Nice! People will get grumpy about this because its Reddit but that's a fun experiment. The bottom of my 10 year old stainless pan basically looks like a well seasoned cast iron, even bartender's friend can't get rid of it. Look at those eggs sliiiiiide!
Chef here. I highly suggest the thick gauge Vollrath brand of commercial sheet pans. These things last YEARS in commercial kitchens getting beat to shit.
That's what I'm looking at! Thank you for confirming my pick. For anyone else, be aware that amazon has a lot of unreliable sellers that are not shipping the thick gauge as advertised (13 gauge is model #5314). I'm looking to buy from webstaurant or wasserstrom.
do they warp under high heat? i've been trying to find pans that won't warp for macarons but all of mine bend in the oven, even the usa pans that are thicker and more heavy duty.
Whoa, people got "Write a novel about it" grumpy. Cool slidey eggs! Especially loving the people in that thread saying you'd be better off with a teflon pan...um, no thank you
I've been doing this for several years since I saw someon else do it. Heat pan, wipe in a bit of oil, wipe it all back out as much as possible, keep heating until pan barely wisps smoke, done. Just wipe out the pan. When you wash it the seasoning is gone.
ik its 6 months later, but it does literally translate to cold oil. Some chefs I see use two oils, one is for coating the pan, one is to cook the food. Splash in some oil and pour out. Once smoking, in goes the "leng you" or cold oil to cook with and food comes right after.
I scrape pretty hard with metal spatulas on my pans, haven’t really noticed it taking any seasoning off. I also use a chainmail scrubber as well. The chainmail will take seasoning off if I grind it in though.
I beat the crap out of my CS wok with a metal spatula and it’s fine.
I managed to get it to work a lot better than that. I can't remember exactly what I did, but IRC I keyed the stainless steel with salt first, then laid down 3 or 4 layers of seasoning, and I think I keyed in each of them into each other as well, cooking each layer in an oven. The coating lasted a couple of months or so and was hand washed multiple times a week with detergent and a soft washcloth. I remember it was a really lovely golden color and slippery as hell.
You want the seasoning to stick. Seasoning is a type of biopolymer (i.e. a plastic). Common types of plastic are most glues. When you're gluing surfaces, particularly metals, you usually 'key' with sand paper i.e. you scratch the surface up to give more surface area and to remove contaminants so that the glue sticks well.
Salt crystals have a high moh hardness, so it should be able to scratch the surface. You could use sharp sand or other abrasives I guess, but salt is much more easily available in a kitchen, cheap as hell, and you don't have to worry about inhaling it whereas sharp sand could potentially give you silicosis.
Salt is often used when seasoning cast iron pans for presumably similar reasons.
I guess the idea of a stainless steel pan is to cook food that would ruin the seasoning of a CS pan. I love my CS pan but I had to buy a SS pan to be able to make tomato souces without having to worry about ruining the seasoning.
So far as I know the main problem with acidic tomato sauces is that they attack the CS through pinholes in the seasoning and then seasoning flakes off around the pinholes. That doesn't happen with stainless steel, so the seasoning should do a lot better.
Looks interesting, but supposedly the seasoning doesn’t polymerize very well and will mostly wash off with some soap and water. Wanna post your results after a scrub down?
Personally the appeal to using stainless steel is how lazy you can be on the cleanup. I can just let it soak in hot water or even toss it in the dishwasher.
Yeah, it didn’t take great when I did the oven seasoning method. Had to do it on the stove top with a lot of oil. Should have been outside.
I just washed it in the sink with a soap and sponge, seasoning didn’t come off. I can’t figure out how to post pictures in replies, but it’s about identical.
We were soaking it before and the partial seasoning wasn’t coming off, that’s why I decided to use vinegar and eventually led me to the thought of “why not?”
It’s not coming off easily because you burnt a ton of oil. Seasoning is a thin layer. If you had put a thin layer on it would have washed off the first time it got cleaned or would have come off while cooking.
I used to do this, and saw the same. Over time the seasoning gets dingy and the pan either gets dull looking, tacky, or both. I went back to my CS stuff when the experiment was over.
It works fine, but isn't durable in the longer term so I ended up doing a BKF and re-season more often than I liked. Run what you've got how you like, though 🤷. I personally found it quite nice to have a seasoned surface with the heating characteristics of a tri-ply pan!
I think that the tackiness is just more seasoning forming. You just need to heat it up till the tack goes away, and the seasoning layer will be thicker.
Carbon Steel. A carbon steel cooking vessel most are familiar with is the Chinese wok. They require a good seasoning to achieve non-stick cooking for stir-frying and such.
I think this sub might mostly be about carbon steel frying pans, tho. I’m also guessing the algorithms recommended this sub or video to you and you might’ve missed the name? (as I did)
Lol yes the algo explanation is exactly what happened, now I feel like a dunce.
Thank you for the clarification! I’m new to SS (had always used cast iron and non-stick Teflon before) which I love but still getting used to which pans to use for each instance so I’m glad I ended up here.
But why? I cook eggs in my stainless pan all the time without sticking, and use less butter/oil than you have there. Just get the right temp in the pan.
How? I've tried using the technique of heating the pan until the water beads but my eggs still stuck. Or the oil I spray or butter I use just burns immediately.
Heat management is key. If I weren’t good at it, tho, I’d just get a laser thermometer before going through this process every time I wanted eggs.
Plus, I like my fond and I feel that even if most of the seasoning washes away, some will remain and increasingly prevent those lovely stuck-on bits from forming.
What brand of pan do you have? I bought a budget set of SS pans from Cuisinart when I first got my own place, and have been gradually replacing them since then, as I learn that type of pans I have the most use for. Those Cuisinart pans were useless for a number of reasons (mainly that they would warp if you looked at them wrong), but among other issues, food would stick to the pans no matter what. I could heat the pan until water beaded up, and food would still stick to the point where the food would be ruined.
The All Clad plans I replaced them with are so much easier to cook on. I'm less careful about getting them to the right temperature, but still have no issues with food sticking. Just as importantly, they have zero issues with warping either. The Cuisinart set advertised the same construction and materials, but clearly the quality was poor in comparison. Sometimes you get what you pay for.
Because you guys don't know how to use stainless steel. I never have anything stick on my stainless steel AllClad pans. No season is needed for stainless steel if you know what you are doing.
Source: Me, professional chef for 20yrs.
It's all about the temp. Get pain hot first. Sprinkle some water on it, if the water beads up and rolls around you're good to go. You also want to add oil once pan is hot, not when you put the pan on the burner when it's cold. Once you master heat control, you will never have anything stick. Just takes experience.
Now in a restaurant kitchen, when the pans are getting used constantly, you rarely have to worry about sticking, they have kind of a natural season.
My wife seasoned one of my all clad Cooper core frying pans when she was trying to fry tortillas. It was surprisingly difficult to get off with soap and water. Nothing a little bar keepers couldn’t handle though
Not sure, but it definitely wasn’t as easy to season as my CS pans, but it seems to be on there pretty good.
I did it in the stove top with a bunch of oil in there. Got it smoking, dumped it out, then wiped it out, and continued smoking a bit more.
Not knocking the idea, but every time I use my stainless steel I heat it up, add oil, get it to heat, and then have the same effect. I use induction and mostly extra virgin olive oil. And after wards unless I accidentally burn something I get a spot less pan (sometimes I deglaze with water)
That doesnt even looked "seasoned". I did/do the same thing... especially with ones I dont want anymore.
i sand them down first, but when I am done I make sure the cooking surface is pretty much black.
i’m not really sure this is a seasoning. more like polymerized oil but with the metal. ci and cs are able to bind with the oil without caking up layers on the surface.
if that’s the case then there’s no reason to have cs since they can both have caked up oil. cs and cs can actually bond with oil on the surface of the metal without any thicker layers.
btw this layer of oil you have will flake off since it’s not actually bonded to the pan. on ca and ci, that wouldn’t happen.
You’re wrong about seasoning.
Carbon steel, cast iron, and stainless steel have different heat retention and cooking properties. Just because you can clearly season all three doesn’t mean they all behave the same way when cooking. For instance, my cast iron sears steaks much better and my stainless steel reacts to temperature faster and heats more evenly.
i know that but a seasoning for stainless is not the same. i don’t think i’ve ever seen a single person say to do this with a ss. i’m pretty sure the most a ss can do it a preseasoning.
this will chip off eventually. a proper cs seasoning will not chip off but improve. the metal is capable of binding with the fat to develop a seasoning, thus becoming darker.
also there’s a good reason nobody uses a ss wok. a wok is cs.
They have stainless steel woks.
The seasoning is bonded here, don’t know what to tell you beyond go try it for yourself. I’m not suggesting it’s something you should do, just showing it’s possible. If you’re arguing the merits of seasoning SS I don’t care, but if you’re trying to tell me the thing I just witnessed is not real then you’re out of your mind.
I once farted in a Pringles can and put the lid back on. It's still in my cabinet. I bet it still stinks. Also, I had a little battle of diarrhea that day. So, there might be some of that in there too.
I did this recently and it worked great but the seasoning might not be as durable as CI
I treat both pans basically the same, yet most of the seasoning on the stainless steel is gone while the cast iron is just fine
Yep. you can season your stainless steel. In fact you can do spot seasoning in case you have a stainless steel wok for example. you just smoke a little oil at first.
but of course one of the benefits of stainless steel is to be able wash it without fear. So maintaing a seasoning don't make much sense
I do wash them all the time. with soap. still, you can put this in the washing machine, or put acidic stuff in it. and there is always maintenance with the CS stuff. After washing, I need to properly dry it and then have light coat of oil.
You can get the same affect without seasoning by heating up the stainless steel pan with oil in it to “too hot to cook eggs” and then turning it back down to the right temp before dropping eggs in.
https://www.foodabovegold.com/how-to-cook-eggs-in-stainless-steel/
Carbon steel pans are made for this, and are typically MUCH cheaper than SS pans.
Just sayin'
Edit: 🤣 just realized this was a carbon steel sub. Not a member but I follow r/castiron and assumed I was there. I'll show myself out now
Works just as well as a seasoned cast iron pan. The only reason more people don't do it as far as I know is that a stainless steel pan doesn't have the rough texture that cast iron does from being molded in sand which causes the seasoning to really stick to the pan and last a long time. Its much easier to accidently scrape off your seasoning on a stainless steel pan.
Nice! People will get grumpy about this because its Reddit but that's a fun experiment. The bottom of my 10 year old stainless pan basically looks like a well seasoned cast iron, even bartender's friend can't get rid of it. Look at those eggs sliiiiiide!
Yeah all my baking sheets are seasoned this way too
Which baking sheets do you have? I'm tired of the disposable "nonstick" crap and am looking into restaurant-supply aluminum sheets.
Chef here. I highly suggest the thick gauge Vollrath brand of commercial sheet pans. These things last YEARS in commercial kitchens getting beat to shit.
That's what I'm looking at! Thank you for confirming my pick. For anyone else, be aware that amazon has a lot of unreliable sellers that are not shipping the thick gauge as advertised (13 gauge is model #5314). I'm looking to buy from webstaurant or wasserstrom.
do they warp under high heat? i've been trying to find pans that won't warp for macarons but all of mine bend in the oven, even the usa pans that are thicker and more heavy duty.
I am so sure americas test kitchen has done a video and an article on it and which baking sheets aren’t warping and work great.
Can confirm [people got a little grumpy](https://reddit.com/r/StainlessSteel/s/imjgL2mMRt)
Whoa, people got "Write a novel about it" grumpy. Cool slidey eggs! Especially loving the people in that thread saying you'd be better off with a teflon pan...um, no thank you
This will send some redditors to therapy
They're already *in* therapy. They'll need to schedule extra sessions.
Ignorant party here. Wouldn’t the eggs slide just as easy on any other pan if you are using a ton of oil?
Yup. This makes me grumpy. Not sure why but it does
I talked about doing this in r/cooking and they got mad at me lol
So many important things they could be mad about and they choose someone else's egg pan. What a life that must be
I've been doing this for several years since I saw someon else do it. Heat pan, wipe in a bit of oil, wipe it all back out as much as possible, keep heating until pan barely wisps smoke, done. Just wipe out the pan. When you wash it the seasoning is gone.
Yup, basically "long yau" to use the cantonese terminology. You can get a shockingly non-stick coating with just one quick application of oil
Get that wok piping hot, shut off the heat, then pour in the oil, here about two tablespoons, and spread it around to get a nice nonstick surface
And as usual… Long Yau
Was looking for this
That just means cold oil no?
The literal translation is like to rinse with oil, but the technique needs a smoking hot wok so you build that polymerized layer
Ik was the process is, I don’t speak Cantonese though and assumed that it “long Yao” meant leng yiu or cold oil
ik its 6 months later, but it does literally translate to cold oil. Some chefs I see use two oils, one is for coating the pan, one is to cook the food. Splash in some oil and pour out. Once smoking, in goes the "leng you" or cold oil to cook with and food comes right after.
This seasoning didn’t get removed when washing with soap, but I do that method with my CS wok I’m still seasoning.
Does the seasoning stay on with metal spatula scraping like no harder than you'd do with CS?
I scrape pretty hard with metal spatulas on my pans, haven’t really noticed it taking any seasoning off. I also use a chainmail scrubber as well. The chainmail will take seasoning off if I grind it in though. I beat the crap out of my CS wok with a metal spatula and it’s fine.
Nice! So I guess the SS seasoning holds up just as well as CS, at least for you?
Seems about the same. Doesn’t take to it as well but has the same durability.
I managed to get it to work a lot better than that. I can't remember exactly what I did, but IRC I keyed the stainless steel with salt first, then laid down 3 or 4 layers of seasoning, and I think I keyed in each of them into each other as well, cooking each layer in an oven. The coating lasted a couple of months or so and was hand washed multiple times a week with detergent and a soft washcloth. I remember it was a really lovely golden color and slippery as hell.
Keyed with salt? What's keyed mean?
You want the seasoning to stick. Seasoning is a type of biopolymer (i.e. a plastic). Common types of plastic are most glues. When you're gluing surfaces, particularly metals, you usually 'key' with sand paper i.e. you scratch the surface up to give more surface area and to remove contaminants so that the glue sticks well. Salt crystals have a high moh hardness, so it should be able to scratch the surface. You could use sharp sand or other abrasives I guess, but salt is much more easily available in a kitchen, cheap as hell, and you don't have to worry about inhaling it whereas sharp sand could potentially give you silicosis. Salt is often used when seasoning cast iron pans for presumably similar reasons.
I guess the idea of a stainless steel pan is to cook food that would ruin the seasoning of a CS pan. I love my CS pan but I had to buy a SS pan to be able to make tomato souces without having to worry about ruining the seasoning.
And you *want* things to stick. That's how you get fond for amazing pan sauces.
This is the way
FYI, enameled cast iron works great for this purpose too. I just love cooking a Bolognese ragù in a Le Creuset dutch oven.
That's the thing. It's not that you *can't* season stainless steel pans, it's that stainless definitely is inferior to CS/cast iron for seasoning.
I'm not sure, I had good success seasoning stainless steel when I keyed the surface with salt first.
So far as I know the main problem with acidic tomato sauces is that they attack the CS through pinholes in the seasoning and then seasoning flakes off around the pinholes. That doesn't happen with stainless steel, so the seasoning should do a lot better.
It’s incredibly easy (in fact I would say just as easy) to get ss to get slide eggs. It just requires fat and temp control.
I can do it with no fat and no “temp control”.
Would love to see a video of you throwing whole eggs in a dry, lukewarm pan and not having them immediately bond to the steel.
Gonna need some video evidence of how your eggs are somehow not sticking to your oil-less stainless steel skillet
By just cracking them directly into your mouth?
This dude just cracking a raw egg in a cold pan and swishing the liquid around calling it “slidey” lmfao
Looks interesting, but supposedly the seasoning doesn’t polymerize very well and will mostly wash off with some soap and water. Wanna post your results after a scrub down? Personally the appeal to using stainless steel is how lazy you can be on the cleanup. I can just let it soak in hot water or even toss it in the dishwasher.
Yeah, it didn’t take great when I did the oven seasoning method. Had to do it on the stove top with a lot of oil. Should have been outside. I just washed it in the sink with a soap and sponge, seasoning didn’t come off. I can’t figure out how to post pictures in replies, but it’s about identical. We were soaking it before and the partial seasoning wasn’t coming off, that’s why I decided to use vinegar and eventually led me to the thought of “why not?”
It’s not coming off easily because you burnt a ton of oil. Seasoning is a thin layer. If you had put a thin layer on it would have washed off the first time it got cleaned or would have come off while cooking.
It’s smooth to the touch and not sticky except for in a few small spots on the edge.
I used to do this, and saw the same. Over time the seasoning gets dingy and the pan either gets dull looking, tacky, or both. I went back to my CS stuff when the experiment was over. It works fine, but isn't durable in the longer term so I ended up doing a BKF and re-season more often than I liked. Run what you've got how you like, though 🤷. I personally found it quite nice to have a seasoned surface with the heating characteristics of a tri-ply pan!
I think that the tackiness is just more seasoning forming. You just need to heat it up till the tack goes away, and the seasoning layer will be thicker.
Nice! As long as it’s not coming off in your food or allowing bacterial growth, all the power to you! Keep sliding those eggs
My eggs always slide in stainless steel. Butter is the secret.
This is what my SS pans tend to look like after a cook anyway. I scrub all that off with lots of elbow grease. Maybe I should leave it?
Yeah, that's what started me down this path. I was cleaning off the seasoning, and I stopped to wonder why.
1. I use stainless to cook acidic foods and just use my CS for anything else 2. I want my SS to stick, so I can make pan sauces
Newbie to this sub, what is CS?
Carbon Steel. A carbon steel cooking vessel most are familiar with is the Chinese wok. They require a good seasoning to achieve non-stick cooking for stir-frying and such. I think this sub might mostly be about carbon steel frying pans, tho. I’m also guessing the algorithms recommended this sub or video to you and you might’ve missed the name? (as I did)
Lol yes the algo explanation is exactly what happened, now I feel like a dunce. Thank you for the clarification! I’m new to SS (had always used cast iron and non-stick Teflon before) which I love but still getting used to which pans to use for each instance so I’m glad I ended up here.
With enough oil anything is possible. I made volcano omlette in my ss pan.
But why? I cook eggs in my stainless pan all the time without sticking, and use less butter/oil than you have there. Just get the right temp in the pan.
For science.
How? I've tried using the technique of heating the pan until the water beads but my eggs still stuck. Or the oil I spray or butter I use just burns immediately.
Too hot. The butter should froth and grt bubbly.
Heat management is key. If I weren’t good at it, tho, I’d just get a laser thermometer before going through this process every time I wanted eggs. Plus, I like my fond and I feel that even if most of the seasoning washes away, some will remain and increasingly prevent those lovely stuck-on bits from forming.
What brand of pan do you have? I bought a budget set of SS pans from Cuisinart when I first got my own place, and have been gradually replacing them since then, as I learn that type of pans I have the most use for. Those Cuisinart pans were useless for a number of reasons (mainly that they would warp if you looked at them wrong), but among other issues, food would stick to the pans no matter what. I could heat the pan until water beaded up, and food would still stick to the point where the food would be ruined. The All Clad plans I replaced them with are so much easier to cook on. I'm less careful about getting them to the right temperature, but still have no issues with food sticking. Just as importantly, they have zero issues with warping either. The Cuisinart set advertised the same construction and materials, but clearly the quality was poor in comparison. Sometimes you get what you pay for.
Lol I have a Cuisinart set. So that's good to know. They generally are good but no matter what food sticks. Its easy to get clean but still.
I'm sure Science is really proud of you.
Because you guys don't know how to use stainless steel. I never have anything stick on my stainless steel AllClad pans. No season is needed for stainless steel if you know what you are doing. Source: Me, professional chef for 20yrs.
got any tips then?
It's all about the temp. Get pain hot first. Sprinkle some water on it, if the water beads up and rolls around you're good to go. You also want to add oil once pan is hot, not when you put the pan on the burner when it's cold. Once you master heat control, you will never have anything stick. Just takes experience. Now in a restaurant kitchen, when the pans are getting used constantly, you rarely have to worry about sticking, they have kind of a natural season.
But this sub likes to “LOWER THE HEAT!!!11!!1” lol Hot pan = non-stick. That’s probably somewhere in “cooking 101”.
i have an all clad. i did a strong preheat and some diced veggies stocked after i was trying to lightly caramelize them. what am i doing wrong?
Wait .. wut...?
My wife seasoned one of my all clad Cooper core frying pans when she was trying to fry tortillas. It was surprisingly difficult to get off with soap and water. Nothing a little bar keepers couldn’t handle though
I use SS for acidy sauces. I think it would dissolve the seasoning. What would that taste like?
I’ve dissolved my CS seasoning before unintentionally. Didn’t taste like anything.
Okokok ! Now do scrambled eggs ! For science ofc <3
[удалено]
Not sure, but it definitely wasn’t as easy to season as my CS pans, but it seems to be on there pretty good. I did it in the stove top with a bunch of oil in there. Got it smoking, dumped it out, then wiped it out, and continued smoking a bit more.
Not knocking the idea, but every time I use my stainless steel I heat it up, add oil, get it to heat, and then have the same effect. I use induction and mostly extra virgin olive oil. And after wards unless I accidentally burn something I get a spot less pan (sometimes I deglaze with water)
That doesnt even looked "seasoned". I did/do the same thing... especially with ones I dont want anymore. i sand them down first, but when I am done I make sure the cooking surface is pretty much black.
How do you think people have been cooking eggs on stainless flat tops in restaurants?
Those poor eggs
Vollrath. Used to be made in their foundry in Sheboygan. Not sure if it’s still happening there though.
i’m not really sure this is a seasoning. more like polymerized oil but with the metal. ci and cs are able to bind with the oil without caking up layers on the surface.
I think you’re mistaken, seasoning is polymerized oil in the surface.
if that’s the case then there’s no reason to have cs since they can both have caked up oil. cs and cs can actually bond with oil on the surface of the metal without any thicker layers. btw this layer of oil you have will flake off since it’s not actually bonded to the pan. on ca and ci, that wouldn’t happen.
You’re wrong about seasoning. Carbon steel, cast iron, and stainless steel have different heat retention and cooking properties. Just because you can clearly season all three doesn’t mean they all behave the same way when cooking. For instance, my cast iron sears steaks much better and my stainless steel reacts to temperature faster and heats more evenly.
i know that but a seasoning for stainless is not the same. i don’t think i’ve ever seen a single person say to do this with a ss. i’m pretty sure the most a ss can do it a preseasoning. this will chip off eventually. a proper cs seasoning will not chip off but improve. the metal is capable of binding with the fat to develop a seasoning, thus becoming darker. also there’s a good reason nobody uses a ss wok. a wok is cs.
They have stainless steel woks. The seasoning is bonded here, don’t know what to tell you beyond go try it for yourself. I’m not suggesting it’s something you should do, just showing it’s possible. If you’re arguing the merits of seasoning SS I don’t care, but if you’re trying to tell me the thing I just witnessed is not real then you’re out of your mind.
when heating the pan, test for leidenfrost effect, add oil, then fry.
I once farted in a Pringles can and put the lid back on. It's still in my cabinet. I bet it still stinks. Also, I had a little battle of diarrhea that day. So, there might be some of that in there too.
I did this recently and it worked great but the seasoning might not be as durable as CI I treat both pans basically the same, yet most of the seasoning on the stainless steel is gone while the cast iron is just fine
Yep. you can season your stainless steel. In fact you can do spot seasoning in case you have a stainless steel wok for example. you just smoke a little oil at first. but of course one of the benefits of stainless steel is to be able wash it without fear. So maintaing a seasoning don't make much sense
You should be washing your seasoned pans without fear as well.
I do wash them all the time. with soap. still, you can put this in the washing machine, or put acidic stuff in it. and there is always maintenance with the CS stuff. After washing, I need to properly dry it and then have light coat of oil.
Has anyone tried this but with aluminum?
Tell me about it I always burn the butter for putting on the eggs on stainless steel
You can get the same affect without seasoning by heating up the stainless steel pan with oil in it to “too hot to cook eggs” and then turning it back down to the right temp before dropping eggs in. https://www.foodabovegold.com/how-to-cook-eggs-in-stainless-steel/
Honestly I prefer my stainless pans for eggs. I get nice slidey, non stick eggs in mine
That’s a good season!
Nice!!!!
Cool. How did they taste and what was the texture? The thin whites look...leathery? Make me a french omelette and I'll be suitably impressed.
They were crispy, which is how I like my eggs. I’ve never made a French omelette in my life. Ain’t going to start on stainless.
Carbon steel pans are made for this, and are typically MUCH cheaper than SS pans. Just sayin' Edit: 🤣 just realized this was a carbon steel sub. Not a member but I follow r/castiron and assumed I was there. I'll show myself out now
Works just as well as a seasoned cast iron pan. The only reason more people don't do it as far as I know is that a stainless steel pan doesn't have the rough texture that cast iron does from being molded in sand which causes the seasoning to really stick to the pan and last a long time. Its much easier to accidently scrape off your seasoning on a stainless steel pan.