and there’s nothing in the pan? Does the enamel melt?
It depends on what the pan’s made of, and how hot the burner it’s on gets.
Aluminum pans can get severely warped. Cast-iron pans are nearly immune to this sort of abuse, but you should let it cool in the air, rather than drenching it with cold water, since that could crack it. Teflon pans that suffer this treatment are best discarded, since the teflon coating can form toxic breakdown products. If the pan is enamel coated, the coating can crack, but it won’t melt unless your stove burners are REALLY hot.
I used to have a cat. Once I had a pan on the stove when I went to work. The cat jumped up on the stove, using the burner knob as a foothold and turning it on. The pan started smoking and set off the fire alarms, and the manager came in to “save the day”. I don’t remember what kind of pan it was, as it was a long time ago. (IIRC, it was a clean pan.)
Well, I can tell you that if you leave a cheap teakettle on the stove and go to church, when you come home a few hours later, the bottom will have melted out completely and you will have a little ball of aluminum under the element. Very neat.
I won’t tell you how I know this. I will only tell you that my father has at least two little balls of aluminum.
Also, Teflon pans will emit fumes well before the pan is ruined (possibly as low as 285 degrees F). For people, this isn’t a problem. But if you have a pet bird and your teflon pan starts emitting fumes, there’s a greater-than-zero chance your pet bird will drop dead.
Bird owners should be very careful using Teflon, and never let a coated pan, empty or otherwise, overheat.
-
-
- I now that it’s possible to melt lead in a steel pan on a gas stovetop. Probably not the healthiest thing to be doing, but I was young and only did it once. -On two different days.
-
- Never melted any other metal on the stove. Steel pans left on a gas burner will usually oxidize to a bronze-brown on the hotspot, even if they are clean and uncoated.
~
[Sequential Thread Titles for the Kitchen-Challenged]
What happens if you leave pan on lit burner?
Best way to extinguish grease fire in oven?
My mom left an enamel coated cast iron pan on her electric cooktop for a few hours, and the enamel coating did melt, but only in the area touching the element.
Sorry to continue the hijack, but anyways…
Wouldn’t leaving the oven door shut cut out the oxygen, stopping the fire? Then just keep the oven shut for a little while to make sure that it won’t flare back up in your face when you open it up. Just my guess…
No, ovens aren’t all that airtight. (and I think you got the wrong thread ;))
Might be better if he had big brass ones.