As was explained in the previous blog post, the sharp, protruding edges of a gas stove require a high quality cooking utensil to have a tough, strongly constructed outer coating to withstand chipping and highly visible scratch marks. However, cooking on a gas stove also necessitates a high quality handle because often the flame from the gas stove can, in certain cases, reach up the side of the pan and come into contact with the handle. This would be especially the case for high heat cooking methods, such as stir frying, or making a delicious, crispy crepe (all of which a Lotus Rock pan is very suitable for doing).

The kitchenware industry commonly uses a test, from BS EN 12983-1 2000 cookware standard regulations, to assess how flammable the material of a handle is to a candle flame set underneath it. For a pass to be awarded no visible sign of molten or burning material should have melted or dripped off the handle, after it has been heated for 30 seconds. In addition, once extinguished the handle material should not spontaneously re-ignite.

BS EN 12983-1 2000 Handle Resistance To Burning Test Procedure

The handle resistance to burning test procedure, according to BS EN 12983-1-2000:2008, is as follows:

Step 1 = Attach cookware to the rigid base.

Step 2 = Position the burner, alight, with airhole closed, so that the tip of the flame just touches the underside of the end of the combustible part of the handle.  By means of the gas flow adjust the flame height to 30mm + 2mm.  Ensure that the air hole is closed throughout the test..

Step 3 = Expose the handle to the flame for 30 s + 1s, remove the flame and allow the handle to burn either until any flame self-extinguishes or for 15 s, whichever occurs first.  Observe whether any molten or burning material falls from the handle during this period..

Step 4 = Measure and record the length of time the handle continues to burn following the removal of the flame.

Evaluation

On 15^th January 2015, in an Acton testing laboratory, the Lotus Rock bakelite Titlis handle passed the above resistance to burning test.  This handle, along with many others designed and patented by Lotus Rock, is safe to use over a gas stove for numerous high heat cooking methods.  Whether moving a crepe pan sideways to get the mixture spread around the pan for a delicious, crispy texture, or to quickly toss vegetables and thinly cut pieces of meat inside a stir wok, a Lotus Rock pan has the handles which are safe and non-flammable to do this.

A previous blog post described how a migration test can be done to test the surface reactivity of a cookware pan.  The benefit of a non-stick coating on a pan is that it contains a substance called PTFE, which has very low reactivity with substances in contact with it.  Even to this day, PTFE has been proven to have the lowest coefficient of friction (CoF) of any known solid. In other words, the majority of materials do not stick to it.  Therefore, because of its excellent non-stick release and low reactivity to substances in contact with it, a PTFE-based non-stick coating should pass a standard BS EN 1186-1: 2002 migration test quite easily.

However, although PTFE does undoubtedly provide excellent non-stick release and low reactivity for a coating on a cookware utensil, it does have some significant disadvantages; one of these is a tendency of a PTFE-based non-stick coating to peel off.  Within a non-stick coating PTFE does not bond well to itself, which means it can have a pinhole problem.  This difficulty can be exacerbated not only through general scratching with a utensil and rubbing with a cleaning pad, but also when oil is heated on a pan to a high temperature for high heat cooking methods, such as stir frying or sautéing etc.  For these types of high heat cooking methods, the molecules of cooking oil can decrease in size quite rapidly and then penetrate the highly porous PTFE coating.  This can lead to the coating breaking up and peeling off – thus not only impairing the quality of the non-stick release but also creating a safety hazard as bits of the coating mix with the food on the pan.

One method to determine the resistance of non-stick coatings to separation from substrates, such as aluminum or steel, is to utilize a tool by cutting a right angle lattice pattern into the coating, penetrating all the way to the substrate.  This is called the Cross Cut Adhesion Test, otherwise known as ISO 2409-2013.  Some coatings may have a multi-layer system, and so this test can also be used to determine the resistance to separation of different layers from one another.

The below table are the classification of test results for an ISO 2409-2013 Cross Cut Adhesion Test.

An ISO 2409-2013 test was conducted by SGS testing services, from 16^th January 2015 to 21^st January 2015, on a Lotus Rock frying pan.  The test result was as follows.

As you can see from the results above and the photos of the tested samples below, a Lotus Rock pan got a perfect score of 0; the edges of the cuts are completely smooth, and none of the squares of the lattice are detached.  This excellent result is in part due to the fact that the coating on a Lotus Rock pan is not a standard PTFE based coating.  All Lotus Rock pans have a very thick ceramic layer, up to 100 microns thick, on top of the heavy gauge carbon steel substrate.  Nestled on top of the ceramic layer is a very thin silicon-oxide crystal coating which is so thin that it is very difficult for a utensil or other piece of equirement to dettach it from the ceramic layer below it.  Therefore unlike a weakly bonded and thinly coated PTFE based coating, a Lotus Rock pan can, with its strongly constructed coating, be cooked on for an extended period of time without any fear that the coating will peel off or break up.

As has been noted previously on this blog, Lotus Rock cookware is a metal utensil safe product: stainless steel spatulas, knives and forks can be used on it without damaging the coating.   In addition, a Lotus Rock pan can be scrubbed hard with a standard abrasive pad for cleaning without impairing the quality of the pan’s coating.  The interior coating for all Lotus Rock pans has been tested and passed, by an independent testing authority, according to BS 7069 Abrasion and Scratch resistance testing standards.

However, although during cooking the interior coating of a pan does undoubtedly have to withstand a high degree of scratching from numerous kitchen utensils, what is not considered as much is the resistance to scratching of a pan’s exterior coating.  When using some pots and pans for cooking, such as a stir wok or a crepe pan, it is often necessary to move them quite quickly to get ingredients around the pan or out onto some kind of serving dish.  But if this is done over a cooking top surface such as a gas stove, with its sharp protruding edges, the exterior coating of a cookware utensil will, in all likelihood, need to withstand some heavy scratching.   If the exterior coating is too soft or thin then these scratches will not only worsen the appearance of the pan quite considerably, but they might also expose the metal substrate beneath the coating to corrosion

A Pencil Hardness test has been used by the kitchenware industry for many years to determine the scratch hardness for the exterior coating of a pan.  This test uses special pencils with different degrees of hardness to scratch the coating, which then determines its hardness.

A complete set will have the following pencil gradings, starting with the hardest — 9H, 8H, 7H, 6H, 5H, 4H, 3H, 2H, F, HB, B, 2B, 3B, 4B, 5B, 6B, 7B, 8B and 9B (the latter is the softest pencil; it contains the most graphite and the least amount of clay). The “H” stands for “hardness” and the “B” stands for “blackness,” which comes from the amount of graphite used in the softer pencils.

The simplicity of the pencil hardness test is its great advantage. The special pencils used for doing the test are made of various combinations of graphite and clays, baked in ovens to harden their compositions. By adjusting the amounts of these two organic materials, the pencils are either very soft or quite hard.

BS EN 12983-1-2000+AC:2008 Pencil Hardness Test Procedure

The Pencil Hardness Test procedure, according to BS EN 12983-1-2000+AC:2008, is as follows:

Step 1 = Set up apparatus with a 5H lead loaded to either 4 N or 8 N + 0,2 N.

Step 2 = Draw the apparatus across 25mm of an untouched area of the test surface.

Step 3 = If the lead has cut a clean path through the coating, repeats steps 1 & 2 reducing the grade of the lead by one step each time until it fails to cut a clean path through to the substrate.

Step 4 = Report the hardness of the coating as the hardness of the first lead which failed to cut a clean path through to the substrate.

Evaluation

Generally, even with the stricter standard of a fixed pressure of 8.0 Newtons (765g±2%) applied to the exterior coating, a Lotus Rock pan can pass a Pencil Hardness test with a standard of at least 8H hardness.  In fact, more often than not, even if a Lotus Rock pan’s outer coating is scratched a bit from the sharp edges of a gas stove, the surface can still be scrubbed with a standard abrasive pad and the scratch will in most cases be removed.  This excellent scratch resistance allows a Lotus Rock pan to be used for a much longer period of time, than say a non-stick coated pan, most of which only have a thin, silicone polyester coating on the outside of the pan.  For a standard pencil hardness test, without any heat applied to the surface, then a silicone polyester coating can pass at a 4H hardness standard.  If, however, the ambient temperature test is included whereby the surface temperature of the pan is increased to 200 degrees, then a silicone polyester coating is liable to become quite soft, and will then only pass a 2H hardness standard.  To counter this problem some manufacturers use a sol gel technology ceramic coating instead of a silicone polyester coating, which is usually twice as thick, with a stronger bonded construction.  However, even this type of coating can only reach a 6H hardness standard, still below the Lotus Rock scratch resistant quality of 8H.

As explained in the previous blog post, Lotus Rock has designed and patented a number of highly eye-catching, ergonomic handles for its various cookware and BBQ items.  Handle materials can vary from forged steel, to a natural wood such as acacia or bamboo, to bakelite with soft-touch coating, and lastly a silicone material, molded into a variety of different shapes, such as a lollipop.

However, for cookware usage a good handle should not just have an attractive appearance or a comfortable, stay-cool grip, it should also be safe to use as well.  One particularly important feature for a handle with a Lotus Rock pan is its strength and secure attachment to the pan’s body.  All Lotus Rock pans come with a very heavy carbon steel substrate of 2.0mm in thickness.  Although not nearly as heavy as cast iron a Lotus Rock pan is still quite a heavy weight for certain types of cooking utensils, such as a 12” stir wok or a 28cm frying pan.  Therefore, a strong, well-designed handle is especially important for a safe cooking experience with a Lotus Rock pan.

The kitchenware industry commonly uses a bending strength test, from testing standard BS EN 12983/ 7.5, to assess whether a handle is sturdy and strongly attached enough to a pot or pan.

BS EN 12983/ 7.5 Bending Strength Test Procedure

The BS EN 12983/ 7.5 procedure for the Bending Strength Test is as follows:

Attach the cookware firmly to the rigid base so that the contacting face of the loading bar is 10mm + 1mm from the end of the handle.  Then apply the load, gradually without shock, to the handle, until the load is supported or the fixing system fails.

Lotus Rock Acacia handle

Lotus Rock Titlis Handle

Since Lotus Rock’s was introduced into the market, a number of different types of handles for Lotus Rock pans have been tested according to the BS EN 12983/ 7.5 bending strength test.  As shown in the photos above both the Acacia square wooden handle, which uses a riveted attachment method, and the Titlis bakelite handle, which uses a welding attachment method, have both been stress tested with a 10kg weight attached firmly to the end of the handle.  Both of these handles passed without any recorded major failure at a SQTS (Swiss Quality Testing Services) testing lab.

To supplement an excellent Lotus Rock pan, a well-constructed, ergonomic handle is also needed.  Lotus Rock has designed and patented a number of its own handles, each of which have their own distinct benefits and characteristcs for a particular type of pan shape.

Handle Styles

1. Long handle.  If the pan is over 30cm diameter (often a stir wok), then a smaller helper-handle will be attached on the opposite side. The large handle facilitates flipping, while the short handle makes it easy to lift.

2. Dual handle. Having a handle on either side is ideal for a large wok, paella pan or braiser, where the amount of food contained will be too heavy to lift if there was just one handle.

Handle Attachment Method

• Riveted. This gives the pan and the handle a strongly constructed appearance.

• Welded. With no rivets the interior of the pan is easier to clean and some consider it makes the pan more attractive.

• Molded.  Shares the benefits of both types of handles above, however it will transmit heat more easily so some care is needed.

• Detachable. With this type of handle the pan uses less storage space. It is also very simple for the consumer to attach and detach themselves.

Handle Material

1. Natural wood. This type of handle does not transmit heat easily, so it is safe for the consumer to hold and use during cooking. Its appearance also matches quite well with the design of most stir woks.

2. Professional & Forged. Either polished or brushed stainless steel handles are often seen as a signal that the pan is of a high quality. If well designed, then the handles should not transmit heat too well either.  Suitable for use in the oven and on an outdoor grill.

3. Soft-grip. Lotus Rock bakelite handles have soft-touch coating added to them to make them highly comfortable to hold and cook with.  For a more trendy, distinct and eye-catching appearance then a silicone handle can be riveted to a pan.  One such handle is the Lotus Rock Lollipop handle, as shown below.  This particular handle is suitable for use in the oven and on an outdoor BBQ.

The term ‘heavy metals’, is most commonly used to describe metallic elements of higher atomic mass that are toxic at low concentrations.  If a consumer product, which is used for contact with food, has high levels of a heavy metal then it can be hazardous to human health.  The short term effects of heavy metal poisoning can range from skin irritation to vomiting, but high level exposure can cause anything from liver damage to renal failure.

In order to demonstrate that all Lotus Rock pans are free of heavy metals that can leach into cooked food and cause poisoning, an Extractable Heavy Metals Test was commissioned with SGS Testing Services Ltd.  The testing standards were done in accordance with LFGB* (German food law) regulations.

*In September 2005, the new German Food commodity and Feed Law (Lebensmittel – Bedarfsgegenstandegesetz und Futtermittelegsetzbuch –LFGB) replaced the old German Food & Commodities Act (Lebensmittel und Bedarfsgegenstandegesetz–LMBG). Within the kitchenware industry LFGB is considered to have the most stringent test standards for assessing the level at which heavy metals can be extracted from a manufactured product.

LFGB Extractable Heavy Metals Test Result

As is shown above, a number of heavy metals were tested for in the Lotus Rock pan using an acid solution, for example, similar to a recipe which might use tomatoes to make a sauce.  Some of the heavy metals that were tested for included Cadmium and Mercury; these are toxic to the human body as they undergo bioaccumulation. This means that they are absorbed by the body at a faster rate than they can be removed, and, over a period of time, can cause chronic poisoning, even if the levels found in the environment are low. Other heavy metals, such as Copper, are essential to bodily functions, but at higher levels they begin to alter metabolic processes and become toxic.  Other than Cadmium, the other heavy metal considered to be most toxic to human health is Lead.  High levels of exposure to lead can have numerous, severe health problems.  These include neurological damage and damage to organs such as the liver and kidney.

The previous blog post described how a migration test can be done to test the surface reactivity of a cookware pan.  The benefit of a non-stick coating on a pan is that it provides a non-reactive surface whereby all kinds of ingredients, whether they are highly acidic or not, can be used for cooking without creating any undesirable colors and/ or flavors.  Generally speaking, most non-stick coatings contain a substance called PTFE.  This gives the coating its non-stick release and has been proven to have the lowest coefficient of friction (CoF) of any known solid. In other words, the majority of materials do not stick to a PTFE-based non-stick coating.  Therefore, because of its excellent non-stick release and non-reactive surface, a PTFE-based non-stick coating should pass a standard BS EN 1186-1: 2002 migration test quite easily.

However, although PTFE- based coatings do undoubtedly provide a highly non-reactive surface for a cookware utensil, they also have some significant disadvantages; one of these is a tendency of PTFE-based non-stick coatings to peel off.  Within a non-stick coating PTFE does not bond well to itself, and so by and large it doesn’t have a very stable construction.  This weak coating structure is degraded through general scratching with a utensil, and also by rubbing it with a standard abrasive cleaning pad.  Moreover, PTFE based coatings are generally quite thin, roughly 15-20 microns in thickness.  This thinness makes PTFE-based coatings quite liable to break up and expose the substrate below it, such as aluminum or steel, to foodstuffs or oxygen which could produce some undesirable reactions and damage the quality of the cookware utensil.

Lotus Rock, on the other hand, contains no PTFE or any other non-stick chemical within its coating.  On both the interior and exterior of all Lotus Rock pans is a thick ceramic layer, which is up to 100 microns thick.  This not only provides excellent protection to the steel substrate below it, but the strongly bonded construction of the ceramic layer also ensures that all Lotus Rock pans have outstanding scratch and abrasion resistance.

There are two well-known tests within the kitchenware industry, from the BS 7069 : 1988 British Standard Specification for Cookware, which can demonstrate whether or not a cookware utensil has excellent scratch and abrasion resistance.  Both of these tests have been used on a Lotus Rock frying pan.

1. BS 7069 Abrasion Resistance Test Procedure

Mount the item of cookware under test rigidity on the reciprocating support and apply the loaded abrasive pad to the non-stick surface, lubricate the surface by the addition of domestic washing-up liquid.  Keeping the loaded abrasive pad stationary, move the reciprocating support backwards and forwards over a distance 50mm+2.5mm.  Continue for 250 cycles.  Renew the abrasive pad at 50 cycle intervals.

SGS test result for Lotus Rock pan = Pass.  “No visible damage was found on the non-stick surface after testing.”

2. BS 7069 Scratch Resistance Test Procedure

Place a quantity of corn oil, sufficient to just cover the base of the article into it.  Heat the vessel to a temperature of 220+5C and apply the loaded stylus to the heated surface.  Move the loaded stylus across the surface for a distance of not less than 80mm in 1+0.1s.

SGS test result for Lotus Rock pan = Pass.  “No visible damage was found on the non-stick surface after testing.”

One of the significant benefits of a Lotus Rock pan is the high durability of the pan’s surface.  Unlike general non-stick PTFE-coated pans, Lotus Rock is metal utensil safe, which means a stainless steel spatula or knife and fork can be used on the surface without any concern that the quality of the coating will be impaired or the non-stick release ruined through scratching.  Moreover, for cleaning purposes a Lotus Rock pan can, unlike with a general PTFE non-stick coated pan, be scrubbed and washed vigorously with a standard abrasive cleaning pad without causing the coating to peel off.

The introduction of a new, highly innovative product into the market often generates considerable excitement and interest.  However, at the same time, there is naturally also some concern as to whether this new product is safe to use and not hazardous to human health.  A famous example of this was when PTFE-coated cookware was first introduced in the 1960’s.  This new, technological breakthrough in non-stick coating for cookware was a huge hit among consumers who wanted an easier, and more hassle-free way to cook daily staples, such as eggs.  But in the late 90’s it was found that the emulsifier used to spread the PTFE coating evenly around the pan, called PFOA, caused birth defects in laboratory animals.  This substance was subsequently banned by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) of USA, and by government departments in many other countries.

Since its creation a number of years ago, Lotus Rock cookware and bakeware has been sold throughout the world, in countries such as USA, Australia, Israel, Turkey, South Africa and India.  Part of the reason why so many retailers and wholesalers in these countries have enthusiastically sold and recommended Lotus Rock has been the numerous testing reports, produced by reputable companies such as SGS and TUV, which have demonstrated Lotus Rock’s safety for use in the kitchen.

The kitchenware industry commonly uses a migration test to assess the reactivity of a product’s surface.  Cookware materials that are highly reactive are those which tend to have chemical reactions with other substances around them.  Highly reactive materials include iron, copper, aluminum and carbon steel.  Highly reactive cooking surfaces are disadvantageous for certain ingredients and ways of cooking because the reactions can produce undesirable colors and/or flavors.  No Lotus Rock pans are highly reactive with any ingredients because they have a thick non-reactive ceramic layer on both the interior and exterior of the 2.0mm carbon steel substrate.  Further, the interior of all Lotus Rock pans has an additional top coating of silicon-oxide crystal, which is permeable to cooking oil but impervious to other substances.  Thus, highly reactive ingredients such as tomatoes, spinach, wine and lemon juice can be used on Lotus Rock pans without creating any chemical reactions.

The most commonly used migration test to demonstrate whether or not the surface of a cookware utensil is reactive to different ingredients, set up in accordance with British and European standards, is BS EN 1186-1.2 2002.  This test involves heating four different simulants on a cookware item, at different temperatures and for different periods of time, before determining whether any part of the surface of the cookware has reacted with the simulant.  These four simulants are:

• Distilled Water, to simulant boiling or simmering;
• 3% Acetic Acid in an aqueous solution, to simulate the use of citric juices such as lemon for flavor, or tomatoes for a sauce (such as Bolognese);
• 10% ethanol in aqueous solution, to simulate for example the use of alcohol for deglazing a pan to made a sauce;
• Rectified olive oil, for general high heat cooking methods, such as frying, sautéing, stir frying, browning and grilling.

The table below is the result of just such a BS EN 1186-1.2 2002 test, one which was performed on a Lotus Rock frying pan, grill pan and saucepan.

The testing standard for each simulant is expressed in milligrams of extracted of deposited material per decimeter squared.  As is clearly demonstrated above, each simulant recorded an extracted quantity well below the permissible limit of 10 milligrams per decimeter squared.

The above BS EN 1186-1: 2002 migration test clearly proves that a Lotus Rock pan can be used for a variety of cooking methods, such as boiling, frying and deglazing, and can be cooked with a variety of different ingredients, without any concern that the an unwanted reaction might take place with the pan’s surface.

If there is one word that has been over-used for marketing purposes in the last decade it is “green”.  Within society increasing concerns about climate change, and whether economic growth is compatible with environmental protection, has led companies all over the world to market their products as eco-friendly and “green”. However, it has now reached the point where the inclusion of any recycled or natural resource in a product, no matter how small a part it forms of the whole, is used to justify the label “green”.  This term for eco-friendly products has been used so frequently over the years that its meaning to most consumers has become quite vague and ambiguous. One way to consider whether a product is eco-green would not be so much its composition, but instead how durable it is.  An item which needs to be replaced every year consumes five times as many resources as an item which lasts for five years.  It is for this reason, its durability, that a cooking utensil such as a frying pan can be labelled and marketed as ‘eco-green’. All Lotus Rock pans are suitable for long-term use and for this reason are labelled as ‘eco-green’.  Lotus Rock is highly durable for a number of reasons:

1. Strong construction. With a heavy-gauge steel substrate and a thick layer of ceramic on both the interior and exterior of all pans, Lotus Rock pans will not warp or disfigure easily. Carbon steel is a very dense material, and the 2.0mm gauge used in all Lotus Rock pans makes them strong and long-lasting,* unlike pans made with aluminum, a material with a very low density, which can be dented and disfigured quite easily, for example, if accidently dropped on the kitchen floor.
2. Abrasion resistance. A common complaint about non-stick pans is that the coating often peels off quite easily, making the pan unusable and requiring its replacement. A Lotus Rock pan, in contrast, is metal utensil-safe. The coating is extremely hard and can withstand scrubbing with a 3M pad for a long period of time.
3. Natural non-stick release. A non-stick coating with either PTFE or ceramic sol-gel technology will, depending on its quality, eventually become a ‘stick’ pan. Once the non-stick release has worn out the pan will become difficult to clean, and the consumer will most likely discard it. In contrast the natural non-stick coating on a Lotus Rock can be renewed by simply wiping oil onto the surface before each use. This method gives the pan a much longer lifetime than a general non-stick pan.

* If the Stable Concave design is included a Lotus Rock pan’s lifetime is extended even further In addition to its durablity, a Lotus Rock pan can also because of its fast heating effect be labelled eco-green.  Many professional chefs prefer carbon steel for cooking utensils such as stir woks, crepe pans, paella pans and frying pans because it heats up very quickly. This is especially so compared to other commonly used metal substrates such as aluminum or stainless steel. If the steel for a pan is produced at a thick gauge then it can heat up quickly, but also evenly across the pan’s surface. The main environmental benefit of a faster heating effect is that it saves energy from the stove top burner, thus reducing CO2 emissions. .