why stainless steel?

[Jim Foster]

What are everyone's reasons for using stainless steel in their evaporating pans? Ease of cleaning, no worries of rusting, chemical properties(like copper in stills)???? I made mine out of regular 1/8" steel (considerably cheaper) and polished it baby butt smooth and it works great.... Just another noob question. I'm a welder by trade and just wondered why.

Jim

[18mile]

We used a steel pan for many years. It made acceptable syrup. It will be difficult to clean and will rust no matter how hard you try. Niter will cook onto the bottom and scorch a little over time. Don’t bring your level too low. Acid pan cleaner will not work like it does in stainless. Stainless will make a better grade of syrup. Our pan also distorted more from the heat. Which created high and low spots.

[DrTimPerkins]

In general it is because stainless steel will not oxidize (at least not very fast) and is therefore considerably easier to keep clean. It is also more resistant to chemicals used in cleaning. Stainless is pretty much the de facto standard throughout the food industry.

[pyro]

Agreed, steel rusts and can get into the final product. But if I may tag on to your question: Why not copper? Stainless is a terrible heat conductor, and copper being ~20x more thermally conductive makes me think that it would evaporate much more efficiently. Unless the thickness needs to be considerably higher compared to stainless.

[DrTimPerkins]

Because sap is slightly acidic and can leach copper from pans made from it. SS is very resistant to leaching of iron or chromium into sap.