De BuyerMINERAL B Carbon Steel Crepe & Tortilla Pan - 12” Diameter, 10” Cooking Surface - Ideal for Making & Reheating Crepes, Tortillas & Pancakes - PFAS, PFOA & PFOS Free - Made in France

We got rid of our coated non-stick cookware many years ago, and switched to using only stainless steel. We've had good luck with the Emeril stainless cookware, which has been durable and useful. For example, when using butter in the stainless Emeril pan, I can cook an omelette and have it release by just jostling the pan. Not really non-stick (stainless never is), but it worked well enough.Until now, that is. We're cutting back on our use of butter, and have taken to using a light mist of oil (like grapeseed) in our cooking. However, using oil on stainless simply does not impart the same slippery effect as butter (or lard), so eggs and other foods stick instead of releasing.After some investigation, I found these DeBuyer iron pans, which are thinner and lighter than cast iron, but which claim to have exceptional non-stick capabilities without any added polymer coatings. And they work GREAT. These are less heavy than cast iron, but are still quite substantial, made from very thick and durable iron.They come with a coating of bees wax, which prevents rusting during storage and shipment. Removing the bees wax is a bit of a pain, and I resorted to filling a sink with boiling water and submerging them to melt off the wax, then wiping away any residual coating. Even though this initial cleaning is pain, it's a one time thing and it's a natural coating, so still preferable to polymer-based non-stick cookware.The next step is to season the pan, which involves putting a shallow layer of oil in the pan, heating it until the oil begins to smoke, then pouring it out. This step was relatively easy, and again is a one-time thing.After that, the pan is ready to use. The first thing I made was a thin, five egg omelette, cooked with only a thin misted layer of grapeseed oil in the pan. The eggs released easily, cooked evenly, and the omelette came out perfect.The manufacturer recommends cleaning with hot water and a sponge (no soap, no abrasives, etc), and they clean up well that way. Then, similar to cast iron, you wipe a little oil on them and put them away until the next use. The oil prevents rusting if you don't use them for a while. These pans are similar to cast iron in that they season as you use them, and the non-stick properties get better the more you use them.Are they as non-stick as teflon? Not quite, but close enough to work for almost any typical cooking need. Are they more trouble to clean and store? Yes, they do require a little care and feeding. Can you put them in the dishwasher? Well, you can, but it will strip the seasoning and encourage rusting, so you don't want to do that.However, they are made of iron, and that's it. No polymer coating to flake off and ingest. No poisonous fumes to emit and cause harm (check the warnings for using non-stick cookware around birds, for example). And we're able to cook everything with a thin layer of misted oil, and so far nothing has stuck even slightly. We highly recommend this cookware, particularly if you're looking to get rid of polymer-coated pans due to potential health issues.Update: The bad news is that after 11 months of regular use one of our two pans warped. The worse news is that I was unable to find any US-based support contact info for the manufacturer, and their offices in France never returned my calls, online requests, or emails. The good news is that I contacted Amazon to see if they had US-based support contact info, and they offered (unsolicited) to replace the pan for me. So, I'll call that a push and leave the five star rating, but watch out for warping and be sure to never introduce sudden temperature changes to the pans.

It is also like your dog...you don't train it, it trains you.Here is what it has taught me:1. When it gets dirty, heat it, and pour boiling water in. The grime floats up. Rinse out and wipe clean.2. Do not let food (or oil) char in it when newly seasoned. It loses the non-stick coating it is building up.3. If it loses its non-stick coating, just season it again.4. Its performance improves over time; in time, the non-stick coating survives boiling water, charring, even scrubbing.It arrived in a box wrapped in brown paper...It was not going to go on my stove straight from the warehouse. I washed it in the dishwasher. Good news, it got clean, bad news, I lost the non-stick coating, and won rust.I scrubbed out the remaining factory seasoning with a heavy duty scouring pad, rinsed, dried, then applied a thin layer of oil all over - inside and out.Then I heated it on the stove on medium-low for about fifteen minutes.I would not start swim lessons at the deep end; I would not try eggs on this pan right after seasoning. Start by giving the pansome easy tasks...tortillas, for example.Soon, it can handle eggs, pancakes, most things. But wait for the non-stick coating to build up good and true before doing tomatoes or any acidic stuff.The handle gets very hot; use a mitt or a kitchen towel.After use, simply wipe with a paper towel. Or, as I said, pour boiling water over the hot pan, rinse out, and wipe clean.If that does not work, scour it good and true with a new heavy-duty scouring pad (the pad wears out after one use). Then rinse, dry, and lightly oil.Over time, the pan "learns" to recovers quickly after scouring.The material is smooth enough to be used safely on a ceramic cook top. Cast Iron is (a bit) suspect, but mild steel is fine.So far, it has been a review of the material, mild steel. Now, about this particular pan:1. It is large enough to function as a pizza pan for small pizzas...the pizza simply slides right out when done.2. At first, I thought the long handle was silly; I now realize I can use it to take most of its weight on my arm instead of taking it all on my wrist. Clever.4. The long handle is at quite an angle to the pan surface, needing more clearance. I can not store it in the top oven shelf without damaging the heating element...unless I store it upside down.5. It is made in France, not China...so I can trust that the material has no toxic impurities.This is a great pan, and I would certainly recommend it.

Terrible. Within a few days of using this, it turned black and started burning everything even on low heat.

I've tried an electric crepe maker, nonstick saucier pans, and cast iron, so I was really hoping that this would finally be the thing that allowed me to make decent crepes. After seasoning, it performed very well and I made really delicious crepes the first time. It's so much easier to pick up the pan and swirl the crepe batter compared to trying to spread it with that crepe swirler tool thingy. I also made good flatbread on it. I'm so happy with it and it's definitely the easiest way that I have found to make decent crepes. I also like to make homemade tortillas and omelets and I think it will be great for that use. I got the 12" because we generally like to have a big crepe, so that was the perfect size for us.

The non-stickiness of these pans is pretty good. Some foods still stick, but it's pretty easy to deal with the clean up when they do. The heat is kind of centralized on this. If you have a 4" flame in the center of the pan, the outer edges of the pan aren't anywhere near as hot as the center. So, the burner pattern on your stove matters with the larger pans (includes how big heating coils are on an electric stove).I far prefer this to cast iron. It doesn't impart that iron flavor that cast iron does. It's also a nicer pan.Paderno pans are nice, but the Mineral B pans are made better-they have better surface quality, smoother edges, etc. I think DeBuyer is using better quality iron too. I think it's worth the additional expense (considering how long it will last, it's pretty cheap).