Can cooking pans “burn”? Why are the bottom of all my pans brown?

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I’m doing a whole mess of dishes while my kid is asleep and i just finished washing pots and pans. I scrub the heck out of them but there’s always some black and brown coloration on the bottom of it. am I using too much heat so there’s something happening to the metal? if it’s not happening to the metal itself what is it and why does it seem like it refuses every effort I make to clean it?

edit: since it seems i wasn’t clear enough initially, but bottom of the pan i did indeed mean the underside that is in contact with the burner, not the interior bottom of the pan!

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Anonymous 0 Comments

it’s polymerized oil, mostly.

When you heat some kinds of cooking oil they harden. the oil molecules link together into long chains, and become a polymer, like plastic, but very heat resistant. It’s basically the same chemical reaction that causes oil paint to dry, but it happens almost instantly at high temperatures. It’s also the same reaction that we use to season cast-iron pans.

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