yet another pan...
Nice review. Interesting but overpriced pan.
Just go with stainless
Carbon steel is supposed to be cheaper than stainless steel, this metal rust
i tried seasoning steel, it stick as f... it's burned food.
mirror polished stainless steel is wonderfull.
Just learn how to use cast-iron properly. Done!
The slight advantage in food release over a SS isn't worth it. IMO, carbon steel is only really worth it if you're stir-frying because you can't let the food rest and develop a sear causing natural release. The Western shape of the Strata means that you can't use it as a wok.
If you're just searing large cuts of meat, then there's no reason not to use SS. SS is just so much easier to work with and maintain.
Good review, but sorry not leaving my stainless steel, and not buying Chinese.
Seems like the current beloved pans are
Durability/daily use: Stainless Steel / Broken in Cast iron
o (Stainless steel is convenient and out of box smooth, but can slightly stick at times), Cast iron can literally stick for hrs when it's unseasoned / being broken in, but once broken in (ex: sanding and baking 400F in a oven with a layer of canola a few times), it can smoke but get glossy smooth.
Convenience: Ceramic (Super non stick, no teflon/toxins), / Teflon.
All good pans, you really only need a couple maybe. Im happy with cast iron but with stainless steel, some parts are redundant. Cast iron sucks to use for the first 1-2 years and has a learning curve, especially the cheaper than lodges ones that are often sandpaper rough and terribad.
I got into smothing my 9$ cast iron because i got a ozark or mainstays cheap pan and they sucked, super rough, destroyed utensilis, i ragesanded it with a 1$ knife sharpening stone from the dollar tree and it worked like a charm. But they might have made the newer stones rougher since my older one is much smoother than the one i got a few months ago.
A little roughness helps seasoning stick to a pan though, like a scratched woody texture vs scrape your finger's skin off concrete.
It got glossy smooth but Stainless steel is basically the same thiing but unreactive, heard you can leave it out in a storm and nothing will happen to it and a lot of professional chefs like Stainless steel as well. It tends to be more expensive but never needs long clean up, never rusts, it retains heat like cast iron, but it also tends to have a more expensive buy in (50-200$) vs 9-20$ for a cast iron.
Thanks for this helpful review. The price is more than ridiculous for a chinese product. At that price I‘ll get 2-3 pans from de Buyer here in Europe, where they cost less than in the US.
My main concern is not addressed- I cook on an induction burner with two coils, so pan warping is a major problem, but it doesn’t happen overnight.
Rivets inside the pan. Instant no from me,i ain't cleaning around those MFs.
Unfortunately overpriced. They make it in china and charge more than the established brands made in europe. This pumps their profit margins to the point where they are fleecing the consumer.
What's with 150$ premium pans anyways? I hand sanded a 9$ cast iron i used to hate and i love it and got a enameled off clearance for 15$ vs 60$. But every hobbyist pan is 150-200$, smoothed cast iron out of factory vs 1 hr sanding (butter pats, hexclad, etc.). seems like 150$ is the price point for pans, then there's Le creuset selling pans for 300-400$ their competitors seem to make for 20-40$.
You still can’t acidic ingredients with it. Not as versatile as stainless steel.
That's true, you can't beat stainless steel in terms of versatility. Strata is better if you want a pan to season and transform into non-stick over time.
I assume they’re going for a product that is different to distinguish itself from existing options. Unless I have a need for a pan that heats evenly and can become nonstick, I will also skip this since I have too many pans already! 😅
why Strata was visualized heated only to 160/150 and the others to even 450 degrees? If after 2 minutes it heats up only to 150/160, then it's a trash🚮
The temps at 1:32 that I recorded with the surface thermometer are much more accurate. Reflective surfaces like Strata are difficult to measure with the thermal camera because of the low emissivity. The point of that was more so to see the heat visually and look at the difference between point 1 and point 2 rather than the absolute numbers. I should have explained that.
It’s not non stick if you have to use oil…
Hope this is a joke for the sake of those you cook for
@@christopherstreet6709 I don't care what you hope for. Non stick is only when you don't have to use oil. If your pan requires oil then it's not non stick. That's a fact.
Made in China? That's all I need to know.
You can’t measure most stainless steel pans with your thermal camera without a coating. All your measurements with the camera are super wrong
There are different emissivity settings for different surfaces (matte, glossy, etc) but I agree that it’s not the best way to measure the temp (the surface thermometer is much more accurate). That said, I think the camera is great to see how evenly the heat spreads and to see the relative difference between two points.
Aluminum core, made in China, AND the most expensive of the bunch? Something is not adding up
They're a small company with lots of expenses, especially if they're applying for a patent. Also, the idea is easily stolen, regardless of patents, so they have to try to recoup their expenses before the copy-cats steal the idea and ramp up production.
Also, that's MSRP, and I'm guessing they're going to have sales that'll bring the price down just like all the premium brands do.
And it's the first pan of its kind, with that set of layers. There are no other companies competing directly, it only competes against other technologies (the closest of which is carbon steel since that's the cooking surface). So I think it commands a market segment right now.
Is that an infrared hob? What an awful way to cook! Especially with a shiny stainless steel base which will reflect the heat back into the hob.
With gas and induction the heating would be much more even so the test is irrelevant to most people.
Nobody serious about cooking has such an awful cooker.
Gas would be much more even? hahahahahahahahahahahaha. Wrong.
$109 for the small 8". Way overpriced a carbon steel pan should literally cost $5.
All the so called "Carbon Steel" stamped pans are cheap shit that cost next to nothing to make.
THRESHOLD FACT: ALL steel is carbon steel. There is no Steel that isn't carbon steel.
Stainless has chromium in it,
Super alloys like inconel monel metal hastalloy etc., have nickel in them ( among other things)
The phrase "carbon steel" IS pure marketing bullshit to bamboozle you into thinking you are getting something nice or special.
It's not it's probably A 36 Steel the cheapest and most plentiful steel on the planet. The pans are stamped and the nicest thing about them is the handle. They are a waste of money, not because they are no good, but because not one made anywhere by anyone is worth more than $12.00 retail.