How to Use Calphalon with Acidic Foods

This article will guide you in using your new Calphalon cookware with acidic foods. Calphalon cookware is a relatively new type of cookware that is anodized for ease of cooking and nonstick properties. As an expensive piece of cookware, your Calphalon pots, pans and skillets can bring you many years of uninterrupted cooking when taken care of properly.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Calphalon anodized cookware

1. The first step to keeping Calphalon cookware in good shape is to keep it clean. The cookware is hard anodized, which means that it is 30 percent harder than stainless steel. To clean it, simply use warm, soapy water and a nylon scouring pad. If you still see hazy areas after drying, try a product like Soft Scrub with a scouring pad and rinse it completely. Remember that if the surface is scratched or has damage or oxidation, Calphalon has a lifetime warranty. With the exception of the simple nonstick, you can return all of your cookware for a new piece as many times as you need to.

2. The deanodizing or slivering of your cookware is perfectly safe. It just means that the process of anodization has reversed, and that you use it for your cooking enjoyment. Do not be alarmed, as you can send it right back to the manufacturer for a new piece. Repeated exposure to acidic foods is the number one reason of slivering of your cookware. Normally, anodized surfaces have an extremely long life and do not chip, peel or oxidize with normal wear.

3. During the hard anodizing process, your aluminum cookware is lowered into an acid bath and electric charges are sent through the bath. This unifies the bath with oxygen, making a chemical product that is called aluminum oxide. When you use your cookware to contain an acidic food, the acids in the food react with the surface that has undergone the acid bath. So your cookware surface assumes that it is again undergoing the acid bath. This is what causes the nonstick portion of the cookware to break down and become silver again.

4. To keep your cookware from silvering, simply clean it as soon as you are finished cooking with it. The longer the exposure to acidic foods, the less time it will take for the surface to break down. Never store acidic foods in the cookware. If you are still worried about the reaction of your Calphalon the acidic foods, the company offers a product without the nonstick properties of the anodized cookware that is perfect for those spaghetti sauces and chili dishes you so love to make.

Tips & Warnings

• Depending on the type of cookware you own from Calphalon, there are many different products, some cookware is more prone to oxidation of the surface. The dark portion, or coating, on your cookware is safe, and if it does begin to come off, will not harm you. Simply send your piece back to Calphalon for a new one if you purchased the dark surfaced cookware. This lifetime warranty is not given on any cookware that does not have the dark, nonstick surface on it.

Resources

• Calphalon Use and Suggestions

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