Retinning Copper Pans: How To Guide

Retinning your copper pans is something that can help you give them a new lease of life.

Besides, retinning is something that you can do on even 100-year-old pans.

To ensure successful retinning of your copper pans, you should consider a professional or the DIY approach if you have some time on your hands.

Below, you get to learn how to prepare and conduct the retinning process.

How to Retin Your Copper Pans

Cleaning the pans is essential to ensure that there are no contaminants on the pans.

When cleaning these pans, you should use a mild abrasive, water and soap.

Secondly, you should consider soaking the copper pan in diluted sodium hydrochloride for a few hours and remember to use safety equipment.

The ideal equipment to have should include eye protection, gloves and aprons.

Furthermore, the longest duration to soak the pan should be a week.

After soaking, you should scrub it again with the abrasive to remove any grease and baked-on food.

At times, the pan can still be oxidized if you detect some darkness.

To remove the oxidation, you can use sandpaper.

If the shape is perfect, you can utilize a 200-grit orbital sander.

If the darkness doesn’t come out after sanding, you should consider using a metal stripper.

This will help remove any oxidized tin.

For the rivets, you should consider using a Dremel or a sandblasting cabinet.

After which you should wash the entire pan with water and later use diluted muriatic acid.

Washing helps ensure that there isn’t any dirt and oxidation.

More so, you should proceed to paint the exterior of the pan with lime paste, let it dry and put the pan over the fire for tinning.

When retinning, the trick is to find a clean location for the tin to stick. If your copper pan is dirty or oxidized, the tin won’t stick.

If it does, it can pop or peel off.

Factors to Consider When Retinning Copper Pans

Copper pans are made in different grades.

Learning about the grade of your pan can help you know whether it’s suitable for retinning.

When assessing the grade of your pan, you should begin by checking the thickness of the copper.

Anything that exceeds 2.5 mm is ideal for retinning and it’s part of the best grade.

Pans of this grade are ideal for sauteing because they can help keep a constant temperature when you are adding ingredients.

Any pan with a 1.5 to 2.5 mm thickness can be retinned because they have more structural rigidity.

Furthermore, this ensures that the pans are still ideal for food use.

Reasons for Using Copper Pans

If you are tired of lifting heavy pans from your stove, you should switch to copper pans.

They are light and they always sit securely on your stove.

Their light nature enables you to easily lift them when filled with water and food.

On the other hand, copper pans heat evenly thus ensuring that there aren’t any hot spots.

The even spread of heat ensures that your food gets to cook evenly.

More so, copper is a long-lasting material thus being worth its price.

When browning foods, you need a pan that will change temperatures quickly.

Copper pans are great conductors of heat thus being ideal for such occasions.

How To Retin Copper Pans

Buying a copper pan will have its advantages.

First, you will note that the pans are always lighter thus enabling you to handle any meals on your stove.

On the other hand, if you plan on retinning your copper pans, you have two options to consider, a professional or the DIY approach.

Following the tips above can help you to retin the copper pans without any hurdles.