Customer Reviews

12 Quart Stock Pot - Blue

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The whole purpose of a fine stock pot is mutli-fold. I like this one because as it heats up it allows me adequate time to saute the onions, garlic, carrots in order to get a nice hue and glaze. Then I can add my meat and saute until browned and the pot is at the right heat.

Then I can add my liquids and turn the gas burner down and the whole stock pot cooks at a slow and steady pace and temperature. This allows the meat to cook to a tenderness. It is an excellent pot for making pasta sauces, soup stocks and broth's galore. Every serious cook I know wants and then gets one of these classics.

I loved this pot when I first bought it because it was a nice heavy pot that I could do things with like brown onions and carrots in it before adding additional ingredients, etc. Also, I get water to boil much faster in this pot then I ever did in my lighter weight pots. But there are two downsides that make me wish I had gone to our local All-Clad outlet and spent the extra money for one of their stockpots instead: one reason is because the enamel scratches fairly easily - I find this annoying on a fairly expensive item because I expect such items to last a long time. But the reason why I am starting to HATE this pot is because pasta sticks to the bottom of it ALL THE TIME. I never have this happen with stainless steel clad aluminum pots. This pot just might be ending up on ebay.

Don't waste your money. One of the few badly made LeCrueset products (I'm a huge fan of their enameled cast iron.)

Get a plain stainless steel one with a rolled edge or straight edge instead. There's quite a few well made ones out there. All Clad makes an excellent one, so does Tramontina, Analon, and Revereware (to name a few). Get a solid metal lid.

The metal band on this pot will over time create a sharp edge where it's joined. No fun to encounter when washing it. The enamel coating needs to be treated very carefully as well. This stock pot is just not a work horse to last a lifetime. A good quality 18/10 stainless steel stock pot is a much better choice. It'll take a beating and then some. This one won't.

I needed a good stockpot to make pasta sauce and this was it. The stockpot is a good heavy coated gauge and conducts heat very well.The lid is also very heavy and covers the pot nicely. Side handles are strong and durable. The one I ordered is a beautiful blue and goes very good with my kitchen decor. I cant say enough wonderful things about this fine piece of cookware. Well worth the cost, if the 8 quart size is as good I'll order one of those shortly.

Please be aware that this is not the same as the heavy Le Creuset clad cast-iron pots. It is lightweight and inexpensive, which has its good side, since a 12-quart cast iron stockpot would be too heavy to lift, plus terribly expensive. It looks good on the counter, and it is ok for some things (it is big enough to make a double batch of jam without boiling over, and it is good for boiling a whole lot of corn on the cob). If you are cooking anything that might stick or scorch, do not use this pan! In spite of being treated very delicately, the bottom of my two pans quickly became badly scratched up. This is not the pan you want if you are making a big pot of clam chowder, because it will surely scorch and stick to the bottom of the pan.