Deglazing Pans & Warping Pans

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CanadianMeg

Senior Cook
Joined
Sep 12, 2005
Messages
153
Location
Sask, CANADA
Just a question: why does putting water in a hot pan in the sink warp the pan, yet if you add water to a pan on the heat to deglaze, it doesn't? What's the difference? Is it the fact there's still heat?
 
It has to do with the temperature and quantity as well as there still being heat on the stove.

If you take a hot pan and put it under cold running water then you are cooling that pan down super fast.
If you pour some cold liquid into a hot pan on a flame then the pan is not cooling down nearly as much.
 
Thanks, GB. I bought a new pan recently and I'm trying to take better care of it.
Good to know why deglazing is different.
 
Agree with GB. Pour cold fluid into a hot pan and different parts of the pan will be cooled at different rates depending upon the amount of cold water that hits it.

Cooling makes metals in particular, and most other things, contract. Different parts of a pan contracting at a different rate and you have the danger of warping.

A hot pan will just heat up the fluid (water, wine, you name it) rapidly and there will be no rapid cooling.

Thick pans, such as stainless steel, tend to do that less than thinner pans.

Oh, yeah, and it took me a while to realize, I wish I had done so earlier, that a deglazed pan was generally a pretty clean one. So now routinely deglaze all saute pans even if I am just going to toss the deglazate (I doubt that is a word, but it should be) away. Deglazing is a lot faster way to clean a pan than letting the it cool and leaving it to be washed in the sink.

At least it seems to work for me.
 
More importantly, cold liquid poured into a hot pan will absorb a lot of heat, but it will keep much of the heat in the system. If the pan was just passed under cold water, the heat absorbed by the water will flow out of the system, allowing the pan to get much cooler much faster.
 
Oh, yeah, and it took me a while to realize, I wish I had done so earlier, that a deglazed pan was generally a pretty clean one. So now routinely deglaze all saute pans even if I am just going to toss the deglazate (I doubt that is a word, but it should be) away. Deglazing is a lot faster way to clean a pan than letting the it cool and leaving it to be washed in the sink.

At least it seems to work for me.
:LOL::LOL::LOL: I'm so glad you said that. It's one of the first little tricks I figured out on my quest to conquer the kitchen. Since I was famous for always burning things, this little surprise thrilled me! But when I told my friends and family about it, I got blank stares. (Maybe they don't burn stuff as much as I used to.) I thought I was the only one who got tickled over cleaning the pan by deglazing.
 
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