My friend Greg and I were yakking at lunch the other day. The conversation
came around to the subject of breaking glass or ceramic cookware by thermal
shock. (Get it really hot and toss it in cold water, etc...)
We decided that was yet another reason that cast iron cookware is nice.

But then we thought about it some more, (Wierd stuff usually transpires
when Greg & I get thinking) and wondered if it WOULD be possible to
break cast iron by thermal shock. We figured that it would take pretty
extreme conditions but that it might just barely be possible.

Anyone have any thoughts or anecdotes on the matter?

/************************************************** *******************/
Jim Wygralak Public key at http://tinyurl.com/5dju3
OpenPGP (gpg) signed messages get a free ride past my spam filters.
Bumperstickers for your coffee cup: http://www.cupclings.com

Yes if genuine cast iron.

No it does not take extreme conditions. A cast iron frypan into cold
water is all it takes.

Hell, yes!

That is the reason for the admonition not to add water to an overheated
engine unless it is running. You can most definitely crack cast iron
by immersion in water. In fact, you can crack it by simply heating it
too fast. I toasted a forge pan that way.

V

() wrote in :


My friend Greg and I were yakking at lunch the other day. The
conversation came around to the subject of breaking glass or ceramic
cookware by thermal shock. (Get it really hot and toss it in cold
water, etc...) We decided that was yet another reason that cast iron
cookware is nice.

But then we thought about it some more, (Wierd stuff usually
transpires when Greg & I get thinking) and wondered if it WOULD be
possible to break cast iron by thermal shock. We figured that it would
take pretty extreme conditions but that it might just barely be
possible.

Anyone have any thoughts or anecdotes on the matter?


Yes, you can break most things with heat/cold.....Delta T (change in
temperature)
What actually goes on is, the change in temperature pulls the material
apart.
If the delta T is enough, as one section/layer/area cools, it shrinks,
when this shrinkage pull becomes greater than the strength of the
material itself, it pulls apart. If I remember my physics correctly.

--
Anthony

You can't 'idiot proof' anything....every time you try, they just make
better idiots.

Remove sp to reply via email

wrote:


My friend Greg and I were yakking at lunch the other day. The conversation
came around to the subject of breaking glass or ceramic cookware by
thermal shock. (Get it really hot and toss it in cold water, etc...)
We decided that was yet another reason that cast iron cookware is nice.

But then we thought about it some more, (Wierd stuff usually transpires
when Greg & I get thinking) and wondered if it WOULD be possible to
break cast iron by thermal shock. We figured that it would take pretty
extreme conditions but that it might just barely be possible.

Anyone have any thoughts or anecdotes on the matter?

Did that to a cast iron griddle once when I was young and trying to cook
something. Was really hot and cracked clean across--managed to set the
contents on fire and tossed it in the sink to put it out. My mother was
_not_ amused.

Another lesson--if you run water into hot steel or aluminum pan sometimes
the bottom will develop a curvature and the pan won't sit flat anymore.



/************************************************** *******************/
Jim Wygralak Public key at http://tinyurl.com/5dju3
OpenPGP (gpg) signed messages get a free ride past my spam filters.
Bumperstickers for your coffee cup: http://www.cupclings.com

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

"J. Clarke" wrote:
Another lesson--if you run water into hot steel or aluminum pan sometimes
the bottom will develop a curvature and the pan won't sit flat anymore.

With the advent of the internet comes a number of pans put on the stove and
left unattended for "just a minute" while email is checked, et cetera. In
theory, this works fine; in practice, it leads to burnt pans. After a few
of these, I discovered that cold water in the hot pan would reduce the
amount of discoloration and resultant lack of smoothness in the pan.

Of course, the cold water in hot pan technique had quite unexpected results
on a copper bottom SS pan:
http://66.36.231.224/~jonnycat/Ecko.jpg

Jon

In article ,
"Jon Danniken" wrote:

"J. Clarke" wrote:
Another lesson--if you run water into hot steel or aluminum pan sometimes
the bottom will develop a curvature and the pan won't sit flat anymore.

With the advent of the internet comes a number of pans put on the stove and
left unattended for "just a minute" while email is checked, et cetera. In
theory, this works fine; in practice, it leads to burnt pans. After a few
of these, I discovered that cold water in the hot pan would reduce the
amount of discoloration and resultant lack of smoothness in the pan.

Of course, the cold water in hot pan technique had quite unexpected results
on a copper bottom SS pan:
http://66.36.231.224/~jonnycat/Ecko.jpg

Jon


Without chasing the link, I'm gonna hazard a guess that you ended up
with a two-piece pan (and although you say "unexpected", I coulda told
ya that without trashing the cookware - It's simple physics in action.)

--
Don Bruder - - If your "From:" address isn't on my whitelist,
or the subject of the message doesn't contain the exact text "PopperAndShadow"
somewhere, any message sent to this address will go in the garbage without my
ever knowing it arrived. Sorry... http://www.sonic.net/~dakidd for more info

Don Bruder wrote:

In article ,
"Jon Danniken" wrote:

"J. Clarke" wrote:
Another lesson--if you run water into hot steel or aluminum pan
sometimes the bottom will develop a curvature and the pan won't sit
flat anymore.

With the advent of the internet comes a number of pans put on the stove
and
left unattended for "just a minute" while email is checked, et cetera.
In
theory, this works fine; in practice, it leads to burnt pans. After a
few of these, I discovered that cold water in the hot pan would reduce
the amount of discoloration and resultant lack of smoothness in the pan.

Of course, the cold water in hot pan technique had quite unexpected
results on a copper bottom SS pan:
http://66.36.231.224/~jonnycat/Ecko.jpg

Jon


Without chasing the link, I'm gonna hazard a guess that you ended up
with a two-piece pan (and although you say "unexpected", I coulda told
ya that without trashing the cookware - It's simple physics in action.)

I shudder to think what happens to one of those "sandwich" pans that has an
aluminum core between two steel surfaces.



--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Jon Danniken wrote:
"J. Clarke" wrote:
Another lesson--if you run water into hot steel or aluminum pan sometimes
the bottom will develop a curvature and the pan won't sit flat anymore.

With the advent of the internet comes a number of pans put on the stove and
left unattended for "just a minute" while email is checked, et cetera. In
theory, this works fine; in practice, it leads to burnt pans. After a few
of these, I discovered that cold water in the hot pan would reduce the
amount of discoloration and resultant lack of smoothness in the pan.

Of course, the cold water in hot pan technique had quite unexpected results
on a copper bottom SS pan:
http://66.36.231.224/~jonnycat/Ecko.jpg

So what happened? I cannot tell from the picture.

Lodge (maker of cast iron cookware) warms about heating or cooling their stuff too fast as it may crack. I heat my griddle slowly as it's fairly large and can take a while to heat up at the edges.


Jon

"Cydrome Leader" wrote:
Jon Danniken wrote:

Of course, the cold water in hot pan technique had quite unexpected
results
on a copper bottom SS pan:
http://66.36.231.224/~jonnycat/Ecko.jpg

So what happened? I cannot tell from the picture.

Lodge (maker of cast iron cookware) warms about heating or cooling
their stuff too fast as it may crack. I heat my griddle slowly as it's
fairly large and can take a while to heat up at the edges.

That dimple just above the Ecko is convex in that perspective, projecting
about 1/2" from the normal plane. It recovered with a few well placed blows
(with the interior braced on a post), but it was kind of funny how it popped
out like that (at least to me).

Jon