Saucepan burning at edges but contents not hot

[Chrysalis]

Ok topic doesnt explain it well but here is the situation.

If I cook something on my hob in a saucepan usually in water eg. potatoes. I have noticed the water isnt hot enough to let off steam and bubble but some potatoes (at the outer edge of base of saucepan) when done are sticking to it with a black burn mark I have not let the water dry out there is enough for them to float.

With milk there is always 2 burn marks on the outer part of the base after I heat up milk, even when the milk is only luke warm.

So it seems the heat isnt conducting properly? is this a problem with my cooker where its only heating on the outside or is it a poor saucepan?

If I touch the area outside the hob but not the hob itself its always scolding hot after use, I am only using 3 or 4 setting on a max setting of 6 so never using 5 or 6.

[greencreeper]

What sort of hob?

Have you tried another pan of the same size?

[WHISTLED]

Sounds like cheap pans

[joglynne]

I suspect that you are using very thin bottomed pans. Try using an even lower heat setting and bring the contents of the pan up to the boil slightly slower. Imagine using a frying pan. If you put an egg in to fry and the pan was to hot it would burn on the bottom but be uncooked on top, At a lower temperature the egg would cooker slower but be cooked all the way through without the burnt bottom.

A trick I use went heating milk is to rinse the inside of the pan with cold water before adding the milk, Oh and again not using to high a setting this way I rarely get any burnt areas.

If you can face the outlay a pan with a built up base will distribute the heat evenly and at least the way the burnt bits will be evenly spread.

[Angua]

The only other thing may be that you have an "induction" hob & you are using aluminium sandwich based saucepans. These will pass the magnet test but due to the aluminium in the sandwich base will not cook properly.

[Osem]

Doesn't sound like an induction hob to me - we have one and it never gets more than slightly warm which is one of the reasons they are so quick and efficient.

It sounds to me more like dodgy pans but that's easy to test by simply using a different type as has already been suggested. Presumably the hob in question has several rings or burners and it'd be highly unlikely for them all to have developed the same fault so if the problem happens on all of of them it would seem likely to be the pans.

[Salu]

Maybe the hob is too big for the saucepan and therefore not concentrating the heat on the bottom but up the side?

[greencreeper]

I was thinking that a gas hob turned up full would produce this effect, as would one of those glass top cookers (I have one) if the pan base was warped. Just slung a pan with a bulge in the base.

[Wicked_and_Crazy]

electric element that has failed in the centre ??

[Chrysalis]

is electric hob and on both the front hubs has the same affect, dont use the back 2 ones. If there is different types of hubs how do I know which I have?

Also I remember deliberatly not getting the cheapest pans but I do remember the word aluminium.

Ok just checked box (still have it with 2 of the pans unused) they are stainless steel, the instruction sheets with them do say only use low to medium heat but I didn't have this problem before I moved. The issue is when I moved I lost my pans so at the same time of using a new cooker I also had new pans.

[WHISTLED]

I have expensive pans but I did have a cheap chefs pan also, I nearly burnt through completely the forst time I cooked with it. It went straight in the bin.

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

is electric hob and on both the front hubs has the same affect, dont use the back 2 ones. If there is different types of hubs how do I know which I have?

Also I remember deliberatly not getting the cheapest pans but I do remember the word aluminium.

Electric hobs come in two main types, ones which are like a flat open coil of metal, which visibly glow red when set on 'high' & the others which are solid metal faired into the cooker top, these don't obviously glow like the coil type, when hot.

Because of the nature of the coil type hobs, you would easily see if only the outside part of the coil was getting hot - but with the solid type it might not be so obvious - got an infra-red camera / night sight hanging about ?

Aluminium pans can be fine, but the better ones have a thicker base, often sandwiched / laminated with copper to even out the heat distribution.

<edit> Just saw your edit - plain stainless steel pans can be the worst of the lot, as they are often just stamped out as a single piece with the bottom being only marginally thicker than the sides - although better quality ones obviously do exist

[Osem]

There are various types of electric hob: flat solid plates, those with spiral like metal elements and those with a smooth ceramic top and some form of concealed element (halogen or similar) underneath - the latter being the most modern. Induction hobs are much more expensive and emit no heat whatsoever, instead they rely on strong magnetic fields to agitate the molecules in the base of ferrous pans which causes them to heat rapidly and thereby cook the contents.

Unless the you have the same fault with both of the 2 larger rings you use (unllikely I'd have thought) it would appear that the pans are to blame. Cheap and/or thin pans (even stainless steel ones) don't distribute the heat effectively and tend to create hot spots which can cause some parts of the food to be burned and others to be undercooked. That'd be my guess for what's wrong and the easy way to find out would either be to try a better pan from somewhere or use your pans on someone else's hob and see what happens.

HTH.

[Angua]

If you have an induction hob you can check to see if the saucepans should work by sticking a magnet on the bottom. However aluminium in the sandwich will not even if they are surrounded by steel. Needs to be a copper sandwich or heavy duty stainless steel. They do get hot but only by heat transference from the pan at the end of the cooking time.