Just to save you searching - a tiny silver frying pan costs around 2 and a half grand. A normal size frying pan costs around 5 grand. A saucepan costs between 5-7k depending on size.
Damn, so if that video ever comes it'll have no relevance to me. Whether the results are "this barely matters so don't bother with it" or "silver pans are the absolute best" the outcome of me never being able to afford one is the same. Can't imagine my eggs will taste $5000 better.
I mean, making a video about it does seem like a good enough excuse to me to get one. Maybe he can get a gold after that then he the tri-force of metal pots.
There's a type of health condition where *Copper* builds up in your body naturally (it's not like copper poisoning where you've ingested massive quantities of Copper, it all comes from your food & just sticks around. I think it's due to an abnormal liver enzyme, but don't quote me.), called *Wilson's Disease.* What's incredibly wild about it is one of the defining symptoms: A *Copper Ring* around your *Iris!* Each eyeball has an _actual ring of metallic_ *Copper* build up at the border of the *Iris* & the *Sclera..!*
You can get copper pans that are lined with silver rather than tin. This has the advantage of being as thermally conductive but also the silver will last your lifetime rather than the needing to re-tin the pan as it ages.
What are the odds that anyone re-tins the pan? Maybe I just don't exist in that culture of reusability (yet) but I feel like especially nowadays with low quality, planned obsolescence products it's much more likely any of us are going to buy a new pan at that point.
Here's an interesting anecdotal tidbit about how metallic smell and taste is perceived. A friend of mine has hemachromatosis, meaning that his body holds onto WAY too much iron due to a genetic abnormality. Before he knew he had this, he would be able to SMELL his blood when he got a cut. That was often how he would find out he was bleeding in the first place, and he thought this was normal. After diagnosis and treatment, he can no longer smell his blood as distinctly as he did before, now that his iron levels are in a normal range. He was clearly smelling the excess iron in his blood.
Its weird, I know I can taste metals, I couldn't tell them apart, but there is a taste. It might just be metals pick up contaminants on the surface and that is always what can be tasted or something else.
@@A.Martin You're right, the taste is just sweat, bacteria and other filth 😋 Most metals don't react with/dissolve in water, so there is no taste if they're not dirty. The ones that do react with water (like alkaline metals) would definitely just melt your tongue lol Edit: I said probably, but meant definitely, like you could liquefy a corpse in potassium hydroxide...
You can use unlined copper for sweet stuff because sugar will reduce copper-ions back to elemental copper. This was actually used as a way to test for sugars.
Yes, absolutely on the silver purchase. Also a good opportunity to go into the weird antibacterial and antimicrobial biochemical properties of silver ions and the history of "silver"ware. Culinary nerds are quite literally salivating at the prospect!
True , but Copper also has some antibacterial properties plus it has the advantage in that our body requires Copper to survive. It is essential for our blood hemoglobin for respiration - Oxygen saturation plus vital health benefits - copper is an essential element, as Silver is not.
@@1arritechno All of that is Iron. Copper is essential for the actual production of blood cells as well as the formation of collagen. Its also important for immune and nerve cell health
Did you hear perhaps about effect of heavy metals such as lead or mercury ? Well Coper is the first heavy metal. And silver poisoning wont kill you but will render you blue like a smerf. Read Agrylia, not to.mention what gold did to Donald hair...
9:55 minor detail: I don't think it's the cup being colder is what makes it feel colder. Although the ceramic is less heat conductive, it will still rather quickly become just as cold as the copper one (just think about how quickly your ceramic coffee mug is hot after you put coffee in it). The thing with more conductive materials feeling colder, is that they "extract" the heat more quickly from your body, the "heat" from your lips gets put straight away into the cold drink, the copper functioning as a heat sink so to say. This is also why a metal railing in your house "feels" colder then touching a piece of food furniture that obviously has the same room temperature (as long as that room temperature is lower than your body temperature, on very hot days the metal will feel hotter for the same reason but reversed).
Yep. I think Veritasium did a video on heat titled "Misconceptions About Temperature ", where even though the aluminum block felt colder than the plastic block, the aluminum melted an ice cube faster than the plastic block did.
That's really interesting. I am sure that you are right. One thing though: the ceramic coffee mug doesn't get hot evenly. It will be too hot to touch up to the line of the hot liquid but you can still hold the mug by the rim and this part of the mug is also where you are drinking from. Maybe it is a combination of both? Anyway that's just my guess.
This conclusion is wrong. The copper rim actually is colder. You need to consider the fact that the sides and the rim are cooled differently, one by horizontal and the other by vertical heat flow. What I'm saying is that you have two parts of the mug: the lower, let's say 80%, which is filled with the cold liquid, and the upper (20%) that isn't and that makes a huge difference. The ammount of heat transferred is proportional to (1) the temperature gradient (the difference of temperatures divided by the distance between two points) (2) to the area and (3) to the conduction coefficient. In the lower part, where the liquid is, the heat is transferred horizontally, with large areas on both sides and a large gradient (since the sides are 1-2mm thick), so the heat transfer is quick. Much quicker in copper, of course, because it's a good conductor. But now consider the rim. The heat transfer from the rim through the upper part can occur only through the material vertically, because there's air on both sides of the mug. The cross section, thus the area, is much smaller. The gradient is also much smaller, since now you're talking about 1-2cm. So the amount of heat transferred will be much lower. And that's where the difference in materials comes into play. Copper's much higher conductivity enables a lot of heat transfer and the rim actually cools down much more than the rim of the ceramic mug. Consider also this: the rim in the video was also frosty with condensed water, so it is apparent that it's cold. But, to give a hot coffee mug example: you can put your lips to the coffee mug and drink from it without scorching your lips. But you surely wouldn't want to put your lips to the side of the mug! The same thing: the heat from the coffee has a harder time travelling up an heating up the rim, so you can sip scalding coffee but not burn your lips on the mug. The handle of the mug can also easily be used to pick up the mug, because the heat needs to travel trough the small area joining the handle to the mug and the gradient there is again small (the distance is around 3-4cm).
Except it really is the cup being colder that makes it feel cold. The entire cups are either copper or ceramic, so conductivity is the same all over each cup. Conductivity is an assessment of how quickly atomic motion is transferred through any material under set circumstances such as pressure and temperature, or in short 'heat'. And atomic motion is nothing more than atoms bumping into each other which we perceive as 'warm' and 'cold', faster motion means warmer and slower motion means colder. So copper, which is the second most conductive of all the metals, simply takes the temperature of whatever it comes into contact with, including the handle of the cup. Unlike ceramic which keeps its temperature for a much longer time and will also not easily transfer its temperature to the air, boiling coffee vs a bit of crushed ice thrown into alcohol is a big difference. Had he thrown boiling coffee into a copper cup then you can leave that cup there for the next 10 minutes. Regardless, because the copper cup is so conductive it also makes the air around the cup colder, which is also why it heats up faster than the ceramic cup, temperature always equalizes over time. Because the air around the cup is affected his nose, lips and chin will become cold as well as opposed to the ceramic cup which will just transport the cold to his lips and mouth. So the copper cup gives an overall colder experience because the point of contact is longer.
I bought a copper bowl for whisking egg whites at a time when I was make dinner soufflés often, partly because I liked the look of it and partly based on general cooking advice. It did a fantastic job and it took me a while to understand why I never had a failure - and why I was puzzled at those who built foil or parchment-paper collars around their soufflé dish when cooking. I never did and never saw the need - but then I was using a copper bowl in which to whisk the whites, so my whisked egg whites were relatively robust and not prone to drooping or breaking down. I loved that copper bowl (and the soufflés).
Hi Adam, my wife and I are big fans of the channel, but I noticed a few minor errors I wanted to point out: The eggwhites will foam up faster with copper ions in solution as they help form sulfur complexes faster than the disulfide bond formation, and the bonds are more flexible than the covalent disulfide ones. Hence, a stable foam with no grit. The stainless bowl has nothing to form sulfur complexes, so it will take longer for the protein network to form, AND the protein network is more prone to either denaturing or being overwhipped since these bonds do not break when the proteins are stretched, but the solvated ionic bonds within the copper complexes can. Also, the copper vessel and the liquid are likely at approximately the same temperature, in this case around 8C, as copper is an excellent conductor, meaning it will equilibrate in temperature to its surroundings (both the room and the liquid) much faster than an insulator. This also means it will conduct heat AWAY from your body at a much faster rate than ceramic. Indeed, if you take two pieces of material at the same temperature, one copper and one ceramic, the copper one will feel much colder as it's conducting heat away from your body faster than the insulator. Hence, if you refrigerate your ceramic and copper mugs, and take a drink from each, the copper will still feel substantially cooler than the ceramic, even at the same temp. So in your case, even though the mug was actually warmer than the ceramic, it felt cooler. Also, the reason the sugar should prevent copper ions from leeching out in the jam pot is due to the solution of jam being completely saturated with sugar, which has a much higher solubility than the copper.The water can only hold so much, and the sugar literally "gets in the way" of the ions mobilizing into the solution. Finally, yes, I think you should buy a silver one. At the end you could even do a cool electroplating experiment where you electroplate the silver pan in copper and watch the thermal conductivity go down in proportion with the amount of time you spend plating the pan, since you're basically coating your conductor with a worse conductor. And it's easily reversible with a mild acid/abrasive to preserve your expensive pan, lol.
I'd like to add to your point regarding the copper not leaching into a sugar solution by speculating that the added viscosity is likely slowing down reactions in general, provided you're not agitating the sugar syrup (you're usually not - you just let it cook without touching it).
@@erich1394 This is certainly possible; however, I would make the counter point that even in viscous solutions you'd expect dissolution of the copper at the edges, assuming it is favorable in the current solution. Additionally, even though we aren't stirring the pan, it is being thoroughly agitated in the jam making process as the fruit heats and eventually boils and reduces: resulting in both mixing, convective motion, and the increased rate of diffusion through the bulk solution. So the fact we don't observe copper dissolution indicates it's primarily an effect of solvation (along the lines of "salting out") rather than viscosity.
No one ever explained to me why copper mixing bowls work better when I was a pastry chef, but it certainly worked better. I've always wondered about other bowls in the same metal group
Pure copper melts at just over 1900F. Pure silver at just over 1700F. Fun fact, pure silver is WAY too soft to be used in cookware. Because these metals have such high heat conductivity you’d be hard pressed to melt them on a stovetop. Basically you need to get nearly the whole mass up to temperature to be able to melt it. Not gonna happen if even the smallest amount of food/liquid is in the pan. Speaking as a goldsmith with over 20 years experience working with various silver and copper alloys.
@@nottheoneyourelookingfor0504 dude I just started my apprenticeship and any time I work on copper my eyes, nose, mouth, and throat start burning, my throat swells up, and I get hives on my skin. Same thing on a lesser scale happens with all gold alloys. What equipment can I use aside from a respirator and goggles to combat this? I have my metals allergy panel in a month, but I already know I’m allergic to copper and gold, as my mom and grandma both are and I can’t wear either without getting a rash. And the owners of the shop don’t really want to help me find ways to protect myself since they’re older and have never heard of a copper allergy before.
A couple things 1) the insulator/conductor thing is why, if you wanna keep your groceries cold, paper is actually better than plastic. People always pick plastic because it feels colder, but that just means its sapping heat from the environment into your frozen groceries. 2) IIRC, the sense of temperature is based on rate of heat transfer, not absolute temperature. So the copper mug would likely feel colder even at the same temperature, as it would be drawing heat from your body faster.
Fun fact, when you feel the plastic you are feeling coolth. It's the opposite of warmth, aka positive heat transfer into you. For some reason I had never seen or thought of coolth until I took thermodynamics courses.
Well put! In other words on your second note, our perception of cold is flawed. We feel metal is colder than it really is, because it takes heat away from us. It conducts it away, so it feels colder. It's a really interesting thing. Two surfaces of the same temperature feels very different because of the thermel conductivities!
hence the metal slide feeling super fucking hot all summer and plastic not being as bad and wood not being nearly as bad . never thought abt it until suprisingly late in my life but materials having different heat transfer properties is everywhere in life all the time its wild
The mug also feels cold because of copper’s thermal properties! A copper mug is much better at absorbing heat than a ceramic mug, as you said. This means that the mug is more effective at pulling your body’s thermal energy out of your body! This is why metals feel cold to the touch, especially on sensitive areas like your lips or fingers - they are not cold, they’re _making you colder._ I would think that definitely contributes to the overall sensation of drinking a Mule. I think this would also explain why some people are die-hard fans of metal water bottles.
Why did you comment on the Alcoholic Beverage Vessel, and not the Copper Handle on the Pot? Are you more concerned with feeling Cool than Burning yourself?
Really fascinating. The teacher at my cooking school (recreational not professional) went on about copper pots in one class, but I found that I couldn’t remember the details when I got home! So, this video was a really useful review & reminder. So well researched. Btw, I vote yes on the silver pot video!
6:05 I would like to corroborate this statement of Adam's. I live in Pune, India and near my house, there is this small copper workshop, a really small business like 2-3 people forming sheet metal of copper into these pots and heaters of copper and honestly the sound of them bashing on copper continuously is kinda soothing, one might believe that constant metal striking on metal would create some cacophonous noise but on the contrary, it's quite good. You see a ton of foreigners there with their cameras trying to capture it and help the small local business (If anyone's wondering I'm talking about the Kasba Peth area in Pune)
Silversmithing is also very popular in India. A lot of families keep items fashioned from silver, like small pots, in the house largely for religious significance. I've even seen my grandma clean them with dried cow dung to keep them from tarnishing.
I'm always impressed with the amount of scientific inquiry and experimentation you present. I love Moscow Mules but never understood the concept of the copper cup as it definitely absorbs heat more rapidly. I never thought about the extra cold feel it provided when you drank out of it.
This was fascinating and also explains a rhyme that I learned Many Moon Ago: "Copper kettles carrying comforts curing coughs and colds..." This was the beginning of a diction-and-scales warmup from my old high school choir days. Very fun, good practice, but for the longest time I couldn't figure out why on earth someone would put tea in a copper kettle. In the intervening (cough)too-darn-many(cough) years I've learned that "comforts" doesn't meant medicinal TEA, though. It means the original "cough syrup" - made with medicinal herbs boiled in Sugar And Water! Therefore - a copper kettle WOULD be ideal for preparing such things! Neat!
That’s interesting. ooh i want to add some song lyrics since you shared that rhyme: “Why not grab the nettle, I’ll settle for being the kettle if you’re the pot I take my tea like my revenge, sweet and hot”
Copper has been the go-to material for making coffee pots ( _džezva_ ) in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the past 500 years. Before modern heating was a thing, people used to place hot coals onto a table of sorts called _mangale_ (also made from copper) and cover them to heat their houses, and as a bonus they could place the pots on the coals to make coffee on them. These pots are always layered with tin on the inside (and sometimes on the outside, for aesthetic reasons) and are imo the best souvenir you can get from Sarajevo's Old City district, but you need a VERY good eye for copperware because those "craftsmen" sell lots of crap that was probably made in China. I own three copper džezve and they can easily last several lifetimes, you only need to have them re-tinned every 20-30 years or so and it doesn't cost more than 10 Euros.
@@1stNickname Truly? I thought coffee was made in regular iron tea kettles in the rest of Europe. Also it arrived in Bosnia a couple of centuries before most other countries.
@@notar2123 How can that be? Coffee comes from Yemen in the 15th century. The word coffee in English comes from the Dutch, but it first came to Italy in 1600 and only then spread to further Europe. So realistically almost 200 years later. Copper has been and is still used in a lot of food related things, nowadays we coat it with something else, like chrome, or put a steel pan on a copper base. But it's still used for a lot of applications. Copper is a great condenser, so it's used for things that need fast heating or something more complex use like in cocktails. Back then, copper was way more used, since it was easy to make and reliable.
I'm a bartender and the number of times I hear the myth repeated by not just customers but other bartenders that using the copper mug keeps your drink colder longer is crazy. It literally does the opposite of that and any high school graduate should be able to figure that out
Is it that dumb tho? Glass is a better insulator and if the cup is cold then glass also has a higher specific heat capacity - meaning more energy needed to warm it back up. However copper is like 3.5x denser than glass. So for equal volumes of material could copper be better? Ask the next drunk who bothers you.
@@TenCoJeCool I will highlight the part: Is it that dumb tho? Glass is a better insulator and if the cup is cold then glass also has a higher specific heat capacity - *meaning more energy needed to warm it back up.* However copper is like 3.5x denser than glass. So for equal volumes of material could copper be better? Ask the next drunk who bothers you. Or: It stores more cold. The conductive ability will of course massively backfire if you hold it all the time. But not if properly insulated. As in staying on the table. Maybe on an insulating coaster.
@@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece thanks! To be clear, its more that specific heat capacity is measured by energy per mass (j/kg). Copper has half the specific the specific heat capacity but over three times the density. Since copper is denser, an equal volume of copper may "store more cold" even when an equal mass wouldn't. Which is a perfect example of why you should pose this question to a drunk person.
@@badscrew4023 i know difference between silver and tinned. in this time people were migrating due to partition and she told me people would sell their silver cookware to buy necessities
at a buffet, i personally sneak corndogs into the buffet so others can enjoy them. I hide 6 corndogs in my jacket pockets. it then, is a joy for me to see other patrons of the establishment eat my corndogs thinking they were part of the buffet.
My grandparents are from the north of Spain, where they got a very traditional Octopus recipe called Pulpo a Feira (Or Pulpo a la gallega). Every two weeks the town has an open flea market, where a lot of "pulpeiros" come to make the octopus. This was traditionally prepared on giant copper pots and suddenly the goverment banned them. Now I can assume it was realted to this chronic toxicity. Great video, as always!
Looking at the numbers it doesn't seem like there's a big difference in thermal conductivity between copper and silver. Might be more resistant to oxidation and less hazardous, though. Also might turn you permanently blue.
I dunno. You usually hear about the turning blue thing in connection with colloidal silver. I suspect that people who take that stuff ingest much more silver than anyone using silver cookware would.
I was just thinking about that! especially becuase coffee is quite acidic, and I'm wondering if and how the acid-reaction copper leaching mentioned in the video would be applicable in this case.
Most jazwa’s, simply copper coffee pots, are lined inside. That way you still get the conductivity and authenticity without the health risks. And since it is poured in a ceramic cup right after it’s cooked, the heat loss is minimal. Another trick is to pour hot water in the cup while the coffee is being cooked, so that you’ll have a nice hot cup to house the fresh coffee. By the way, the Turkish traditional drink Ayran (yogurt/salt/water) is still served in copper pots but again, most of them are lined as yogurt is acidic.
I watch “The English Heritage“ and Mrs Crocombe talks about using a copper bowl to help eggs reach peaks faster and I was sitting there dumbfounded for a solid five minutes until I convinced myself it wasn’t important 😂😂 Thank you Adam
@@confusedwhale If it was that important to safe two minutes whipping egg whites they could just throw some cream of tartar in there. Professional kitchen's are way more concerned about money so springing for copper anything is unlikely.
@10:05 Small correction. The cup probably feels colder because its conducting your heat faster. We don't sense temperature as well as we sense our loss of temperature. So things that conduct our heat faster feel colder, regardless of whether they actually are or not (within reason of course).
Your ability to convey information is unparalleled and you are a gift to us all. Hopefully you create a team of sponges that can replicate this amazing wisdom.
Just a quick addition I haven’t seen mentioned on why the copper mug feels colder than ceramic: the copper mug saps heat from your lips faster than the ceramic (in addition to losing its heat to the drink). The perceived temperature is likely lower than the actual temperature because of the higher rate of heat loss from your skin.
Yep. Percieved temperature has a lot to do with how fast the heat flows from the body to the environment. For example, heat flow from body to water is faster than flow from body to air. That's why air at 20°C is quite pleasant (warmish spring day), while swimming in water at 20°C is uncomfortably cold for most people. Same is true for heat flow from body to metal vs. body to ceramic.
Different lawyers have different requests. I don’t always understand them, but I don’t have to, as long as it doesn’t mess up the video. I don’t think this one was about the alcohol or the copper. The wording is just their standard procedure.
@@aragusea Just to be clear, I'm not actually mocking it. Obviously, it sticks out compared to, "and I'd like to thank the sponsor of this video." Appreciate the insight into legal nonsense.
Another youtuber I watch, Alex, who is from Europe, did a video where he went to a friend's workshop in Turkey where they handmake special copper-silver alloy pans for cookware in the home and in restaurants. The prices aren't outrageous, so it might be interesting to research it for a future video---sort of like a best of both worlds thing? I'd also be more personally interested in pans like demeyere's silver-stainless mix where they have layers of silver between stainless pans. Are these any good?
I have 2 of those demeyere Atlantis saute pans (and pots, and proline pans) , and they are fantastic. Completely non reactive, indestructible, super easy to maintain and works perfectly on induction. Completely replaced my cast iron pans, and I also make new recipes now that I simply wouldn't have attempted earlier for fear of ruining my seasoning. By now I have replaced my entire kitchen with stainless, and unlike the internet tried to make me believe, I even make eggs in those pans, where they slide around like I have the most perfect sessoning
Wow. Silver is one of the most toxic heavy metals that’ll make you seriously ill if you ingest it regularly - which you will if you’re cooking food in it. You got scammed.
the metallic taste or smell could also be due to a compound called octen-3-ol which is produced when some metals catalyze the breakdown of certain lipids. NileRed has a video on it.
Next episode: Adam proves he's not a werewolf. Also, what is the point of making a copper handle for a copper pan? What use is there for having a handle that's definitely going to get scorchingly hot?
My copper jam pan (more like a kettle; I bought it for making big batches of caramel) has brass handles. They still get hot as all hell but probably not as bad as copper would.
@@ShinyMajor I think copper and steel can galvanically corrode each other as well, but if kept dry I don't know how realistic of a concern that would be on reasonable timescales.
Rather than solid silver, I would love if you did a video on aluminum cookware and when it makes sense to get aluminum vs alternatives. I have sworn by my nonstick aluminum wok because the heat transfer is excellent and I theorize that it is the rate of heat transfer that makes a wok effective not the absolute temperature (above a certain point).
What generally makes woks work they way they do is the low thermal mass which makes them quick to heat up and makes it easy to control the temperature.
Aluminium is very reactive, which is why it would be harder to maintain and is usually sandwiched between stainless steel. Then suddenly people call it a stainless steel pan. I find that naming convention questionable, because my stainless cookware ranges from pans with just an aluminium layer in it to pans with such a thick aluminium core that it make the pans retain heat like a cast iron pan, to saute pans that have a huge silver sandwiched copper core in the middle. Yet all of them are called stainless steel pans. I would call them aluminium and copper pans, and I am very happy with this kind of aluminium full clad pan
@@lgolem09l Ive found many pans are Aluminium, sometimes with a steel plate stuck on the bottom to make them work with induction. I have one of those. I do also have a stainless steel one that has some sort of heat spreader built in the bottom, not sure what it is.
Honestly, I thought solid copper cookware was too fragile and too easily scratched to use in an everyday setting. Now the solid silver cookware seems like the ultimate wedding gift for a chef.
Some blade makers have been integrating copper as a layer in their kitchen cutlery in the last few years. It's known as CuMai and it has grown quite popular for the contrast that copper lends. I'm fine with it in non-food related blades, but I still have my reservations about them in the kitchen. If you do a silver pan episode, would you also be able to address this as well?
Pretty sure it's fine to have a little copper in the blades. The Food will not be in contact with the blade for very long, the surface area is small and it is not hot so very little copper should get leeched out.
Imagine cooking using the copper pan, putting it on the windowsill to cool and the rag and bone man comes and takes it off you to sell. you'd be livid.
These little dents in the copper bowl also serve another purpose, the add regidity to the shape. Copper is most often cold worked (shaped and hammered while room temp) because by doing so you deform the crystals and thus strengthen the material. The technique (i believe) its called pin hammering and you can see everywhere, from copper to aluminium and even silver and gold.
I know it's fairly common to coat copper pans in silver in the ultra high end pan market. Almost, if not, 1K for a jam pot even smaller than the one you showed off in the video. I couldn't imagine the cost of a full silver pot
I can't believe Adam risked getting copper poisoning for us, only to tell us the copper flavour makes it better lol. And yes, a video about silver pans would be awesome!
The little indentations are there not only for an aesthetical homage to old copper tools, it may provide strength as well both by work hardening and by the fact that ridges (and other irregularities) increase the load capacity of thin metal sheets.
@@hugoa.c.1566 Yup, same reason golf balls are dimpled! The bumps creates a boundary layer of turbulent air around the bowl which causes the smooth laminar layer of air to be spaced away from the surface a bit allowing it to wrap around the back of the bowl more easily, decreasing wake drag. This is essential for proper bowl tossing.
❤ the side trip into Moscow Mules! AND: Thanks for the wonderful video, and a huge thanks for not ruining it with crappy background music. I don't know why some people feel compelled to add annoying background music throughout their videos.
Adam, I have an interesting copper pan related observation you may be interested in investigating. The food TH-camr Alex the French Guy did a series of videos on sauces where he traveled to Turkey to have a custom sauce pot made for him. It was made of copper with a thin silver liner bonded to its inside, ostensibly for the same reason that tin is used to line copper pots and pans-to shield the food from contact with copper. Visually speaking, the silver looks reminiscent of the stainless steel and tin liners, but silver is right under copper in the periodic table, and has similar properties (high conductivity, anti-microbial properties). Could you find out whether or not lining a copper pan with silver offers only illusory protection? I know that silver can cause heavy metal poisoning (argyria; do an image search for the term if you dare). I don't know of any micronutrient use for silver. So is lining a copper pan with silver just switching from one known form of harm to a potentially worse but unknown form of harm? Or is silver less soluble when in contact with acidic foods? Would a Moscow Mule copper mug be less dangerous if the inside were silver plated? Or is it just going to give you argyria and related silver poisoning instead of copper poisoning?
I don't believe silver is poisonous it's pretty much completely non-reactive it will turn you blue over time if you consume too much but I don't believe it's actually toxic.
@@ChaosTherum This is not a matter of belief. It is known to be toxic because it interferes with certain enzymes. The human body tries to isolate it by encapsulating it in subcutaneous fat precisely because it is toxic and can't be left in circulation. There are known toxic effects of silver on just about every organ.
@@Berkana Found a document from the CDC that pretty much agrees with what I said, it'll turn you blue but otherwise there aren't any harmful effects. www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxfaqs/tfacts146.pdf
Hi Adam, enjoyed the video. I have also enjoyed the use of bare copper kitchen countertops in my home kitchens for the past 10 years. I build them myself - despite their reputation for being super expensive, high-end luxury products, but as a DIY project they're significantly cheaper and much easier than stone. One thing to be aware of, beyond the ability for clean bare copper to leach into food, is the corrosion that can form on bare copper over time. There are a variety of copper patinas, usually red, brown, green, or greenish-blue in color, containing a wide mix of copper salts and other compounds. Many of these are so water-soluble that if you swipe a tarnished copper surface with a wet finger, you can see the tarnish transfer onto your finger. (Don't lick it!) Some of these compounds are toxic to varying degrees. The water-soluble ones in particular are very easy to clean (a damp rag is sometimes enough, and if not there's always Bar Keepers Friend) but by the same token, they are the most likely to contaminate your food or drink if you don't clean them off. It's not hard to keep copper clean, especially pots and pans - countertops are a little more work since you're always setting things on them and water gets under a mug or whatever. But it is something to just be aware of and stay on top of (as with any tool). Copper that looks shiny is clean; copper that looks dull, maybe brownish, but still basically copper colored, I also consider clean. Any green, blue, red, or even black spots are "clean me now!" signs (though I rarely see the black and it doesn't seem to be water soluble). When we were first deciding whether to seal our countertops under a layer of food-safe epoxy, as many copper DIY-ers do, I did some research to see if I could find documented instances of poisoning related to bare copper surfaces. I found only one very concerning instance (this was many years ago, so I haven't got a citation) that took place about a century ago and involved commercial-scale operations and significant negligence. So we decided to go for it and we've been fans ever since, at least for countertops (still can't afford those fancy copper pans and sinks and what not). There is a text available online, "Metal Contamination of Food: Its Significance for Food Quality and Human Health" published by Blackwell Science that has a section about copper specifically. I think it provides a great overview of the subject.
I think you've just solved for me why I've always preferred soda straight from a can over straight from a bottle or any other way. I perceive it as colder because of the metal
On the note of leaching copper into acidic food, I wonder how much heat plays a factor in this. Adam explained that the time for a Moscow Mule greatly affected the amount of dangerous ions in the drink, however this is even at very cold temperatures. Many times chemists crank up the heat to speed up acid reactions, so I wonder, would cooking down a tomato sauce (possibly even with vinegar, wine, or vodka) leach dangerous levels of copper?
It definitely would. Do not ever cook anything acidic in a copper, aluminum, or iron pot or pan. Stainless steel or something ceramic lined is the only safe bet.
To answer your question at 11:17, we have to look at how things dissolve (or leach) in the first place. At a very basic level, attractive forces between molecules of the solvent (water) and the solute (sugar, copper, etc.) need to be able to overcome the attractive forces between the molecules of the solute. For sugar, the dissolution is really easy, because water and sugar molecules love to attract each other. Metallic copper is much harder, because its internal attraction is really tight (stainless steel even more so). Leaching occurs slowly because the water is able to slowly attract away copper ions from the pan. When you dissolve a ton of sugar into the water, a lot of that attractive force of the water is being "used up" trying to dissolve the sugar. The same is true to a lesser degree if you dissolve a bit of salt, some ethanol, or even a smaller amount of sugar. But you don't really notice it unless the solution is totally saturated with sugar, like you do for making jams. This explanation is pretty quick and dirty, and there are some inaccuracies, but I think this is the best way to think about it if you're not a scientist.
I worked with copper sometimes when I fabricated sheet metal projects at work. You would always get cuts as a hazard of the job. Galvanized sheet metal cuts were no big deal but for some reason when you got sliced by copper the injury would be 100 times more sore the next day. My crew chief used to take a stick and keep tapping the cut to make it bleed and it wouldn’t be so sore the next day.
Copper is a good bit more reactive with living cells than steel, to the point that clean copper surfaces passively kill most bacteria. My guess would be your cuts got some small copper shards in them which caused irritation, and the forced bleeding helped physically flush those tiny pieces out, so they couldn't cause as much trouble. I could be totally wrong of course, I'm no expert on this, but that's my two cents.
Hey Adam, was wondering if you could do a similar video for aluminum? There seems to be some uncertainty in how safe pure aluminum cookware is in the kitchen, foil in particular. Sheet pans also pose an issue, and when looking at different styles it seems there’s only aluminum or non stick pans. Why aren’t stainless steel sheet trays as common as other types? I know nonstick is only dangerous at extreme temperatures, but it seems strange stainless trays aren’t pushed as much.
Silver is probably my favorite metal. Never heard of silver cookware, only service. Its significant antimicrobial properties have something to do with the latter use, I think. You should totally do a silver pan video.
Watched several of your vids now. I fealt like you earned my sub after this one. You're a great presenter with great content. I like the way you delve into seemingly mundane things and revolutionize the way we think about them by the end. Cheers and thanks!
I grew up in southern West Virginia, where I learned that apple butter should be made in a copper pot -- probably for the same reasons as the French jam pot, and also because (I guess) the copper would even out the heat from a wood fire.
My guess as to why the steel vs copper timing test ended up weird would be the texture on the copper bowl. I could see that texture potentially helping speed things up. Perhaps you could try again in one of the smooth copper pots to see if it changes anything.
This is good knowledge. I feel like the market price of copper cookware is artificially high compared to the manufacturing costs and price of the mineral extraction and shipping once put into scale production.
Yes, buy the silver pan, but also buy a gold one. You need to make sure the sound it produces when you hit something with it is accurate to it's portrayal in videogames.
This video makes me think of one utensil that was used in the 50's - 70's that came into contact with acidic foods for many many HOURS at a time, and that was routinely made of copper...... and that is the Jell-o mold! I still have one that I haven't used in years, I bought it for my mother for a mother's day present in 1976. I really wonder about the safety of those things!!
Hello Adam, I love your work, your video is really so interesting to watch. Plus I am an organic chemist, so the point of reflexion you choose, often related to chemistry and scientific litterature, is really delightful. Nice to learn about food this way. I think that basically making jam in pure copper pots isn't a problem, even though it's acidic. The copper 0 (metallic one) from the pan could eventually dissolve in food as ions, being copper 2+ mainly. Since the copper looses electrons in the process (that's why it becomes + charged), we call it an oxidation. The inverse of that is a reduction. And some chemicals are known to oxidize or reduce other chemicals easily. They are then called oxidizers or reducers. Sugar is a well known reducer, so it avoids copper 2+ ions from forming, by reducing them back into elemental copper. There is a famous experiment which is very beauriful and equivalent to the chemistry evoked here, that's the silver mirror experiment, with silver then, and also....sugar. You basically do the same metal reduction reaction and it forms a pretty silver mirror on your glass container.
So the acid from the fruits takes copper out of the pot and the sugar turns it back into normal copper, but now there's a bunch of copper dust in your jam?
@@sebaschan-uwu Well, I red my comment again and I made it a bit unclear. Basically, what I meant is that if the sugar and the acid reagents are present together nothing will happen because the copper can't dissolve in a weakly acid and reducing solution of sugar. However, if you added only acid to the pan, let it react for some time, a minute quantity of copper would have dissolved yes. This is happening with the help of oxygen in the air which is an oxidizer. Adding the sugar in a second step would invert the process, and could, as you said, produce a tiny bit of copper dust.
It is important to know that in chemistry if A happens in your container and then adding B overpowers A in the same container, if you have A and B in the same container, same time, A just won't happen. Chemistry directly goes for the most stable and doesn't oscillates between A and B.
Adam, I watched your video after purchasing a 2.8 lb solid copper pot from El Mercadito in Los Angeles. While there I purchased clay “barro” pots which is are very common to see in Latino households and in Mexico. Can you do a video on the history of these clay pots? The uses, the dangers (lead is present in some but easy to test for), the curing process, and maybe cook a traditional Latino dish in the clay pots? Happy to even ship one to you uncured for you to check out. Thanks!
Fun fact: Many people around the world, where drinking water wasn't always reliable, would submerge a copper mug or tumbler into their pots of drinking water (for short periods of time). Apparently copper is toxic for a lot of bacteria and placing a copper utensil in a pot of water would kill them off. No idea if it works, but it's still a popular practice in India, where I live.
For homebrewers here: if your brew reeks of sulfur (rotten eggs) in the fermenter, dip a sanitized (in oxipro, not starsan as it is an acid) copper wire in your brew. It will fix the flaw within 20 min. If you wait too long, H2S can form mercaptans (2-mercaptoethanol for instance) and this will never go away.
Veritassium had a video about what we feel cold and it says that we feel not the temperature itself but rather how fast the heat goes from your hand to the item you're holding it with
Hey Adam! Longtime lover of your channel here, I've been watching your content since the infamous "seasoning your cutting board" video (which I now sometimes do lol). I have a topic I'd love to see you cover: Mustard Oil! Due to it's high smoke point it's commonly used in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, etc, but it is banned for internal consumption by the FDA here in the US. It's still sold as an "external massage oil" but is still used as a cooking ingredient by a lot of people. I think a video looking into mustard oil, it's safety, and some of it's culinary uses would be really interesting.
@@Mumbamumba metal bits can come off and find their way into your food. Some people have perforated their intestines with grill brush bristles. I don't know how often it happens, but it has made me hyper aware whenever I use a grill brush
Have you ever heard of the revolutionary glass ceramic material called Pyroceram, that was developed to protect space shuttles from extreme temperature changes! Yes they made pots of this type of thing🙂 I'm curious to know more about it.
Alex from French Guy Cooking travelled to Istanbul to get a silver-lined cooper pot. All handmade by a father-son team. They claim that stirring is not necessary since the heat is so perfectly distributed. And if you put a lid on it that's also made with copper and lined with silver, you've just made a perfect small oven. Fascinating stuff. It's a part of his series on sauces if you wanna check it out.
Fantastic video as always. Didn't know that not only lead (or lead-lined) and aluminum cookware posed a public health problem in the past, copper also does.
Be interesting to see a study of a moscow mule done with a silver cup. Certainly colder but if any surface leaching ensues would it be more healthful or more detrimental? Would it eventually turn a person blue?
I bought a copper jug, let water sit in it overnight and drink a glass in the morning. I was curious to see if copper would be absorbed into the water to help my copper deficiency. Been doing this a few days. This copper jug is beautiful. It looks like treasure, so I don't care if it doesn't help with deficiency, I love it, really cool little jug. Very interesting video, going to look for shiny copper bowls, want to try that egg experiment out and see if there's much of a flavor difference.
10:00 min - It's also a Copper Mug so it's literally drawing out the heat from YOU more quickly. That's why touching a metal table leg for example could be freezing whilst a wooden one, is quite dull thermically speaking!
Silver pan and cup would be a cool video idea, was always curious if it carried a risk for silver poison, since silver poisoning makes your skin turn blue.
Just to save you searching - a tiny silver frying pan costs around 2 and a half grand. A normal size frying pan costs around 5 grand. A saucepan costs between 5-7k depending on size.
thankyou dan
very cool
Damn, so if that video ever comes it'll have no relevance to me. Whether the results are "this barely matters so don't bother with it" or "silver pans are the absolute best" the outcome of me never being able to afford one is the same. Can't imagine my eggs will taste $5000 better.
@@SupahGeck You know that Eggs and Silver don't work together? lol
My wallet hurts from reading that
I mean, making a video about it does seem like a good enough excuse to me to get one. Maybe he can get a gold after that then he the tri-force of metal pots.
whoever gave this man the money to test a solid silver pan is crazy and I adore it
Dropbox apparently
I believe you gave me the money, James!
Where's the money Adam! Where's the money?!
Money meant for Meowth
@@KrypXern He gave it to Ted 😟
There's a type of health condition where *Copper* builds up in your body naturally (it's not like copper poisoning where you've ingested massive quantities of Copper, it all comes from your food & just sticks around. I think it's due to an abnormal liver enzyme, but don't quote me.), called *Wilson's Disease.* What's incredibly wild about it is one of the defining symptoms:
A *Copper Ring* around your *Iris!*
Each eyeball has an _actual ring of metallic_ *Copper* build up at the border of the *Iris* & the *Sclera..!*
Someone watched House MD. 😂
potato salad
"That can't be real"
Looks it up
"Holy [copper] it's real"
Sounds cool
@@tstahler5420 Or Scrubs 😂
You can get copper pans that are lined with silver rather than tin. This has the advantage of being as thermally conductive but also the silver will last your lifetime rather than the needing to re-tin the pan as it ages.
also, does the tin leach out??
What are the odds that anyone re-tins the pan? Maybe I just don't exist in that culture of reusability (yet) but I feel like especially nowadays with low quality, planned obsolescence products it's much more likely any of us are going to buy a new pan at that point.
@@AwesomeSauce7176 if you know someone that throws copper pots in the trash, tell me in which dumpster please haha
Silver is a very soft metal, softer than copper. I fear anyone selling a silver lining as guaranteed to last a lifetime is lying.
@@RhodianColossus - I have 99.8% silver Burkart headjoint for my flute and it is not at all a soft metal.
Here's an interesting anecdotal tidbit about how metallic smell and taste is perceived. A friend of mine has hemachromatosis, meaning that his body holds onto WAY too much iron due to a genetic abnormality. Before he knew he had this, he would be able to SMELL his blood when he got a cut. That was often how he would find out he was bleeding in the first place, and he thought this was normal. After diagnosis and treatment, he can no longer smell his blood as distinctly as he did before, now that his iron levels are in a normal range. He was clearly smelling the excess iron in his blood.
I now wonder if a "realistic vampire" would have a heightened sense of smell relating to iron..
"There's something different about you, Mr. Laurio."
Its weird, I know I can taste metals, I couldn't tell them apart, but there is a taste. It might just be metals pick up contaminants on the surface and that is always what can be tasted or something else.
I can smell the difference between oxidised silver and iron
@@A.Martin You're right, the taste is just sweat, bacteria and other filth 😋 Most metals don't react with/dissolve in water, so there is no taste if they're not dirty. The ones that do react with water (like alkaline metals) would definitely just melt your tongue lol
Edit: I said probably, but meant definitely, like you could liquefy a corpse in potassium hydroxide...
You can use unlined copper for sweet stuff because sugar will reduce copper-ions back to elemental copper. This was actually used as a way to test for sugars.
Benedict's reagent?
"This was actually used as a way to test for sugars." in pee! if I remember it correctly.
Ah diabetic detection
Benedicts solution turned blue.
Yes, absolutely on the silver purchase. Also a good opportunity to go into the weird antibacterial and antimicrobial biochemical properties of silver ions and the history of "silver"ware. Culinary nerds are quite literally salivating at the prospect!
True , but Copper also has some antibacterial properties plus it has the advantage in that our body requires Copper to survive. It is essential for our blood hemoglobin for respiration - Oxygen saturation plus vital health benefits - copper is an essential element, as Silver is not.
@@1arritechno All of that is Iron. Copper is essential for the actual production of blood cells as well as the formation of collagen. Its also important for immune and nerve cell health
@@1arritechno Sir, are you a crab?
Did you hear perhaps about effect of heavy metals such as lead or mercury ? Well Coper is the first heavy metal. And silver poisoning wont kill you but will render you blue like a smerf. Read Agrylia, not to.mention what gold did to Donald hair...
@@1arritechno read abour cooper positioning... Coper is a heavy metal.
9:55 minor detail: I don't think it's the cup being colder is what makes it feel colder. Although the ceramic is less heat conductive, it will still rather quickly become just as cold as the copper one (just think about how quickly your ceramic coffee mug is hot after you put coffee in it). The thing with more conductive materials feeling colder, is that they "extract" the heat more quickly from your body, the "heat" from your lips gets put straight away into the cold drink, the copper functioning as a heat sink so to say. This is also why a metal railing in your house "feels" colder then touching a piece of food furniture that obviously has the same room temperature (as long as that room temperature is lower than your body temperature, on very hot days the metal will feel hotter for the same reason but reversed).
Yep. I think Veritasium did a video on heat titled "Misconceptions About Temperature
", where even though the aluminum block felt colder than the plastic block, the aluminum melted an ice cube faster than the plastic block did.
That's really interesting. I am sure that you are right. One thing though: the ceramic coffee mug doesn't get hot evenly. It will be too hot to touch up to the line of the hot liquid but you can still hold the mug by the rim and this part of the mug is also where you are drinking from. Maybe it is a combination of both? Anyway that's just my guess.
This conclusion is wrong. The copper rim actually is colder.
You need to consider the fact that the sides and the rim are cooled differently, one by horizontal and the other by vertical heat flow. What I'm saying is that you have two parts of the mug: the lower, let's say 80%, which is filled with the cold liquid, and the upper (20%) that isn't and that makes a huge difference.
The ammount of heat transferred is proportional to (1) the temperature gradient (the difference of temperatures divided by the distance between two points) (2) to the area and (3) to the conduction coefficient. In the lower part, where the liquid is, the heat is transferred horizontally, with large areas on both sides and a large gradient (since the sides are 1-2mm thick), so the heat transfer is quick. Much quicker in copper, of course, because it's a good conductor.
But now consider the rim. The heat transfer from the rim through the upper part can occur only through the material vertically, because there's air on both sides of the mug. The cross section, thus the area, is much smaller. The gradient is also much smaller, since now you're talking about 1-2cm. So the amount of heat transferred will be much lower. And that's where the difference in materials comes into play. Copper's much higher conductivity enables a lot of heat transfer and the rim actually cools down much more than the rim of the ceramic mug.
Consider also this: the rim in the video was also frosty with condensed water, so it is apparent that it's cold. But, to give a hot coffee mug example: you can put your lips to the coffee mug and drink from it without scorching your lips. But you surely wouldn't want to put your lips to the side of the mug! The same thing: the heat from the coffee has a harder time travelling up an heating up the rim, so you can sip scalding coffee but not burn your lips on the mug.
The handle of the mug can also easily be used to pick up the mug, because the heat needs to travel trough the small area joining the handle to the mug and the gradient there is again small (the distance is around 3-4cm).
Except it really is the cup being colder that makes it feel cold. The entire cups are either copper or ceramic, so conductivity is the same all over each cup. Conductivity is an assessment of how quickly atomic motion is transferred through any material under set circumstances such as pressure and temperature, or in short 'heat'. And atomic motion is nothing more than atoms bumping into each other which we perceive as 'warm' and 'cold', faster motion means warmer and slower motion means colder.
So copper, which is the second most conductive of all the metals, simply takes the temperature of whatever it comes into contact with, including the handle of the cup. Unlike ceramic which keeps its temperature for a much longer time and will also not easily transfer its temperature to the air, boiling coffee vs a bit of crushed ice thrown into alcohol is a big difference. Had he thrown boiling coffee into a copper cup then you can leave that cup there for the next 10 minutes.
Regardless, because the copper cup is so conductive it also makes the air around the cup colder, which is also why it heats up faster than the ceramic cup, temperature always equalizes over time. Because the air around the cup is affected his nose, lips and chin will become cold as well as opposed to the ceramic cup which will just transport the cold to his lips and mouth. So the copper cup gives an overall colder experience because the point of contact is longer.
I feel like you just explained the same exact thing but with like twelve extra steps.
I bought a copper bowl for whisking egg whites at a time when I was make dinner soufflés often, partly because I liked the look of it and partly based on general cooking advice. It did a fantastic job and it took me a while to understand why I never had a failure - and why I was puzzled at those who built foil or parchment-paper collars around their soufflé dish when cooking. I never did and never saw the need - but then I was using a copper bowl in which to whisk the whites, so my whisked egg whites were relatively robust and not prone to drooping or breaking down. I loved that copper bowl (and the soufflés).
Hi Adam, my wife and I are big fans of the channel, but I noticed a few minor errors I wanted to point out:
The eggwhites will foam up faster with copper ions in solution as they help form sulfur complexes faster than the disulfide bond formation, and the bonds are more flexible than the covalent disulfide ones. Hence, a stable foam with no grit. The stainless bowl has nothing to form sulfur complexes, so it will take longer for the protein network to form, AND the protein network is more prone to either denaturing or being overwhipped since these bonds do not break when the proteins are stretched, but the solvated ionic bonds within the copper complexes can.
Also, the copper vessel and the liquid are likely at approximately the same temperature, in this case around 8C, as copper is an excellent conductor, meaning it will equilibrate in temperature to its surroundings (both the room and the liquid) much faster than an insulator. This also means it will conduct heat AWAY from your body at a much faster rate than ceramic. Indeed, if you take two pieces of material at the same temperature, one copper and one ceramic, the copper one will feel much colder as it's conducting heat away from your body faster than the insulator. Hence, if you refrigerate your ceramic and copper mugs, and take a drink from each, the copper will still feel substantially cooler than the ceramic, even at the same temp. So in your case, even though the mug was actually warmer than the ceramic, it felt cooler.
Also, the reason the sugar should prevent copper ions from leeching out in the jam pot is due to the solution of jam being completely saturated with sugar, which has a much higher solubility than the copper.The water can only hold so much, and the sugar literally "gets in the way" of the ions mobilizing into the solution.
Finally, yes, I think you should buy a silver one. At the end you could even do a cool electroplating experiment where you electroplate the silver pan in copper and watch the thermal conductivity go down in proportion with the amount of time you spend plating the pan, since you're basically coating your conductor with a worse conductor. And it's easily reversible with a mild acid/abrasive to preserve your expensive pan, lol.
I'd like to add to your point regarding the copper not leaching into a sugar solution by speculating that the added viscosity is likely slowing down reactions in general, provided you're not agitating the sugar syrup (you're usually not - you just let it cook without touching it).
You must study chemistry :) I also loved this video in particular for the same reason
Yes to all of this.
@@gv04 I used to, lol. Now I do engineering and write software xD
@@erich1394 This is certainly possible; however, I would make the counter point that even in viscous solutions you'd expect dissolution of the copper at the edges, assuming it is favorable in the current solution. Additionally, even though we aren't stirring the pan, it is being thoroughly agitated in the jam making process as the fruit heats and eventually boils and reduces: resulting in both mixing, convective motion, and the increased rate of diffusion through the bulk solution. So the fact we don't observe copper dissolution indicates it's primarily an effect of solvation (along the lines of "salting out") rather than viscosity.
Yes. Silver pans please. I’m so looking forward to seeing your commentary style on something as extravagant as a solid silver pot
I really want to see the silver too I think that would be cool
and then solid gold pots
@@MrTeddy12397 lead too while we are at it
Why not a solid cast osmium pan?
No one ever explained to me why copper mixing bowls work better when I was a pastry chef, but it certainly worked better. I've always wondered about other bowls in the same metal group
Two videos from now:
"Why I season my solid gold pan"
"Why I fold my copper bowls and why you should too"
@@SimuLord an Osmium pan would be possible. can be a "little bit" poisonous, but who cares, when my steak will be much better in it!
I've heard before that the kind of glass you're using can affect your drink, I did not know adding more poison to it was an option
You can add just a liiiittle poison. As a treat.
If you're drinking steaming hot Moscow mules every day it's poison. If you have one occasionally it's a micronutrient. "The dose makes the poison."
Material, shape, temperature... You name, it probably affects your experience with it. Consuming food and drinks uses all of your senses.
Meanwhile, Roman winemakers: Hey what if we used this lead pot to make wine??
Ice cold Fanta lemon out of glass bottle is the best
Before cooking with a silver pan, check its melting point. If you put a silver pan on a gas stove you might melt it.
I feel like as long as you're cooking something in it, it'll be fine.
Pure copper melts at just over 1900F. Pure silver at just over 1700F. Fun fact, pure silver is WAY too soft to be used in cookware. Because these metals have such high heat conductivity you’d be hard pressed to melt them on a stovetop.
Basically you need to get nearly the whole mass up to temperature to be able to melt it.
Not gonna happen if even the smallest amount of food/liquid is in the pan.
Speaking as a goldsmith with over 20 years experience working with various silver and copper alloys.
@@nottheoneyourelookingfor0504 oh yeah that makes sense
@@nottheoneyourelookingfor0504 dude I just started my apprenticeship and any time I work on copper my eyes, nose, mouth, and throat start burning, my throat swells up, and I get hives on my skin. Same thing on a lesser scale happens with all gold alloys. What equipment can I use aside from a respirator and goggles to combat this? I have my metals allergy panel in a month, but I already know I’m allergic to copper and gold, as my mom and grandma both are and I can’t wear either without getting a rash. And the owners of the shop don’t really want to help me find ways to protect myself since they’re older and have never heard of a copper allergy before.
just like everything else, dingdong
A couple things
1) the insulator/conductor thing is why, if you wanna keep your groceries cold, paper is actually better than plastic. People always pick plastic because it feels colder, but that just means its sapping heat from the environment into your frozen groceries.
2) IIRC, the sense of temperature is based on rate of heat transfer, not absolute temperature. So the copper mug would likely feel colder even at the same temperature, as it would be drawing heat from your body faster.
Yeah, it's why shower temps are nearly always too hot or too cold, water conducts and retains heat well
Yes but because of condensation, paper is usually the worse choice for cold groceries if you are carrying them any distance
Fun fact, when you feel the plastic you are feeling coolth. It's the opposite of warmth, aka positive heat transfer into you. For some reason I had never seen or thought of coolth until I took thermodynamics courses.
Well put! In other words on your second note, our perception of cold is flawed. We feel metal is colder than it really is, because it takes heat away from us. It conducts it away, so it feels colder. It's a really interesting thing. Two surfaces of the same temperature feels very different because of the thermel conductivities!
hence the metal slide feeling super fucking hot all summer and plastic not being as bad and wood not being nearly as bad . never thought abt it until suprisingly late in my life but materials having different heat transfer properties is everywhere in life all the time its wild
The mug also feels cold because of copper’s thermal properties! A copper mug is much better at absorbing heat than a ceramic mug, as you said. This means that the mug is more effective at pulling your body’s thermal energy out of your body! This is why metals feel cold to the touch, especially on sensitive areas like your lips or fingers - they are not cold, they’re _making you colder._ I would think that definitely contributes to the overall sensation of drinking a Mule. I think this would also explain why some people are die-hard fans of metal water bottles.
Why did you comment on the Alcoholic Beverage Vessel, and not the Copper Handle on the Pot?
Are you more concerned with feeling Cool than Burning yourself?
The reason why they are able to make you cold is because their temeprature is lower than that of your body. By definition they are cold.
Really fascinating. The teacher at my cooking school (recreational not professional) went on about copper pots in one class, but I found that I couldn’t remember the details when I got home! So, this video was a really useful review & reminder. So well researched. Btw, I vote yes on the silver pot video!
6:05
I would like to corroborate this statement of Adam's. I live in Pune, India and near my house, there is this small copper workshop, a really small business like 2-3 people forming sheet metal of copper into these pots and heaters of copper and honestly the sound of them bashing on copper continuously is kinda soothing, one might believe that constant metal striking on metal would create some cacophonous noise but on the contrary, it's quite good. You see a ton of foreigners there with their cameras trying to capture it and help the small local business (If anyone's wondering I'm talking about the Kasba Peth area in Pune)
Nashik madhe pan hote ata nahiye . Litteraly tambat lane mhanayche
@@aryaaswale7316 ayyy
amchya ithe pan Tambat ali asa nav ahe tya jagecha
Silversmithing is also very popular in India. A lot of families keep items fashioned from silver, like small pots, in the house largely for religious significance.
I've even seen my grandma clean them with dried cow dung to keep them from tarnishing.
That’s so cool
I'm always impressed with the amount of scientific inquiry and experimentation you present. I love Moscow Mules but never understood the concept of the copper cup as it definitely absorbs heat more rapidly. I never thought about the extra cold feel it provided when you drank out of it.
you are the definition of thorough
This was fascinating and also explains a rhyme that I learned Many Moon Ago:
"Copper kettles carrying comforts curing coughs and colds..." This was the beginning of a diction-and-scales warmup from my old high school choir days. Very fun, good practice, but for the longest time I couldn't figure out why on earth someone would put tea in a copper kettle. In the intervening (cough)too-darn-many(cough) years I've learned that "comforts" doesn't meant medicinal TEA, though. It means the original "cough syrup" - made with medicinal herbs boiled in Sugar And Water! Therefore - a copper kettle WOULD be ideal for preparing such things!
Neat!
That’s interesting. ooh i want to add some song lyrics since you shared that rhyme:
“Why not grab the nettle,
I’ll settle for being the kettle if you’re the pot
I take my tea like my revenge,
sweet and hot”
I love how Adam is so Interested in and appreciative of the scientists credited for the studies he cites.
i want to know the science of cooking in a silver pan, so someone send that man a pan!
Love how the main use of youtube's "most rewatched part of the vide" function is skipping the advert.
real XD
Copper has been the go-to material for making coffee pots ( _džezva_ ) in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the past 500 years. Before modern heating was a thing, people used to place hot coals onto a table of sorts called _mangale_ (also made from copper) and cover them to heat their houses, and as a bonus they could place the pots on the coals to make coffee on them. These pots are always layered with tin on the inside (and sometimes on the outside, for aesthetic reasons) and are imo the best souvenir you can get from Sarajevo's Old City district, but you need a VERY good eye for copperware because those "craftsmen" sell lots of crap that was probably made in China. I own three copper džezve and they can easily last several lifetimes, you only need to have them re-tinned every 20-30 years or so and it doesn't cost more than 10 Euros.
Interesting, but this is all of Europe basically at that time.
Seed oil is safe though, we made it during the industrial revolution as a byproduct from machinery oil.
@@1stNickname Truly? I thought coffee was made in regular iron tea kettles in the rest of Europe. Also it arrived in Bosnia a couple of centuries before most other countries.
@@nahimgudfam You mistakenly replied to the wrong comment I presume?
@@notar2123 How can that be? Coffee comes from Yemen in the 15th century. The word coffee in English comes from the Dutch, but it first came to Italy in 1600 and only then spread to further Europe. So realistically almost 200 years later.
Copper has been and is still used in a lot of food related things, nowadays we coat it with something else, like chrome, or put a steel pan on a copper base. But it's still used for a lot of applications. Copper is a great condenser, so it's used for things that need fast heating or something more complex use like in cocktails. Back then, copper was way more used, since it was easy to make and reliable.
I'm a bartender and the number of times I hear the myth repeated by not just customers but other bartenders that using the copper mug keeps your drink colder longer is crazy. It literally does the opposite of that and any high school graduate should be able to figure that out
I’ve never heard that before, but I noticed one time that whenever I ordered a Moscow mule in a copper mug my ice always melts
Is it that dumb tho? Glass is a better insulator and if the cup is cold then glass also has a higher specific heat capacity - meaning more energy needed to warm it back up. However copper is like 3.5x denser than glass. So for equal volumes of material could copper be better? Ask the next drunk who bothers you.
@@bg3841 It is literally one of the best heat conductors. Why would a conductor keep your drink cooler?
@@TenCoJeCool I will highlight the part:
Is it that dumb tho? Glass is a better insulator and if the cup is cold then glass also has a higher specific heat capacity - *meaning more energy needed to warm it back up.* However copper is like 3.5x denser than glass. So for equal volumes of material could copper be better? Ask the next drunk who bothers you.
Or:
It stores more cold.
The conductive ability will of course massively backfire if you hold it all the time. But not if properly insulated. As in staying on the table. Maybe on an insulating coaster.
@@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece thanks!
To be clear, its more that specific heat capacity is measured by energy per mass (j/kg). Copper has half the specific the specific heat capacity but over three times the density. Since copper is denser, an equal volume of copper may "store more cold" even when an equal mass wouldn't.
Which is a perfect example of why you should pose this question to a drunk person.
in india my grandmother told us about silver pots n pans and how cheap and prevalent it used to be.
Lots of "silverware" wasn't actual pure silver, but either a silver-containing alloy or not containing silver at all like "nickel silver".
@@badscrew4023 i know difference between silver and tinned. in this time people were migrating due to partition and she told me people would sell their silver cookware to buy necessities
We still use bronze and copper utensils for religious events and they follow the same "no-acidic foods allowed" rule.
at a buffet, i personally sneak corndogs into the buffet so others can enjoy them. I hide 6 corndogs in my jacket pockets. it then, is a joy for me to see other patrons of the establishment eat my corndogs thinking they were part of the buffet.
WTF
Why did you have to tell us this?
God bless you.
My hero.
That is highly illegal
My grandparents are from the north of Spain, where they got a very traditional Octopus recipe called Pulpo a Feira (Or Pulpo a la gallega). Every two weeks the town has an open flea market, where a lot of "pulpeiros" come to make the octopus. This was traditionally prepared on giant copper pots and suddenly the goverment banned them. Now I can assume it was realted to this chronic toxicity. Great video, as always!
They are banning copper to keep us unhealthy. These studies are BS
Copper is traditionally used to store water in India, believed to be anti microbial and as mentioned we need a little bit of copper in our system 😉
Yes
Not only copper we have been using Silver Brass Gold Iron etc for their own properties for our well being since thousands of years
Looking at the numbers it doesn't seem like there's a big difference in thermal conductivity between copper and silver. Might be more resistant to oxidation and less hazardous, though. Also might turn you permanently blue.
Yeah, I think the selling point is it’s all the conductivity of copper without the reactivity.
@@aragusea silver tined copper
I dunno. You usually hear about the turning blue thing in connection with colloidal silver. I suspect that people who take that stuff ingest much more silver than anyone using silver cookware would.
@@nirodper big brain
@@nirodper oh wait that already is a thing, it also is very expensive but not as much as pure silver
Copper is being used for traditional ibrik coffee as well, due to it's thermal conductivity. That would be worth a mention too.
I was just thinking about that! especially becuase coffee is quite acidic, and I'm wondering if and how the acid-reaction copper leaching mentioned in the video would be applicable in this case.
Most jazwa’s, simply copper coffee pots, are lined inside. That way you still get the conductivity and authenticity without the health risks. And since it is poured in a ceramic cup right after it’s cooked, the heat loss is minimal. Another trick is to pour hot water in the cup while the coffee is being cooked, so that you’ll have a nice hot cup to house the fresh coffee. By the way, the Turkish traditional drink Ayran (yogurt/salt/water) is still served in copper pots but again, most of them are lined as yogurt is acidic.
It's ironic that the ancient Romans lined their copper pans with lead to avoid copper poisoning but ended up being lead poisoned.
I watch “The English Heritage“ and Mrs Crocombe talks about using a copper bowl to help eggs reach peaks faster and I was sitting there dumbfounded for a solid five minutes until I convinced myself it wasn’t important 😂😂 Thank you Adam
It generally isn't important, but in a professional kitchen... time is an important factor to consider.
@@confusedwhale Even more so when there were no electric mixers.
Glen of Glen and Friends recently got a copper bowl too. He was skeptical but not anymore. It's his go-to for egg whites now.
@@confusedwhale If it was that important to safe two minutes whipping egg whites they could just throw some cream of tartar in there. Professional kitchen's are way more concerned about money so springing for copper anything is unlikely.
@10:05 Small correction. The cup probably feels colder because its conducting your heat faster. We don't sense temperature as well as we sense our loss of temperature. So things that conduct our heat faster feel colder, regardless of whether they actually are or not (within reason of course).
Your ability to convey information is unparalleled and you are a gift to us all. Hopefully you create a team of sponges that can replicate this amazing wisdom.
Just a quick addition I haven’t seen mentioned on why the copper mug feels colder than ceramic: the copper mug saps heat from your lips faster than the ceramic (in addition to losing its heat to the drink). The perceived temperature is likely lower than the actual temperature because of the higher rate of heat loss from your skin.
Yep. Percieved temperature has a lot to do with how fast the heat flows from the body to the environment.
For example, heat flow from body to water is faster than flow from body to air.
That's why air at 20°C is quite pleasant (warmish spring day), while swimming in water at 20°C is uncomfortably cold for most people.
Same is true for heat flow from body to metal vs. body to ceramic.
Adam wants to be very clear that Dropbox only sponsored THAT PART of this week's video. Dropbox does NOT endorse copper cookware.
It’s a good thing they want to separate themselves from the copper industry. Being Pro-copper in 2022 isn’t very progressive.
It's probably about the alcohol.
Different lawyers have different requests. I don’t always understand them, but I don’t have to, as long as it doesn’t mess up the video. I don’t think this one was about the alcohol or the copper. The wording is just their standard procedure.
@@aragusea prolly an easy out if you choose to have multiple sponsors so they wont have to hassle with different contracts
@@aragusea Just to be clear, I'm not actually mocking it. Obviously, it sticks out compared to, "and I'd like to thank the sponsor of this video." Appreciate the insight into legal nonsense.
10:22 NileRed did a video on a chemical called 1-Octen-3-One which seems to be what causes the taste/smell of metals.
Another youtuber I watch, Alex, who is from Europe, did a video where he went to a friend's workshop in Turkey where they handmake special copper-silver alloy pans for cookware in the home and in restaurants. The prices aren't outrageous, so it might be interesting to research it for a future video---sort of like a best of both worlds thing?
I'd also be more personally interested in pans like demeyere's silver-stainless mix where they have layers of silver between stainless pans. Are these any good?
That video made me buy one of those actually! And i love it!
I was just going to comment that about Alex! Here's the video link: th-cam.com/video/33ddRK_jG6E/w-d-xo.html
I have 2 of those demeyere Atlantis saute pans (and pots, and proline pans) , and they are fantastic. Completely non reactive, indestructible, super easy to maintain and works perfectly on induction. Completely replaced my cast iron pans, and I also make new recipes now that I simply wouldn't have attempted earlier for fear of ruining my seasoning. By now I have replaced my entire kitchen with stainless, and unlike the internet tried to make me believe, I even make eggs in those pans, where they slide around like I have the most perfect sessoning
Wow. Silver is one of the most toxic heavy metals that’ll make you seriously ill if you ingest it regularly - which you will if you’re cooking food in it. You got scammed.
Yes we all know Alex French guy cooking here :)
the metallic taste or smell could also be due to a compound called octen-3-ol which is produced when some metals catalyze the breakdown of certain lipids. NileRed has a video on it.
Yes the NileRed video is great. That's why this video of his confused me as it's in direct conflict with that.
please make a video for silver ware utensils. Today's the first day am binge watching your videos and got fan of the knowledge and sources you choose.
Next episode: Adam proves he's not a werewolf.
Also, what is the point of making a copper handle for a copper pan? What use is there for having a handle that's definitely going to get scorchingly hot?
Cuz copper segsy?
@@aragusea I bet a stainless handle would have worked itself loose after using the pan once or twice from the differential expansion.
My copper jam pan (more like a kettle; I bought it for making big batches of caramel) has brass handles. They still get hot as all hell but probably not as bad as copper would.
@@ShinyMajor I think copper and steel can galvanically corrode each other as well, but if kept dry I don't know how realistic of a concern that would be on reasonable timescales.
@@aragusea Yeah, copper is really damn hot.
Rather than solid silver, I would love if you did a video on aluminum cookware and when it makes sense to get aluminum vs alternatives. I have sworn by my nonstick aluminum wok because the heat transfer is excellent and I theorize that it is the rate of heat transfer that makes a wok effective not the absolute temperature (above a certain point).
Aluminum is extremely toxic & a forever metal in yr. body. I don't know why they make aluminum cooking items & foil, but I avoid it myself.
What generally makes woks work they way they do is the low thermal mass which makes them quick to heat up and makes it easy to control the temperature.
@@Default78334 Aluminum is pretty good for that. I wonder if it would get all melty though?
Aluminium is very reactive, which is why it would be harder to maintain and is usually sandwiched between stainless steel. Then suddenly people call it a stainless steel pan. I find that naming convention questionable, because my stainless cookware ranges from pans with just an aluminium layer in it to pans with such a thick aluminium core that it make the pans retain heat like a cast iron pan, to saute pans that have a huge silver sandwiched copper core in the middle. Yet all of them are called stainless steel pans. I would call them aluminium and copper pans, and I am very happy with this kind of aluminium full clad pan
@@lgolem09l Ive found many pans are Aluminium, sometimes with a steel plate stuck on the bottom to make them work with induction. I have one of those.
I do also have a stainless steel one that has some sort of heat spreader built in the bottom, not sure what it is.
Honestly, I thought solid copper cookware was too fragile and too easily scratched to use in an everyday setting. Now the solid silver cookware seems like the ultimate wedding gift for a chef.
Some blade makers have been integrating copper as a layer in their kitchen cutlery in the last few years. It's known as CuMai and it has grown quite popular for the contrast that copper lends. I'm fine with it in non-food related blades, but I still have my reservations about them in the kitchen. If you do a silver pan episode, would you also be able to address this as well?
Pretty sure it's fine to have a little copper in the blades.
The Food will not be in contact with the blade for very long, the surface area is small and it is not hot so very little copper should get leeched out.
Interesting, I hadn't heard of that before. Do you know what advantage they think the copper gives to the blade?
@@lexica510 It looks fucking cool.
Check "Tyrell Knifeworks" on TH-cam for example this video: /watch?v=95rL86GvweI
@@lexica510 It's pure aesthetics. It looks good and takes skill to make. So it's an extension of the maker's craft and skill.
@@lexica510literally none it makes it weaker actually however it looks gorgeous
Those TH-cam edit guys are going to go crazy with a clip of you saying "raw dog"
And bless them for it.
Thank you for using the Celsius as well. Much appreciated… here in… outside the US…
imagine frying potatoes with zinc in this pan
and then generating electricity
Imagine cooking using the copper pan, putting it on the windowsill to cool and the rag and bone man comes and takes it off you to sell. you'd be livid.
These little dents in the copper bowl also serve another purpose, the add regidity to the shape. Copper is most often cold worked (shaped and hammered while room temp) because by doing so you deform the crystals and thus strengthen the material. The technique (i believe) its called pin hammering and you can see everywhere, from copper to aluminium and even silver and gold.
Spot on!
I know it's fairly common to coat copper pans in silver in the ultra high end pan market. Almost, if not, 1K for a jam pot even smaller than the one you showed off in the video. I couldn't imagine the cost of a full silver pot
I can't believe Adam risked getting copper poisoning for us, only to tell us the copper flavour makes it better lol. And yes, a video about silver pans would be awesome!
He didn't risk anything. It takes chronic exposure to have any impact.
@@duxdawg it sounded more like if the drink was left for long in a copper mug it would increase the risk but either way I was just joking around
copper can't displace hydrogen from acids so unoxidized surfaces won't react with acidic foods@@MedicFromTF2_REAL
The little indentations are there not only for an aesthetical homage to old copper tools, it may provide strength as well both by work hardening and by the fact that ridges (and other irregularities) increase the load capacity of thin metal sheets.
nah man it's to make the bowl more aerodynamic
@@showalk how could I have forgotten that? Thanks for the valuable addition! 🤣... I failed flying saucer engineering hahah
@@hugoa.c.1566 Yup, same reason golf balls are dimpled! The bumps creates a boundary layer of turbulent air around the bowl which causes the smooth laminar layer of air to be spaced away from the surface a bit allowing it to wrap around the back of the bowl more easily, decreasing wake drag. This is essential for proper bowl tossing.
❤ the side trip into Moscow Mules! AND: Thanks for the wonderful video, and a huge thanks for not ruining it with crappy background music.
I don't know why some people feel compelled to add annoying background music throughout their videos.
Adam, I have an interesting copper pan related observation you may be interested in investigating. The food TH-camr Alex the French Guy did a series of videos on sauces where he traveled to Turkey to have a custom sauce pot made for him. It was made of copper with a thin silver liner bonded to its inside, ostensibly for the same reason that tin is used to line copper pots and pans-to shield the food from contact with copper. Visually speaking, the silver looks reminiscent of the stainless steel and tin liners, but silver is right under copper in the periodic table, and has similar properties (high conductivity, anti-microbial properties). Could you find out whether or not lining a copper pan with silver offers only illusory protection? I know that silver can cause heavy metal poisoning (argyria; do an image search for the term if you dare). I don't know of any micronutrient use for silver. So is lining a copper pan with silver just switching from one known form of harm to a potentially worse but unknown form of harm? Or is silver less soluble when in contact with acidic foods? Would a Moscow Mule copper mug be less dangerous if the inside were silver plated? Or is it just going to give you argyria and related silver poisoning instead of copper poisoning?
silver is very nonreactive, so I don't really expect silver to give you poisoning unless you do something very specific to make it leach into the food
I don't believe silver is poisonous it's pretty much completely non-reactive it will turn you blue over time if you consume too much but I don't believe it's actually toxic.
@@ChaosTherum This is not a matter of belief. It is known to be toxic because it interferes with certain enzymes. The human body tries to isolate it by encapsulating it in subcutaneous fat precisely because it is toxic and can't be left in circulation. There are known toxic effects of silver on just about every organ.
@@Berkana Found a document from the CDC that pretty much agrees with what I said, it'll turn you blue but otherwise there aren't any harmful effects.
www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxfaqs/tfacts146.pdf
Hi Adam, enjoyed the video. I have also enjoyed the use of bare copper kitchen countertops in my home kitchens for the past 10 years. I build them myself - despite their reputation for being super expensive, high-end luxury products, but as a DIY project they're significantly cheaper and much easier than stone.
One thing to be aware of, beyond the ability for clean bare copper to leach into food, is the corrosion that can form on bare copper over time. There are a variety of copper patinas, usually red, brown, green, or greenish-blue in color, containing a wide mix of copper salts and other compounds. Many of these are so water-soluble that if you swipe a tarnished copper surface with a wet finger, you can see the tarnish transfer onto your finger. (Don't lick it!)
Some of these compounds are toxic to varying degrees. The water-soluble ones in particular are very easy to clean (a damp rag is sometimes enough, and if not there's always Bar Keepers Friend) but by the same token, they are the most likely to contaminate your food or drink if you don't clean them off. It's not hard to keep copper clean, especially pots and pans - countertops are a little more work since you're always setting things on them and water gets under a mug or whatever. But it is something to just be aware of and stay on top of (as with any tool). Copper that looks shiny is clean; copper that looks dull, maybe brownish, but still basically copper colored, I also consider clean. Any green, blue, red, or even black spots are "clean me now!" signs (though I rarely see the black and it doesn't seem to be water soluble).
When we were first deciding whether to seal our countertops under a layer of food-safe epoxy, as many copper DIY-ers do, I did some research to see if I could find documented instances of poisoning related to bare copper surfaces. I found only one very concerning instance (this was many years ago, so I haven't got a citation) that took place about a century ago and involved commercial-scale operations and significant negligence. So we decided to go for it and we've been fans ever since, at least for countertops (still can't afford those fancy copper pans and sinks and what not).
There is a text available online, "Metal Contamination of Food: Its Significance for Food Quality and Human Health" published by Blackwell Science that has a section about copper specifically. I think it provides a great overview of the subject.
I don't know why this channel suddenly popped up in my suggestions and other people's I know but I'm glad it did. I immediately subscribed.
I think you've just solved for me why I've always preferred soda straight from a can over straight from a bottle or any other way. I perceive it as colder because of the metal
Idk why but for me, most drinks are exceptionally tastier out of a styrofoam cup. Especially soda.
@@dx315 mmmm yummy plastic
On the note of leaching copper into acidic food, I wonder how much heat plays a factor in this. Adam explained that the time for a Moscow Mule greatly affected the amount of dangerous ions in the drink, however this is even at very cold temperatures. Many times chemists crank up the heat to speed up acid reactions, so I wonder, would cooking down a tomato sauce (possibly even with vinegar, wine, or vodka) leach dangerous levels of copper?
Yes acid causes more lekage as compared to heat so avoid copper if u have any copper not digestion issue to filter out from blood u may die
It definitely would. Do not ever cook anything acidic in a copper, aluminum, or iron pot or pan. Stainless steel or something ceramic lined is the only safe bet.
Wow, what you did in that copper bowl I had never seen before, thank you.
Almost at 2 mil Adam! Super exciting!
To answer your question at 11:17, we have to look at how things dissolve (or leach) in the first place. At a very basic level, attractive forces between molecules of the solvent (water) and the solute (sugar, copper, etc.) need to be able to overcome the attractive forces between the molecules of the solute. For sugar, the dissolution is really easy, because water and sugar molecules love to attract each other. Metallic copper is much harder, because its internal attraction is really tight (stainless steel even more so). Leaching occurs slowly because the water is able to slowly attract away copper ions from the pan.
When you dissolve a ton of sugar into the water, a lot of that attractive force of the water is being "used up" trying to dissolve the sugar. The same is true to a lesser degree if you dissolve a bit of salt, some ethanol, or even a smaller amount of sugar. But you don't really notice it unless the solution is totally saturated with sugar, like you do for making jams.
This explanation is pretty quick and dirty, and there are some inaccuracies, but I think this is the best way to think about it if you're not a scientist.
wow! one of the best videos I have seen on TH-cam regarding chemistry. respect!
Yes Adam, you should absolutely make a video on solid silver cookware. That sounds like a great video!
I worked with copper sometimes when I fabricated sheet metal projects at work. You would always get cuts as a hazard of the job. Galvanized sheet metal cuts were no big deal but for some reason when you got sliced by copper the injury would be 100 times more sore the next day. My crew chief used to take a stick and keep tapping the cut to make it bleed and it wouldn’t be so sore the next day.
Copper is a good bit more reactive with living cells than steel, to the point that clean copper surfaces passively kill most bacteria. My guess would be your cuts got some small copper shards in them which caused irritation, and the forced bleeding helped physically flush those tiny pieces out, so they couldn't cause as much trouble.
I could be totally wrong of course, I'm no expert on this, but that's my two cents.
@@razordrive3238 sounds very reasonable.
The copper could have killed the body cells which tried to repair the cut.
Hey Adam, was wondering if you could do a similar video for aluminum? There seems to be some uncertainty in how safe pure aluminum cookware is in the kitchen, foil in particular. Sheet pans also pose an issue, and when looking at different styles it seems there’s only aluminum or non stick pans. Why aren’t stainless steel sheet trays as common as other types? I know nonstick is only dangerous at extreme temperatures, but it seems strange stainless trays aren’t pushed as much.
yeah, basic science and the NSF seem to disagree in some areas.
Silver is probably my favorite metal. Never heard of silver cookware, only service. Its significant antimicrobial properties have something to do with the latter use, I think. You should totally do a silver pan video.
Try eating silver if you haven't (like on Indian sweets)
Watched several of your vids now. I fealt like you earned my sub after this one. You're a great presenter with great content. I like the way you delve into seemingly mundane things and revolutionize the way we think about them by the end. Cheers and thanks!
I grew up in southern West Virginia, where I learned that apple butter should be made in a copper pot -- probably for the same reasons as the French jam pot, and also because (I guess) the copper would even out the heat from a wood fire.
My guess as to why the steel vs copper timing test ended up weird would be the texture on the copper bowl. I could see that texture potentially helping speed things up. Perhaps you could try again in one of the smooth copper pots to see if it changes anything.
Really cool to see a youtuber doing literature searches on stuff they're talking about, and highlighting relevant papers! Super cool
The audience member in me is desperately curious at silver cookware, but the physically responsible adult in me is horrified at the price tag
Spending money on outrageous things to get more clicks is half of the job of some youtubers
what about gold cookware :P
@@A.Martin while gold is a great heat conductor its worse then silver
Exactly why I would prefer Adam buy them!
You could make a whole series of videos testing pans made out of any material and I'd be down for it
This is good knowledge. I feel like the market price of copper cookware is artificially high compared to the manufacturing costs and price of the mineral extraction and shipping once put into scale production.
Yes, buy the silver pan, but also buy a gold one.
You need to make sure the sound it produces when you hit something with it is accurate to it's portrayal in videogames.
😁😁
Tf2 moment
I'd love to see a future video on silver cookware
You are such an incredible man Adam I learn so much from you
This video makes me think of one utensil that was used in the 50's - 70's that came into contact with acidic foods for many many HOURS at a time, and that was routinely made of copper...... and that is the Jell-o mold! I still have one that I haven't used in years, I bought it for my mother for a mother's day present in 1976. I really wonder about the safety of those things!!
Hello Adam,
I love your work, your video is really so interesting to watch. Plus I am an organic chemist, so the point of reflexion you choose, often related to chemistry and scientific litterature, is really delightful. Nice to learn about food this way. I think that basically making jam in pure copper pots isn't a problem, even though it's acidic. The copper 0 (metallic one) from the pan could eventually dissolve in food as ions, being copper 2+ mainly. Since the copper looses electrons in the process (that's why it becomes + charged), we call it an oxidation. The inverse of that is a reduction. And some chemicals are known to oxidize or reduce other chemicals easily. They are then called oxidizers or reducers. Sugar is a well known reducer, so it avoids copper 2+ ions from forming, by reducing them back into elemental copper.
There is a famous experiment which is very beauriful and equivalent to the chemistry evoked here, that's the silver mirror experiment, with silver then, and also....sugar. You basically do the same metal reduction reaction and it forms a pretty silver mirror on your glass container.
So the acid from the fruits takes copper out of the pot and the sugar turns it back into normal copper, but now there's a bunch of copper dust in your jam?
@@sebaschan-uwu Well, I red my comment again and I made it a bit unclear. Basically, what I meant is that if the sugar and the acid reagents are present together nothing will happen because the copper can't dissolve in a weakly acid and reducing solution of sugar. However, if you added only acid to the pan, let it react for some time, a minute quantity of copper would have dissolved yes. This is happening with the help of oxygen in the air which is an oxidizer. Adding the sugar in a second step would invert the process, and could, as you said, produce a tiny bit of copper dust.
It is important to know that in chemistry if A happens in your container and then adding B overpowers A in the same container, if you have A and B in the same container, same time, A just won't happen. Chemistry directly goes for the most stable and doesn't oscillates between A and B.
Adam, I watched your video after purchasing a 2.8 lb solid copper pot from El Mercadito in Los Angeles. While there I purchased clay “barro” pots which is are very common to see in Latino households and in Mexico. Can you do a video on the history of these clay pots? The uses, the dangers (lead is present in some but easy to test for), the curing process, and maybe cook a traditional Latino dish in the clay pots? Happy to even ship one to you uncured for you to check out.
Thanks!
Fun fact: Many people around the world, where drinking water wasn't always reliable, would submerge a copper mug or tumbler into their pots of drinking water (for short periods of time). Apparently copper is toxic for a lot of bacteria and placing a copper utensil in a pot of water would kill them off. No idea if it works, but it's still a popular practice in India, where I live.
For homebrewers here: if your brew reeks of sulfur (rotten eggs) in the fermenter, dip a sanitized (in oxipro, not starsan as it is an acid) copper wire in your brew. It will fix the flaw within 20 min.
If you wait too long, H2S can form mercaptans (2-mercaptoethanol for instance) and this will never go away.
Veritassium had a video about what we feel cold and it says that we feel not the temperature itself but rather how fast the heat goes from your hand to the item you're holding it with
"I sure hope the internet doesn't force me to buy a silver pan as a tax write off for a video" - we're on to you Ragusea
Hey Adam! Longtime lover of your channel here, I've been watching your content since the infamous "seasoning your cutting board" video (which I now sometimes do lol).
I have a topic I'd love to see you cover: Mustard Oil! Due to it's high smoke point it's commonly used in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, etc, but it is banned for internal consumption by the FDA here in the US. It's still sold as an "external massage oil" but is still used as a cooking ingredient by a lot of people. I think a video looking into mustard oil, it's safety, and some of it's culinary uses would be really interesting.
I am thrilled to hear about something coming from Carrol College! It’s rare my home is in the headlines! Good job undergrads at Carrol!
Could you make video about the dangers of grill brushes and the best alternative (if you think they are not safe) ?
What's the danger of grill brushes?
@@Mumbamumba metal bits can come off and find their way into your food. Some people have perforated their intestines with grill brush bristles. I don't know how often it happens, but it has made me hyper aware whenever I use a grill brush
I have mostly All-Clad and cast iron pans and have been avoiding copper pans because I can’t afford to redo my kitchen 😰
Have you ever heard of the revolutionary glass ceramic material called Pyroceram,
that was developed to protect space shuttles from extreme temperature changes!
Yes they made pots of this type of thing🙂
I'm curious to know more about it.
Alex from French Guy Cooking travelled to Istanbul to get a silver-lined cooper pot. All handmade by a father-son team. They claim that stirring is not necessary since the heat is so perfectly distributed. And if you put a lid on it that's also made with copper and lined with silver, you've just made a perfect small oven. Fascinating stuff. It's a part of his series on sauces if you wanna check it out.
Fantastic video as always. Didn't know that not only lead (or lead-lined) and aluminum cookware posed a public health problem in the past, copper also does.
Not quite at the same level...
Haha, loved the end! Yes, video on silver ware wound be dope!
Great video Adam! :)
Be interesting to see a study of a moscow mule done with a silver cup. Certainly colder but if any surface leaching ensues would it be more healthful or more detrimental? Would it eventually turn a person blue?
I bought a copper jug, let water sit in it overnight and drink a glass in the morning. I was curious to see if copper would be absorbed into the water to help my copper deficiency. Been doing this a few days. This copper jug is beautiful. It looks like treasure, so I don't care if it doesn't help with deficiency, I love it, really cool little jug. Very interesting video, going to look for shiny copper bowls, want to try that egg experiment out and see if there's much of a flavor difference.
Adam: I'm not telling you to go buy a copper bowl...
Me: too late
At 12:00 the pot would be improved by using a stainless steel handle, it wouldn't get so hot.
10:00 min - It's also a Copper Mug so it's literally drawing out the heat from YOU more quickly. That's why touching a metal table leg for example could be freezing whilst a wooden one, is quite dull thermically speaking!
If Adam can only come up with a good enough sponsor transition, he'd get sponsored by a company that makes solid silver cookware
Silver pan and cup would be a cool video idea, was always curious if it carried a risk for silver poison, since silver poisoning makes your skin turn blue.