Abrasives create small scratches in the surface layer and expose the steel underneath which can form iron oxide rust.
Salt pitting stainless steel pan.
After my first time using the all clad 10 fry pan i noticed some very small pitting in the cooking surface.
I ve never heard of salt causing stainless steel to pit or corrode and i often salt meat and other.
Maybe 10 or 12 small pits like someone poked at it with a small nail.
It s a simple mistake but pitting is irreversible.
The short answer is yes a pitted stainless steel pan is safe to use.
I ve read that adding salt to stainless steel cookware before adding liquid will cause pitting but a lot of recipes call for salting a piece of meat before searing it.
None of these are as serious as pitting and you can usually remove them but not by scrubbing with a steel wool or an abrasive cleaner.
I recently acquired a set of stainless tri ply all clad cookware.
Stainless steel does not readily corrode rust or stain with water as ordinary steel does but it is not stain proof especially with low oxygen high salinity salt water or poor circulation in the environment.
This is a form of corrosion and occurs due to the interaction of the chloride in salt oxygen in water and chromium in stainless steel.
It will dissolve into chloride ions along with sodium ions that are concentrated against a small spot on the surface of the pot.
Let the water boil before adding salt.
Salting the water in a stainless steel pot before heating the water can lead to pitting tiny bits of rust on the stainless surface.
It typically occurs when larger salt crystals such as coarse sea salt sink to the bottom of the pan before the water is heated and are allowed to react with the stainless steel lining while the water is heating.
The slightly longer answer concerns the matter of pitting in stainless steel generally and the fact that stainless steel ss is not as it s name implies entirely corrosion p.
Many types of stainless steel alloys will suffer extreme pitting corrosion when exposed to environments that are rich in chlorides such as salt.
However things are different when a grain of salt sits at the bottom of a pot.
I ve owned calphalon tri ply stainless cookware in the past so i m not new to ss.
Salting water in a stainless steel pot before it comes to a boil can result in pitting which is a form of rusting the science behind why this occurs has to do with the interaction of.
Normally stainless steel isn t harmed by salt dissolved in water or by the chlorine found in tap water.
For example grade 304 stainless steel when used in naval applications may start to suffer pitting as a result of contact with seawater which is rich in salt or salt enriched sea breezes.
Clean the affected area.
Prevention is just as simple.
