Imagine a situation, where you have to acquire perfect cooking gear, made of the best materials, picked up the best recipes and ready to cook. But there goes another problem: all the tools you have can have the highest quality, but how to keep them safe and sound while cooking? That’s a kind of stress, you know.
One of the main problems like these if when you have a glass cooktop or any glass top. It can get scratched easily, especially if you are using items made of the cast iron. On the other hand, you can’t give up these type of vessels, since it is compatible with almost any cooking gear and versatile.
On the other hand, you can’t either get rid of your super-expensive glass cooktop that you’ve just bought and which you like so much. But no worries, there is a way out of any situation. Following the tips stated in this article, you can keep your glass cooktop without any scratch.
The first important aspect that you need to keep in mind while using a cast iron pan on the glass stove is not to slide the pan (or any other type of the cookware you use) on it. It is quite logical, that if you are going to rub iron on the glass surface it most likely will leave some marks on it.
Apart from that, never drop the cast iron pan on the surface. Be extra gentle with cookware that is chipped or has rough edges, although engraved skillets or ones with designs on the bottom are also fine to use on glass-top stoves.
Another useful tip is to always wash the cast iron before using it on the glass cooktop. Logically, the probability that some particles stuck to the bottom of a skillet or pan will accidentally scratch the surface is significantly higher if you are using stained cookware.
Besides, oil and other residues on the bottom of cast iron cookware can carbonize when heated, leaving a black mark on a glass-top stove. In order to avoid all those unpleasant situations, you better remove all the pans from the cookstove right away after the meal is prepared.
And don’t forget to thoroughly wash both the interior and exterior of the pan after every use. If you hate this process of washing, invest in a dishwashing machine.
But not only cookware requires careful treatment after cooking. Also, don’t forget to wipe the stove after each cooking session. And you want to get a full knowledge of how to clean the glass cooktop right, then you should read a specific article dedicated to this topic.
By the way, if you have a glass cooktop it is more likely it is either electric or induction. In the first case, keep in mind that the electric cooktop heats up much slower than any other one. And it’s going to be even longer if you are using cookware made of the cast iron. So don’t rush things.
Lodge recommends heating cookware on low, and slowly bringing the heat up to medium or medium-high for the most consistent results and even heat distribution. If you’re using a cast iron griddle that spans two burners, allow the griddle to preheat for several minutes before cooking.
Another useful tip to keep your glass stove safe and sound is to always weight the cookware that you are going to place on it. It doesn’t mean that you need to literally weight it, but just take a pan and think of how heavy it is.
Try to avoid huge and heavy pots and, especially, cooking some heavy food in it, for example, big pots with soup. Quite likely you risk to scratch the surface even by a little moving this pot later.
Buy the cookware that has the flat bottom. Unfortunately, most of the cookware that is made of cast iron has riffled bottoms, but there are, however, some exceptions. By buying only the flat-bottomed pans you significantly decrease the risk of scratching.
Moreover, take into consideration the size of the cookware. Lots of cast iron items are huge and they often outsize the burners of the stove. For heat efficiency, the recommended cookware size for induction cooktop is that it be no more than one inch bigger than the burner.
If cast iron pans are too big, the heat won’t be distributed evenly across the bottom surface which can lead to food taking much longer to cook. By the way, when you are buying cast iron cookware for your glass stove, watch it would be covered in porcelain enamel. This material makes the surface of the pan much more smooth.
What is more, you can use the heat diffuser while cooking. It seems uneven for protecting the stove, but, it contributes a lot. It can be placed to the bottom of a pan and thus heat will spread equally among all the surface, providing the effecting heating of the whole surface. Heat defuser is like a buffer between the bottom of any pan and the surface of the stove.