I preheated 44 pans…here's what I learned 

the little stickfig riding a leidenfrost droplet as it zooms and bounces around the pan is so cute!

I've always used an infrared temperature sensor gun (also doubles as a great cat distractor), and I was feeling pretty smug about having already solved this problem. Then you brought up how it doesn't work as well in my stainless steel pans, and I was forced to learn something new despite my best efforts. Good to know that it still works well with my cast irons pans.

Preheating on high is faster but leads to more uneven heating. Preheating at a lower temp leads to more of even preheating. You can visualize the difference by coating the pan in a fine layer of flour. If you're sauteeing, it doesn't matter but if I'm searing an expensive steak, I'll let my cast iron pan preheat on medium for a good 10 minutes and the sear is much more even.

Honestly, that moment in learning to cook where it leaves a recipe page and becomes instincts and flow is the most wonderful feeling ever.

Wooden chopsticks sizzle when oil is hot enough. That's what my mom always did and Mary's Test Kitchen uses that trick too.

My dad taught me to check the pan temp with a little bit of water as a kid. I'm not a great cook but his tips and tricks have helped immensely over the years.

I love watching RU-vidrs conduct really in-depth tests with commonly used things, and you do a great job! Lots of info, some comedy thrown in there, but always a structured video that's easy to follow and understand. It helps that I love cooking and am frustrated by many of the same things that frustrate you. That keeps me interested. Love your videos!

Fiery red presenter answers the burning question in the heat of the moment. And she throws a scalding looks on anyone still using teflon pans.

There's yet another method I use regularly: I look for the convection cell patterns in oil to estimate how hot the pan is. The cells become smaller the hotter the pan is. They're also an indicator of how evenly the pan is heated.

I found a weird loophole for heating up cast iron or carbon steel with my new induction stove. Because of the density and qualities of the materials, they heat up MUCH faster through induction.

i always wait for those few first wisps of smoke. always works well. protip: if youre sauteeing onions, put them in with the cold oil, as the oil heats up they will begin to sizzle. no need to guess anything.

For those who are concerned, teflon pans are still quite hard to mess up. They release fumes around 300 celsius, or 570 Fahrenheit, which you should not reach unless you leave a pan on a hot burner and then forget about it. They won't reach those temperatures unless they're on the burner for several minutes after they reach any reasonable cooking temperature, or if you use them in something other than a typical stove (e.g. a pizza oven). And if you leave some oil or butter in the pan they will take even longer, while giving you an indication that the pan has exceeded normal cooking temperatures. Even if you create these fumes, it's unlikely to cause much concern. They're much more dangerous to certain pets, especially birds. There's a famous case report in the British Medical Journal about a young healthy Japanese man who put a teflon pan on a burner and then took a nap. He woke up 5 hours later to a room filled with white smoke. Much of the coating on the pan was burnt off and he admitted to inhaling a large plume of the fumes. He was given oxygen and observed carefully, as he had a fever and laboured breathing. These symptoms dramatically reduced the next day, and then disappeared; he was discharged in fine health 3 days after admission. He may well get lasting health effects, and Teflon fumes can absolutely be deadly in higher concentrations or with chronic exposure. But I think this is frankly the worst case scenario for home cooks and it seems like the guy was mostly fine. Seeing as we should hopefully already know not to leave a burner (especially a gas burner as was the case for this young man) unattended for 5 hours, I'm not sure that this represents a good reason to avoid preheating teflon pans.

I learned more in the last ~7 minutes than I have in years. Thanks for this.

If using induction pans, my induction hotplate has timer and temperature function. Just set the temp and when ready, either continue cooking on the hotplate or transfer to my gas stove for wok hei

My mother had an intuition about food and cooking. She never used a thermometer unless she was making candy or jarring jam. I don't know if it was experience or some special sense she was born with but everything she made was always delicious. Even her experiments! As a family we cycled through dozens of favorites over the years. No thermometers, just eyeballing techniques like yours.

My grandma does the water method. It’s cool how some old tricks can be backed my science

Deep frying is also a special case, as you need to preheat the oil as well as the surface. My grandma showed me a trick where you take a thumbnail-sized piece of white bread and drop it in the (supposedly) preheated oil. You're ready to fry if the bread browns to a dark leather brown in less than a minute. Otherwise, keep heating.

Also, depending on the type of stove, if you move the Laser thermo gauge around in the pan there are large differences in the temps of different areas.

I became acutely aware of how long it takes to really preheat a pan when I impulsively bought a 100% ceramic pan. The instructions were very clear about gently preheating the empty pan in order to create a prepare a nonstick surface for when you add the oil. I didn’t wait long enough the first time or two and created an eggy mess that I had to scrub off. I was really upset that I had spent $$$ on a useless pan. But I overcame that and the next time I used it, I heated it on low heat for 5 minutes and on medium-ish for another 5. It became a beautifully nonstick pan that I use all the time now. Not for a quick fried egg, I’m not waiting 10 minutes for my pan to heat, but I love it for foods that need a good time in the pan. Am I happy with my ceramic pans (I bought two on a whim)? Yes. Would I buy the entire set? No. It’s too expensive, and there’s cheaper options that work just as well.

I used to not preheat my cast iron, and the main downside I noticed is that the seasoning slowly wore off so I had to re-season it all the time. Nowadays I use a paper towel to coat it with a thin layer of oil before turning on the stove. I'll let it start smoking, turn the heat down so it doesn't get too hot, and let it smoke for about a minute before adding more oil and start cooking. This both adds a layer of seasoning every time I cook, and it gives me a starting temperature of about 210c based on the smoke point of the oil (canola), though it will obviously drop a bit immediately after adding the colder food. If you want even more accuracy you could pick an oil with a smoke point closer to the desired cooking temperature. Usually that is good enough for most food I'd cook on cast iron. Eggs is an exception, but that is something I'd rather use a non-stick pan for anyway.

5:11 Seeing the tiny drawing of Kate bouncing around is really cute and made me giggle

Another aspect that can affect heat time of a pan is the level of seasoning the pan has embedded into it, particularly when talking about cast iron or low carbon steel. I was confused why your carbon steel pan was heating slower than the stainless, which heat up slower due to the excess amount of non-conductive elements in it, until I realized the carbon pan must be very either heavily seasoned or much thicker than the stainless. Also, the seasoning of the pan is the reason why teflon pans take so long to heat up, because teflon is non-reactive and heats at a different rate than the metal.

Because I only have and use three (stainless steel) pans, I have come to know the moment they are ready for the variety of foods I use by hovering my hand above the surface for a few seconds. A collector of vintage cast iron, which I have packed away since moving, I am somewhat reluctant to try it out on my new-to-me stovetop! I'll be brave right after Holiday cooking is over, lol.

Great video. The dancing ball trick is a game changer. I have used the oil trick and would not heat all the oil till smoking, as it will start to taste bitter by that point. For the oil trick, add a little oil and when that smokes then add the rest and start cooking.

Such a good channel ! Accurate and to the point informations with cute little animations, I love your work !

Next ideas: Does food taste different if used by different materials (metal/ bamboo/ wood/ hand) ie chopsticks, containers, etc. My Indonesian & Nepal friends said that eating with clean fingers makes food taste better haha!! The Japanese prefer to use bamboo-made containers (whisk, matcha scooper) n utensils to handle their high quality matcha! & what’s the difference between seaweeds: kelp (kombu), wakane, etc etc

I've found the infrared guns to work pretty well with stainless steel after putting the oil in. I leave it heat for 30 seconds or so then put oil in then measure. Thanks for the vid!

THIS VIDEO!!👏 I've been cooking for almost 30 years and only recently learned how to heat my pan properly.

I love this! Would love a supplementary video explaining WHY we preheat ovens/airfryers? Would like to know if it's a food sanitation necessity or just enhances food quality (like how the beginning of this video with the pan)? Is the science a little bit different between cooking and baking foods? Is there an environmental impact from not preheating your cooking tools (for example, less oven time if you start cold cooking)?

it's so nice to have a scientific explanation for the thing with the skating water that i've been using since the first time i ever made pancakes :)

The way I would do this is with a thermocouple and thermal adhesive or even just thermal paste. Also, measuring multiple places might be useful. OR, I think this is a possible but am not 100% sure, coat the pans in a non IR reflective paint and then you are free to use other methods as well.

I learned a hard lesson about emissivity many years ago while preheating two pans (one stainless, one cast iron) to sear large steaks in. I was sure the stainless pan wasn't hot enough because I couldn't feel the heat radiating off it, so I got it hotter...hotter...still hotter. Stupid cheap apartment coil range and its inconsistent burners! Anyway, the grapeseed oil immediately burst into towering flames.

That Leidenfrost clue is nice, because it does, what makes wet food not stick. But since it not works with fat, use a wooden spatula and check when it bubbles, in contact with the oil.

I discovered the Leidenfrost effect on our wood stove as a kid. Water will do it, snow won't, etc. I was experimenting and learning, trying to find out why water did that, until mom told me to stop torturing the water... Sigh

What recently surprised me was when I checked the temp of a cast iron dutch oven in my oven and discovered that it was somehow over 20c hotter than what the oven temp was supposed to be. I didn't have the fan on, and it was located in the very center of the oven. But somehow I'd still reached the smoke point for avocado oil despite the oven being only set to 240c. Later I lowered it down to 220c, but even then when I checked it with a infrared thermometer I was able to get a max reading of 275ish although thankfully the average seemed to be 250ish so maybe that 275ish was just unlucky. Still, I wasn't expecting it to get hotter than the oven's temp setting and now I no longer feel like I can trust my oven's temp setting.

This is why I love the Breville ControlFreak induction cooktop.. too bad its price makes it inaccessible for the average home cook.

Thanks for the info on pan heating times. But how much energy is wasted for sake of debatable differences in cooking results? In all my cooking, preheating is unecessary for quality results. It may be sufficient, but it really is a waste of energy.

Almost all oils have a high emissivity of around .95 good enough for your infrared thermometer to get a reading I got a thermal camera and it’s been amazing for consistency in the kitchen Is my pizza steel properly preheated ✅ Perfect temp for a fried egg ✅ How hot is that sugar for candied nuts without dirtying a candy thermometer ✅ Is the ice cream in my ice cream maker cold enough to put in the freezer✅ Is there hot spots in my pan or oven ✅ It seemed absurd and overkill to me until I spent some time working with the thermal camera but it’s been awesome. No more guesswork. It’s also had the side effect of giving me awareness of all the subtler signs of temperature in my kitchen

I learned so much. Thank you for explaining it in easy to understand terms!

Induction heats up much faster. By 90 seconds, most my pans are over 300 degrees. Demeyere 7 ply, Cast Iron, Nonstick pans - both small and medium. Large, it gets 300 in the center and sides are a bit cooler. And I can stop the heat immediately by lifting an inch.

Temperature of sides of iron pan is also important. Slow the heat to let the thermal mass of the pan load up with heat.

I'm a culinary professional (allegedly), I usually work a sauté station. My food at work always turns out well, but my home cooking always sucked and I could never quite figure out why. It turned out it was the difference in volume of heat produced between a commercial gas range, and literally anything available in a home. You put a carbon steel french pan on a commercial gas range at full blast, it's ready to go in like 20 seconds. You get used to that when you do it 10 hours a day. Even red hot, an electric range simply can't produce near the same BTUs. Home gas ranges aren't any better, it's not even the same league. You *really* have to let those pans soak in that heat. Even when you think it's hot enough, give it another 45 seconds. Once I figured that out, the food I make at home became much, much better.

Maybe a bit big, but would be interested to hear you break down the advantage of gas vs electric vs induction and all of that. Wonder if they also affect the preheat times... Could see induction doing well based on my limited experience

I had to figure this out when I started using copper lined with tin. I'm wary of preheating even a minute because the copper heats up incredibly fast and tin will melt at 450F. Luckily tin is very naturally nonstick so I usually add the oil and food way before the pan is hot enough.

I haven't watched the video but I usually start on high heat then after a minute decrease to medium. Preheating on medium takes forever, so I only do that if I know I need a few minutes to prep. I know it's not the best for my pans but they're cheap pans and I'm a pretty busy cook. Plus I'd rather not wait too long because I know I'll forget about it and that's just dangerous

I have a 10in cast iron skillet. On my gas stove at med-low, the right temp for eggs, is medium toast. What I mean by this is I start my pan and my toast at the same time. When the toast pops up the pan is hot enough for the eggs to cook just right.

Excellent video. Only one objection, and I usually have several on in-depth cooking 'stuff' like this: scrambled eggs should be cooked closer to 180F for ideal soft scramble. If you want an American scramble or an omelette, you can start at a higher temperature.

if your oil smokes even a tiny bit you should dump the oil wash the pan and restart because thats the only way to get the burnt flavor out. if your oil is smoking but the pan inst that hot, you need to change oils to something more refined. More refined oil = higher smoke point as a general rule because there is less organic matter to actually burn

Just add the oil at the start and check if it is shimmering. When the oil is hot, the pan is hot.

first 1 or 2 thing cooked on cast iron will always fail unless if you have "seasoned" pan after washing with light coating of oil ... i have seen videos of south indian dosa cooking where flat surface of big onion cut into half is seared on surfaced to make cast iron griddle non-stick ... first 1 or 2 indian savory pancakes* (*they are called chila,made from chickpea flour batter) too fail if griddle has been freshly washed ... ditto for shallow fried indian flat breads like paratha / thepla because (at least in home cooking setting) less grease is used

The emissivity of cooking oil is quite high. Adding you're going to be oiling your pan anyway, you can just go ahead and put a small amount of oil in there and use your IR thermometer as normal.

Thank you for answering something I have been curious about

I almost always just use the water technique and it’s worked for me so far

Nice video, very good information! I always use the waterdrop method, quick and pretty reliable

*I like to use the leidenfrost effect*

Incorrectly done: carbon steel has a much higher thermal conductivity than stainless steel or cast iron, and the entire pan gets hot due to it, which makes it seem as if a point is “cooler” when temperature is taken, but the pan is definitely heating faster than cast iron or stainless steel, it’s just more even.

I'm kind of amazed pans with built in thermistor arrays aren't more common. Maybe I'll pitch it.

PS: You ever think about doing a Minute Food cookbook? I'd buy one!

Hey!! You guys should try explaining the biochemistry and microbiology behind fruit yeast water :DD

where's the description about the smoke point of different oils?

Thanks for the breakdown! I’ve heard recently that even waiting to add your oil to a pre-heated pan (as opposed to heating the oil with the pan) can prevent sticking, but I don’t know how that would work. Any insight?

what about just resting a thermocouple against the pan? That should be reasonably accurate, especially with a thin layer of oil on there already to help transfer the heat to the sensor?

"Eat It" by Weird Al: Eat it (eat it), eat it (eat it), If it's getting cold, reheat it

I just dampen my skillet before putting in on the burner. Once it's fully dried, I can be confident that it's hot enough

Induction is the way to go for fastest heat up and instant heat off.

Add small amount of cooking oil, and watch as it shimmers. That means its ready. Doesnt have ti be too complicated.

Yeah, I pointed my thermal camera at a hit shiny pan and all it could see was my IR reflection in it lol.

very useful video! subscribed!

"held hand over", usually it's I forgot the cast iron was hot and grabbed it 😂

knowing the smoking point is the oil breaking down, i've wondered if looking for signs of smoking means "it's too late and there's bad components in the pan" especially since i know if i put some cold meat in the center i wonder if there's still oil "dying" along the hot uncovered areas. but then...i heard of breath of the wok and wondered if a little bit of this break down might be something desirable...?

I almost always cook on cast iron, so I just long yao before cooking every time, then I know it's about 400 because that's my oil's smoke point, and it seasons the pan a little before cooking, making it more nonstick

sounds like a project using an audrino pid controller and a temperature probe. Or technically you can just jail break your sous vide to work with higher temperature and use oil as the heat transfer medium. perfect temperature every time. Shouldn't be too hard to do

smoke is the best estimate

The visual cues also don’t necessarily need to be translated into a number. I don’t know of any recipe that tells you how hot a pan needs to be. I know recipes that say heat the oil until it smokes.

It’s still crazy to me how many people are worried about overheating a non stick pan on a stovetop burner. You almost have to be intentional to get it hot enough on a burner. Oven is a different story

MY GOD i´ve the best food channel

Preheating on an induction stovetop is scary. I once managed to get a saucepan red hot in 10-ish seconds because I forgot to add water.

I hope you don't mind I screenshot your temperature chart I will print it out thanks!!!

Health effects on oil reaching smoke point?

2:51 Can you tell how hot your pan is by looking the oil in the pan? Smoke coming off or how it interacts with the utensils.... 5:54 Ok, you did mention that. Half way through the video i was thinking, i never had this problem. The oil always tell me how hot my pan is...

🤣 Welcome in that world of Teflon-less pain😛

There are visual cues that have been established over thousands of years without digital technology. Dancing water is one of them for heat. The human instinct to recognize patterns in nature over time and teach that knowledge to future generations. No re-inventing any wheel. Just learning what we should have been taught by our parents. However in just a few decades, Society, culture, media, and capitalism has changed all this to disconnect us from our natural resources so we become reliant on spending money to survive because we can't fix our plumbing, grow our own food and animals to eat. Other cultures and countries have not lost this knowlege and are living better than us on less.

usually look for oil shimmer

Aluminium is also risky for health. Not only the teflon.

Smoking oil tends to produce dangerous chemicals that you probably didn't really want to eat. The only time I want my oil smoking is when I'm seasoning cast iron -- I don't intend to eat that oil but to make a nice black coating out of it.

then comes the wok and making fried rice, where you try and master -preheating -motion of the ingredients -intensity of the flames at different timing all based on visual, smell and sound. i still fail at making good fried rice. i can hear him say "failure".

So to test if my pan is hot enough to quickly evaporate water, i basically just throw in a few drops of water and see if it quickly evaporates. Works every time. Note: Do NOT do this after putting oil in the pan.

A lot of recipes do call out specific temperature cues so…

This is both the hottest and coolest thing I ever learned about cooking. Congrats! You should do a crossover with Alton Brown, who taught me 100 great things about the science of cooking, but not this one!

Master chefs and Good cooks know whatever you discussed here¡😅

use an induction burner with thermostat. No thermometer gun needed.

I... Didn't realize pre heating was for pans too, I've only ever noticed that in baked goods 😂

I do not wrry about it. I do watch my wok. When it smokes, then I add the oil.

I often use water droplets to test the temperature in the pan, depending on how fast they evaporate, you can gauge the temperature. If the water droplets "float" like an air hockey puck, then you are above 193 °C, witch is a very useful temperature for some preparations.

My go to method to check if the pan is hot is to throw a bit of water in it.

I like aluminum pans but i hate the dangers of them, do they make like.. enamel aluminum?

Not including teflon kinda excludes almost 50% of people though who only have teflon pans. Then saying they can be toxic, but not explaining why and how to avoid it seems a bit unfair. I mean not having your pan release toxic chemicals seems more important then cooking a bit better meal

Teflon is for old people who can’t lift heavier pans

It is acutally really hard to over heat a non stic pan

Cold pan scrambled eggs highly recommend