Mauviel Copper Cookware: Worth the expense?

hi I'm Oakland uncle Scott's kitchen today we're going to be doing a deep dive an in-depth review on some ovl stainless line copper cookware we're gonna find out if it's beautiful it cooks really well kind of like me or if the extra expense and headaches with patina and the cleanup make it just not worthwhile I don't know let's get started okay so I was on the movie L website poking around for information on this guy this is a mobile carbon steel skillet which I did a different review on when these coppers caught my eye now I've never had a copper pan before and I'm sitting there thinking about why you know why am I not had a copper pan before and the reason is these things are stinking expensive this little 2.6 quart saucepan with lid lists for about three hundred and seventy dollars three hundred and seventy dollars this little 8 inch frying pan list by itself for about two hundred now thanks to the magic of the internet I found these as a set and for some reason this set butwe cost 300 bucks so anyway I feel like I've got a little bit of a deal on these things I don't know if it's still a value yet we'll see if you were to buy an entire set of these things you could be talking $2,000 or more so if you're thinking about spending that kind of money and investing in a set of copper cookware hopefully the things we do today will really give you a lot better information to help you make your decision copper 101 besides its looks copper cookware is known for its heat conductivity and precise temperature control it conducts heat roughly 20 times more efficiently than stainless steel for example it's also non-ferrous which for our purposes means that these copper pans will not work on induction the gas and electric cooktops are good to go and importantly copper itself is a reactive metal which means that you can't cook food directly on copper and for that reason copper cookware is always lined with a nut they're metal for its cooking surface these days your main choices are 10 line which a lot of pros like and more commonly stainless steel line for most home sets 10 has a reputation for being a little more nonstick and there's a great cooking surface but at the same time it's also softer and you can't use metal utensils in it it wears away over time and most importantly you can damage it with too much heat stainless steel surfaces are a little harder and more durable so I thought the stainless steel lining was a little safer choice for my first copper pans and regardless of ten or stainless lining the instructions from ovl say to never heat an empty dry copper pan you need butter fat oil water what-have-you so if you're used to heating a dry cast iron skillet up the searing hot for a steak or getting a carbon steel pan up to its smoking point to season it doing the same could actually ruin a copper pan so never preheat a dry empty copper pan and his copper transfers heat so efficiently never cook on high either medium-high is a good max pan stats and details let's talk first about sturdiness and pan weight now I'm focusing mostly on the saucepan but these characteristics are similar for the frying pan as well for some reason I expected copper to feel lightweight but this movi L is startlingly heavy let's compare it to the four quart all clad stainless steel saucepan that everyone goes nuts over and wins all the awards it weighs in at a skosh over three pans and even though this movi L is only a two point six quart and visibly smaller it weighs in at over four pounds so it's a smaller pan but a pound heavier 33% heavier if you're into math so when you pick it up it feels heavy and sturdy and it's built like a tank it's a good booty pan nice thick heavy bottom metal thickness this in heritage line from o VL comes in two thicknesses the product numbers will end on either the number 250 or the number 150 and then have a letter following the 150 refers to 1.5 millimeter thick pans the 250 means that the pans are 2.5 millimeters thick and they are correspondingly more expensive than the 1.5 s now the letter at the end of the product number refers to the material of the handle which we'll get into in a minute now again comparing to the all-clad you can see that the 2.5 millimeter movie l is visibly thicker and you can really feel that difference in the weight and sturdy feel of the pan if you're going to spend the money on copper cookware I think it's really worth it to go ahead and get that 2.5 millimeter thickness handles now the letter at the end of the product number is either an S a C or a B and these letters refer to the choices of handle material S is for stainless steel B for bronze and C for cast iron it's said that it's not pure cast iron but rather a stainless steel handle with cast iron electroplated to its surface for appearance and that's the one I went with based solely on how I thought it would look on my stovetop the handles are attached with rivets and again feel sturdy a couple of important notes about the handles one they are oven safe too I found that they got too hot to grab after about 10 to 12 minutes of cooking much more than that and I needed to use a mitt so the handles do heat up in three when these cast iron plated handles were brand new I noticed that after cooking for a while my hands had a slight metallic smell now washed off with soap and water I've been using the pans for a couple of months now and the smell has dissipated as I've used and washed the pans more and more but sometimes I still get a slight hint of metal after I handle the pans for a while and I don't know if the stainless and bronze handles have the same issue the lid fits well it's much lighter and thinner than the rest of the pan and the main note here is that it only fits a saucepan and not the frying pan cooking test I've actually had these for a couple of months now and had done a lot of cooking in them that's what I'm gonna do is kind of pick and choose some of the cooking tests that I think really show off their pluses in mine we'll start with the saucepan first for my first time using the saucepan I chose to make some of nature's most perfect food cheese grits this is a great way to start because the very first thing to do is boil some water and what I note here is that as the pan heats up the little bubbles that form on the bottom are really evenly distributed all around the bottom of the pan with other pans I can often see the shape of the burner in the pattern of the bubbles so it looks like copper really does evenly distribute heat around the bottom of the pan second point here with stainless steel make sure you wait until water is hot before adding any salt else you can cause pitting in your stainless steel cooking surface so I get the water boiling in go butter salt and grits let them cook covered for 15 minutes or so add some cheese and these turned out great delicious do you like those cheese grits next test we're gonna ratchet it up a bit and go for a bechamel sauce now why make a bechamel for some fancy French dish no for real deal homemade mac and cheese for this guy start with melting some butter when the butter is melting and crackling in goes some flour and a few spices it's cooking nicely smells a little like pie dough when it is cooked a few minutes I whisk in cold milk for no lumps two things to note here one as I brought the milk up to a simmer I stirred often and didn't get any scorching no hot spots to here's where the hardness of the stainless steel cooking surface might be a better choice than the tin I wouldn't use a whisk like this in a softer tin lined pan so I simmer the sauce and let it thicken ingo cheese and other stuff overcooked pasta it goes bread crumbs and cheese on top into the oven and how did it turn out you like that mac and cheese yes before we get to the biggest cooking test we've made rice and it turned out nice and fluffy I made a lot more grits we made hot chocolate for Christmas with no sticking or scorching on the mill but here we go for the biggest test my wife used this Moe VL saucepan to make peanut brittle now making candy is an area where the heat transfer ability and precision and responsiveness of copper cookware is really supposed to shine through now here my main contribution is staying the hell out of the way and not bothering her with the camera so she mounted up her candy thermometer then she heated up corn syrup sugar and water brought it up to heat and when there's a lot of water in the mixture the temp stays constant around the boiling point of water but if some of that water boils away and a thicker syrup is formed the temperature of the mixture starts to rise everything cook very evenly she watched as the temperature got up to 238 degrees in go the peanuts and butter she stirs and she waits as the temperature continues to rise up to about 290 at that point off the flame it goes in goes baking powder and vanilla she spreads it out to cool and it's absolutely delicious and if it looks like my pot belly has grown over the holidays it has and here is Exhibit A in the list of reasons why and say what you want about high fructose corn syrup if you mix it with peanuts butter and sugar it is absolutely delicious now here's the big kicker on this peanut brittle cooking test this peanut brittle is for gift baskets that my wife makes at Christmas for friends and neighbors so she needs a lot of it so she actually made eight batches in a row yes eight batches of this peanut brittle in a row in this mo vielle in the pan performed flawlessly so that's eight times in a row that this pan was cooked in very precisely it was heated cooled washed and used again and again no warping and it performed perfectly so that's about as good as results from a cooking test can get and it really bunks this movi L up to kitchen workhorse level performance that being said is the value there now comparing the movi L saucepan to the fancy all-clad stainless steel pan it's definitely more expensive but at the same time I think you get a little bit better performance I think the copper distributes heat better than the stainless steel it's more responsive it's heavier and it feels very solid it's made of thicker metal and it has great build quality and it looks great too so if those all clouds are in the 200 to 300 dollar range and this movi L is in the 300 to 400 dollar range especially if you get it as part of a set with a bonus pan then yes I think the value is there but around this price point is about the top of the mark for me the gap and improve cooking performance of copper tops out eventually but you can still spend more and more money at some point if you were to spend $700 on a copper saucepan and believe it or not you can actually do so you kind of move past value and performance and into the category of luxury items you're buying fancy beautiful pots and pans for your kitchen not necessarily based on performance alone Beauty as well and there's nothing wrong with that we all like nice things for our kitchens next up is the 8 inch frying pan I started easy with some fried okra it didn't stick it slid around when I shook the pan and it browned up nicely and once again the little guy loved it any veggie I can get my son to eat is a win in at least it ain't goldfish next up is where minor problems started to pop up although I was scared to try a high temp sear test and the copper pan with the steak I did cook some burgers the agent size of this pan maybe Pat out smaller almost slider sized patties but I did manage to get an entire pound of beef in it at one time the burgers cooked nicely they brown well and the least mostly easily I got more sticking when I tried some breakfast sausage patties note here how the patties are not releasing all that well and for example I have to use the spatula more than I'm used to with my movi l carbon steel pan also know how it's harder to maneuver the spatula in this 8 inch size pan it's very small I moved to an electric cooktop and cook some more and I'm happy to say that the movi L worked well on an electric flattop the patties turned out about the same as they did on the gas and thankfully the pan showed no warping at all it is a solid well-made pan and in this respect this pan seems to be a safer pan to use on an electric flattop than a carbon steel for example next up is some light life fake sausage and honestly it tastes about as good as it looks which is not very good I'm also concurrently reviewing a movi l carbon steel skillet and side by side I think these awful sausages cook better in the carbon steel than in the stainless line topper carbon steel was much more nonstick [Music] finally we come to eggs proverbial fried egg test in goes butter and goes an egg and boom if I really pay attention I can get an egg to slide around in the stainless steel pan now I've seen some people claim that they sees in stainless steel to get eggs to slide around which I'm skeptical off but nevertheless here you can see that you can get an egg to slide on stainless steel with nothing but butter if you pay attention but again here I note that with the exact same amount of butter fried eggs slide around much more easily in my carbon steel pans and I barely have to pay attention which is really good for me it's similar with omelets I can turn out a decent omelet in this pan and I can get it to slide around and flip but it's just not quite as easy as cooking the same omelet in carbon steel I also get some sticking and food left in the pan again which I don't get with its cousin ammo VL carbon steel skillet with it I can just wipe it out with a paper towel so with the frying pan the copper seems to heat up quickly and transfer heat really evenly but I think the stainless steel cooking surface on the frying pan doesn't perform quite as well as I'd like to see in a pan that costs this much now as a standalone this pan costs $200 all by itself and at that price point I'm not sure that the value is here on the frying pan I find myself thinking of what else could I get for that same $200 I could get a high-quality all clad stainless steel frying pan and a movi or carbon steel skillet for the same $200 cleanup and maintenance when it comes to cleanup and maintenance it turns out these copper pans are a little fussy first they are not dishwasher safe you have to clean them by hand now I don't mind that as when I buy nice things I like to take good care of them I'm also fairly particular with my pans my wife would say annoying but if I clean them by hand that I know it's done correctly second when it comes to the cooking surfaces the instructions say not to scrub them heavily rather use a little dish soap and hot water and let any cook on food soak for a while and then it will release this works well but know that it takes a little longer to clean these than pans you would normally hit with the scrubby or steel wool I also found that using a little white vinegar really helps get that weird meat film off the stainless steel surface with the grits in the peanut brittle and especially with the sticky bits left by the burgers and sausage I found that soaking was indeed necessary third the copper itself needs to be baby the mole I often make tea in my stainless steel pans and no matter what they say stainless steel ain't stainless I will generally hit the interior and exterior with some bar keeper's friend and get them all shine back up you cannot do that with copper however you can't use the bar keeper's friend or anything even remotely abrasive on the copper surface the copper is too soft and you don't want to use anything that's going to put any kind of scratches or swirl marks on it and now we get to the patina no I knew the copper could take on a patina and develop character over time but being a rookie I didn't realize just how quickly this can happen when the two pans first arrived one was completely shiny but the other had a spot on it right out of the box so I did what I always do I hastily fired off an angry email only to regret it later I swapped emails and picks with the seller they eventually decided to look like a little tarnish they charitably offered to sell me some copper polish and another outrageous twenty five dollars and two days later I had this tiny little jar of copper brill a copper polish made by Moe VL I think it should cost a dollar ninety-nine at Walmart but then again no one asked me so I put a little on a sponge wash the pan and shine that spot of tarnish right off so early on I learned that tarnish can be caused just by air that a brand-new copper pan may already have a little on it depending on how long it's been in a warehouse before someone buys it so let's see how the copper brill works on a big big mess now after eight batches of that peanut brittle in a row the outside of my saucepan at drifts and spots runs and stuff all over it the surface of the copper really seemed to have changed and I didn't know if this was normal or if I had done something wrong so I decided to give it a good scrub with the copper brill and I think this is actually amazing notice how the pan looks before hand and how much it changes as I rub and scrub with that copper drill polish it's amazing to see it return to an almost new shine and I've since learned that some people shine their copper cookware every time they use it they like to keep it shiny and new looking other people never do it and let it really develop a patina and character over time and now that I know that I can restore the shininess if and when I want to I think I'm going to be in the camp of letting that patina and character develop I'm not going to shine it up very often now my pan is already well on its way to looking like the copper pan on the cover of one of my favorite Italian cookbooks and that does make me feel really good because I believe if I have the same or similar high quality cookware high quality ingredients then I can learn at home to cook anything as well as any professional chef ok the movi L copper 2.6 quart saucepan I'm going to give this an unhesitating thumbs up it's already a workhorse in our kitchen you saw it with the peanut brittle cooking over and over and over it performed flawlessly it's got good heat distribution it looks fantastic the lid fits well and it's what I call a leave out pan and by that I mean that once it's cleaned up and ready to go again I'll leave it on the stovetop it looks great and it's ready to go for the next time I want to use it I don't stick it in the copper so this I give an unhesitating thumbs up to now for the 8 inch frying pan I'm going to give it a thumbs sideways now if it's included in the set and you're not really paying up for it it's nice to have there's no doubt about that however to go out and spend $200 on this pan all by itself I don't think I would do that so when it comes down to it if you're thinking about buying the full set of copper cookware I would encourage you to buy a piece of open stock try a pan or two before spending 2020 five hundred dollars just make sure you really like it and you really don't mind that extra maintenance with the patina and the cleanup now I'm glad I got these as a set because it gave me a chance to kind of try them out before making that commitment and investment and what I would have found out had I bought the full set is a my wife would have killed me B I would have been very happy with some of the pieces but other ones would have been just kind of so-so I found out that I love the saucepan with lid I don't care for the frying pan all that much so I'm glad I got it this way okay if you've enjoyed this review and found it helpful like to ask you to subscribe to the channel here some links to some other videos you might find helpful we're trying to get Twitter and Facebook pages going if you get the chance check those out we got affiliate shopping links below please leave feedback questions and comments below the video and do my best to respond to all of those thank you for watching we'll see you next time [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Uncle Scott's Kitchen

Views: 112,080

Keywords: Mauviel Copper, Mauviel, Mauviel Copper cookware, how to use copperbrill, how to polish copper, copperbrill, peanut brittle, cheese grits, mauviel M'heritage, french cookware, uncle scott's kitchen, funny, dad jokes, cooking videos, mauviel copper pan, mauviel copper skillet, mauviel copper set, mauviel 250c, mauviel vs. all-clad, mauviel sauce pan, mauviel carbon steel, all-clad sauce pan

Id: zilW_n2yfK0

Length: 21min 40sec (1300 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 09 2020