Customer Reviews

Maxam KT17 17-Piece 9-Element Surgical-Stainless-Steel Waterless Cookware Set

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I had a Townecraft home demonstation and thought it was wonderful. The salesman was great and really made me excited. Then came the price. I've bought cars for less than that! I started looking around for that same brand on auction sites and found it 1/2 the price, but still very expensive. I went to the waterless cookware site and decided to give Maxam 9 a shot. It took 2 months to get, but the pans are good heavy quality, very easy to clean, and keep the food moist. Waterless cooking, however, takes patience to get right and you are likely to burn some meals if you stick to the time guidelines in the book. I've had them for about two monts now and finally got rid of all of the old teflon and rusty pans...they aren't coming back. I've cooked with the Townecraft pans before and you aren't going to see enough of a difference to warrant 6-8 times the price. Maxam 9 (World's Finest) is almost as good and won't kill your budget. As Zig Ziglar says "It's easier to justify cost once, than apologize for quality forever" The price is more than what you are going to pay in WalMart, but the cost over a lifetime will be much, much lower because you won't buy pans again.

UPDATE: On exactly the 30th day of purchase, while cooking, the skillet lid valve fell out of the lid into my skillet. I am getting a replacement and hope it was just a fluke and not indicative of quality of every set.

2nd UPDATE: The replacement fell apart within 30 days in the same manner as my first set. The steam valve fell out of the lid into the pan. I am returning for refund. I do love the oil-less water-less cooking but will look for a set that will last at least a couple of years.

FROM BOX:

the 17 piece set includes:
7.5 qt roaster & cover
11 3/8" skillet
5 egg cups & utility rack
high dome cover for skillet or roaster
3.2 qt saucepan & cover
2.5 qt saucepan & cover
1.7 qt saucepan & cover
double boiler unit

What is 304 surgical stainless steel? The 304 surgical stainless steel contains about 18% chromium and a higher percentage of nickel than "ordinary" stainless steel. The popularity of 304 surgical stainless steel is due to its gleaming appearance which lasts for the life of a product. Its excellent corrosion resistance is due to an invisible, passive oxide film that forms on the metal's surface in air. Sometimes 304 surgical stainless is referred to as T304.

8 advantages of 304 surgical stainless steel
1. corrosion resistance
2 economy
3 temperature resistance
4 beauty
5 durability
6 design flexibility
7 easy to clean
8 flavor protection

The 9 element steam control system makes cooking as easy as. . .
1 start cooking on medium heat
2 listen for the whistle
3 close the valve, turn heat to low and simmer to finish cooking

YOU CAN STACK THEM
A picture I uploaded above illustrates how you might cook a roast or chicken with potatoes & carrots in the bottom, a vegetable in the middle pan and another vegetable in the top pan. When stack cooking, remember to always start cooking each individual pan on a burner until you hear the steam valve whistle, then close the valve and stack to finish cooking. Heat is transferred from the bottom pan to the top.

9 ELEMENT CONSTRUCTION 304 stainless steel inside and out surgical stainless encapsulates a thick aluminum disk. This capsule bottom has 9 elements.
1 chrome
2 nickel
3 manganese
4 silicon
5 aluminum
6 iron
7 copper
8 molybedenum
9 vanadium

Please see additional photos of box with additional information I uploaded above.

All pans (not lids) are oven safe to 350°F.

I found the pans easier to clean than my 18/10 stainless steel cookware and almost as easy to clean as my 316Titanium Saladmaster. I wonder if those having difficulties followed the written instructions for how to care and clean your cookware: "In case particles of food become burned in your pan, fill the pan with hot water in a hot pan, cold water in a cold pan, and let soak. The scorched particles should easily lift off. If a stubborn burn has been created, partly fill the pan with water and bring to a boil. use a wooden spoon to remove such burned particles. If a stain still remains, it can easily be removed with a good stainless steel cleaner." I haven't had much burn in my pan because i am not frying in them or using over high heat, I am following the directions for low-pressure waterless oil-less cooking.

This cookware is a delight to use. Roasts are very tender. Vegetable cook with almost no water. Oatmean and Puddings cook without sticking.

Overall these pots work as they should. They take some getting used re: how long to cook and overall I was surprised at how quickly they cook vegetables. I found that if I waited for the valve to "whistle" then the veggies would burn and overcook, so instead as soon as I see steam coming out of the valve I close it and turn down to simmer. That works well. Biggest problem is the round metal whistle piece that fits into the pot handle falling out into the food during cooking. This happens constantly and I've given up pressing them back in and just leave them out now.

This is the Cookware I have been waiting for. Top quality at a reasonable price. It's a perfect match for our induction cooktop. This makes what I think is the most efficient system for cooking in a pot available. More than expected.

I fell in "want" with the nifty "waterless" cookware at the state fair, and drooled for years at the demos, but just couldn't justify the $2000-$3000 price tag. I knew I really wanted stainless steel pans, something heavy-duty, and that waterless cooking would be a plus. After LOTS of research, and many e-mails and calls to various manufacturers, distributors, etc. I decided to try this set - I couldn't even find a decent set of regular stainless cookware for this price, much less waterless. Worst case scenario would be that I would have a decent heavy set of stainless steel pots and the waterless part might be a bust.

But it wasn't. Right off the bat, I was amazed at how colorful and flavorful my vegetables were, in less time and very little water (waterless cooking should actually be called less-water cooking in most cases). The carrots were awesome! I can cook meats and vegetables in the same pot, sort of in layers, in less time than conventional cooking - the steam control valve provides a sort of low-pressure pressure-cooker effect, cooking the foods in less or no liquid in less time. Meats sear to the bottom, then release as they cook, in no liquid - and clean up is easy. Even foods that seem to be "stuck," like the little browned parts of fried potatoes, soak off in minutes and clean easily. Anything that doesn't remove completely in water comes off readily with a Brillo-type pad (hooray for stainless steel!).

Something else I appreciated was that the sizes were ALL good sizes for our growing/larger family of ten. So many sets include little pans as standard, then charge a fortune for add-ons like 3-qt saucepans, etc. This set gave me four saucepans, a pretty big frying pan (just under 12 inch), plus the biggest Dutch oven I'd ever seen, at over 7 quarts! And the smallest saucepan is almost 2 quarts, so it's actually useful. The egg poaching insert with easy-clean cups is a bonus; great for quick breakfasts!

I have had my pots and pans for over ten years and they get HEAVY use. They still look great and work wonderfully. These are the pots and pans my daughters want for their kitchens. We liked the set so well that we wanted to make
this cookware available to our friends for their kitchens.

Combine this heavy duty stainless steel set with a few Kuhn Rikon pressure cookers for a well-outfitted kitchen!

By the way, this same manufacturer has another line besides Steam Control, but the distributors I "interrogated" said the others aren't quite the top of the line that these are. These should be the last pots you'll ever need!

To use the steam control valve, start cooking on medium to med-high heat (don't use high heat unless boiling something, like pasta water). Then when the valve begins to whistle (like a teakettle), close the valve and turn the heat down to low and finish cooking. The 9-element construction allows you to stack cook with this cookware (although I have not personally tried this): Begin cooking on individual burners and when the valve whistles you can invert the lids to stack the pans to finish cooking. The handles are resistant to heat, cold, and detergents.

I've been amazed at how easy-release they are even though they aren't "non stick," and they clean up very easily. And if you think you can't cook eggs in SS, think again. I have photos of eggs cooked with a thin lecithin/oil film (like Pam) and I don't even have to touch the pan with a spatula to slide the eggs out. Just don't cook above medium heat.(The one thing you need to remember is that they arrive with a thin coat of factory oil over them, so you should wash them really well before first use or they could slightly discolor from cooking the oil all over the outside.)

I also use my Kuhn Rikon pressure cookers DAILY, by the way. The KR cookers and my SS cookware are a great combination.

Just got my Maxam 17 piece waterless cookware two days ago and cooked my first meal in them today. I chose to cook Braised Roast Pork Tenderloin with Cabbage and Apples from the cookbook "Healthy Meat and Potatoes" by Charles and David Knight. I had a tough time believing that browning meat without oil or water would work, but I followed the book's (and cookware instruction's) advice and kept the temperature down to medium-high and browned the meat until I was able to move it from it's original "stuck" position (which you will always be able to do if you wait for required length of time to brown), then added the veggies (without water), then added a dome cover and lowered the heat as instructed, then kept the dome on at recommended low temp for time instructed -- WOW, was I surprised. The pork was SO VERY tender and lean and the veggies? GREAT flavor. Very low fat meal with NO SALT ADDED, just a few other spices. Can't wait to use this cookware again. Cleanup was a breeze.. I really think that those who do not appreciate waterless cookware, don't give it a chance by following instructions. You really have to cook on low heat to avoid burning and messy cleanup. This cookware cost me less that the $600 bucks I spent on the Circulon Professional set I bought several years back. I will keep those pieces but plan to rid myself of all other pots and pans I've collected over the years. LOVE THIS COOKWARE!!

I'm going to give this four stars, because I'm dissatisfied with what came out of the box with regards to warranty and warnings and cautions. I will follow up once we get some experience with use. What follows is a comparison with a state fair product.

We initially bought a product being offered in three separate venues at a state fair. However, we canceled the order and bought this product, since it costs $1600 less (but with a few less bells and whistles).

Out of the box, here are some of the differences that I found.

*Lids are domed, not flat, with the exception of the dutch oven dome lid. This means you can't stack your pots over one element. A friend who owns the state fair product says that she never does this, anyway. It would be nice for those into energy conservation to have an alternative lid permitting stacking.
*The plastic steam valves integrated into the lids feel cheap, and ditto for the plastic whistling devices which you can see when you unscrew them from the lids. It would be nice to have an alternate set of knobs without the whistles that one could substitute for these.
*Lids feel a bit looser.
*You can cock the lids open, though I don't think the result is quite as stable as with the fair product. I certainly wouldn't hang them up that way, though it is possible to do.

Warranty. The language is ambiguous. On the one hand, in the title, it says "Limited lifetime warranty." On the other, in the small print, it says 30 days. Nothing says what is 30 days and what is not. Furthermore, handles and knobs are excluded from the warranty. The state fair product is a no exceptions lifetime of the product warranty, with the warranty engraved on the pot.

Warnings and cautions. There are warnings in Spanish. None in English. This is problematic, because there are warnings like never add salt until after the contents begin to boil, in order to avoid white spots.

This cookware has been a joy to cook with!
When it arrived, I was pleasantly surprised by its weight
and craftsmanship.
The "waterless" part is not at all difficult to get the hang
of either.
The set is just beautiful and I look forward
to cooking now!
I did extensive research on different sets before I decided
on this one and I do have to say I did very well with
my choice.
Loving it.

Along with a new kitchen, we purchased new cookware...You must follow manufacturer instructions for cooking and wash cookware thoroughly before using...The product will cook as promised and is a different way of cooking. The vegetables and meats are healthier and better tasting. The flavors of the food come through. My mother inlaw, has had her set of "maxam" cookware since the early 1960's and is still using it! My brother has just purchased the 7-ply, and is loving it as well (he has tried many other types), and was the one who recommended it to us.