How to avoid melting the tin lining?

Question

If I try to brown one sole chicken leg with extra-virgin first cold press olive oil in a 28 cm diameter rondeau, I fear I could melt the tin or at least get it soft enough to smear with some sloppy tong work.

Five pieces, pretty sure I'm safe. 

I would appreciate some guidance on what's the lowest number of pieces I can go. Or do I really only need to pay attention to avoid smoking my oil? Is that all there is to it? [Smoke point = 400 to 365ºF (204 to 185ºC) depending on free fatty acid content of EVOO.]

Which begs the next question, if avoiding smoke is all I have to do, how much oil do I need to ensure pan safety?

TIA.

Answer

Is that what people who use copper cookware obsess over? Why buy it if you're afraid to use it?

Answer

The oil is the canary in the coal mine. If it starts smoking or burning then the heat may be hot enough to melt the tin. However, if you have a large diameter pan and oil only under the chicken (where the pan would be cooler) then you might have a problem. But if the oil covers the bottom then if something starts smoking you will know it.

The oil is no more or less a heat sink than the food.

Answer

Here is a shot of the smearing a la popcorn and a couple images of oil seeping through the rivets on a couple of different pots. Neither these pots leak fluids. I found the oil to be an interesting development.

Answer

I'm sorry, I was told there would be no word problems on this test...

Answer

Hello, you must always have a glass of water available in this kind of cooking. A chicken leg or 5. This is a paramount safety. The bottom of the pot should be covered with oil. To heat gently. Even if you want to grill, slow heating will do it. It is not mandatory to push the throttle! A question of patience. In general when the oil is not really visible, it is because the food has absorbed it and often in this case the meat has already started grilling. If you gradually add a very little water it will continue to grill while protecting the bottom of your pot. This small amount of water will evaporate anyway and will not disturb your cooking. This also allows to take off the juices (wooden utensils, of course).

Regarding the melting of tin, if the pot is forgotten empty on fire, it will melt. But do not believe that the pot will be destroyed. Do not imagine that parts of copper will appear here or there. At the bottom can appear ridges, balls. Tin on the sides can melt and fall down, this will have an influence by decreasing the thickness of tin on the sides.
Tin may look ugly. But this will not necessarily prevent the use of the pot.

If the pot is forgotten and everything charred, that's another subject!

Note: here is a phenomenon that can happen during tinning: when the melting point is reached spread tin on the surface. Sometimes it may be necessary to insist on this or that place to spread the tin because the stripping did not remove all the dirt.
Without realizing that this insistence lengthens time, we do not pay attention and the pot is always on the flame. The goal is to spread out and the concentration is done on this subject only.
So we can reach a point of overheating tin that will become very hard and very dull.
We can try to add flux or tin. We can even put the flame to the maximum, it's too late !!!!!!
Tin does not want to melt! It's impossible to melt it and make a beautiful sprawl.
This happened to me when I washes thick pots and I go to a very fine pot. As I am thrown to make thick pots I forget to adjust my flame correctly ...
When it happens to me, I already try to leave the pot for several minutes on a very bright flame but nothing to do, the tin does not melt.
We must cool the pot and start all operations from the beginning, including a new stripping.

The state of tin has changed with overheating.
But it must be said that all this happens in a heating phase during tinning. Heats copper pickled until tinning until overheated.

But in the case of overheating a pot already tinned, can this state of overheating happen? Will the tin begin to melt and then become so hard that it will not melt? Does this state make tin hard then break when it will cool? Even if it's not visible to the eye?

This state of overheated tin has a name that I can not find in my folders, grrrrrrrrrrrr.

Regards, T.J.

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How to avoid melting the tin lining?

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