We lugged each pot, full of boiling water, around the kitchen a bit to make sure it was easy to handle. The cast aluminum is of a heavy gauge, yet the vessel itself remains relatively lightweight for easy maneuvering. And the heat transfer of the aluminum is outstanding, with the pot heating evenly throughout – no hot or cold spots. Made in Korea at Neoflam’s cast aluminum factory, the Retro 5-quart stockpot measures approximately 14 x 11 x 7.5 inches and weighs 5.6 pounds. It comes with Neoflam’s limited lifetime warranty to be free of material and workmanship defects. The handles are made of stay-cool cast stainless steel that’s welded in place on the pot and lid for a safe and secure grip, and a smooth interior wall free of rivet heads.
We tested six highly rated stockpots—all with a capacity of eight quarts, which we think is the perfect size —to find the very best model on the market. Read on for the reasoning behind our top two picks, how we tested our stockpots, and the other models we considered. The “Comparable Item Price” represents an actual price in the marketplace of a comparable product. Also, I worry about smaller amounts of liquid burning in a wide pot, if the liquid barely covers the bottom. Versatile and durable, it provides a wide range of applications above and beyond just making broth and soup. However, there does seem to be an issue with quality control at the manufacturing plant in Thailand.
If you have an oven large enough, the 12-quart stockpot is oven safe up to 550 F. It’s also dishwasher safe, but handwashing will keep the stainless steel looking better, longer. The Made-In Stainless Clad Stockpot ($159) is another wide and short option, second in width only to the winning All-Clad model. We appreciated the wide, flat handles on this pot, which made for easy maneuvering cuisinart soup maker even while wearing bulky oven mitts, and the five-ply construction, which makes it oven-safe up to a whopping 800°F. If it is as durable as Made-In claims, we can see it knocking All-Clad out of the top spot in the future. Moreover, construction is better than average with this type of cooking vessel, with triple-welded loop side handles offering a sure and steady grasp.
Update stockpots are available from a diminutive 8-quart all the way up to a massive 100 quarts, with many sizes in between. These larger sizes are also great for home beer brewing, home canning, steaming crab and lobster, as well as fish frying for larger gatherings. And they work great whenever you need to make copious quantities of anything. Of course, they also get used for making thinner soups, broths, chilies, and so on.
Besides its beautiful appearance, copper features the quickest and most even heat distribution available. It has superior conductivity over all other cookware metals, and it’s hefty and solid. These details mean the pan excels on the stovetop – and that means all stovetops, including induction – but not so much in the oven. This is in line with Demeyere’s goal of using specific construction techniques to create pans intended for a dedicated, specific task. The sheets of stainless steel have a core of various layers of aluminum, copper, and silver that measures a total 3.8 millimeters in thickness.
The handles have to be comfortable, sturdy, and easy to grip—the last thing you want to feel is uncertainty as you move a large pot of scalding water off the cooktop or while draining through a strainer. For home use, stockpots come in a range of sizes, usually from 8 to 20 quarts (some commercial kitchens use massive 74-quart versions). For most home kitchen tasks, we think a 12-quart stockpot cuisinart pots and pans set is an ideal size and large enough for making big batches of stock or sauce. Going with a smaller stockpot, like one that’s eight-quarts, means the pot is very similar in volume to a six- or eight-quart Dutch oven. It pays to get a stockpot that’s bigger than your other pots, yet still fits inside a base cabinet, to cover the biggest cooking tasks while avoiding pot-size overlap.
But, amortized over the course of a lifetime , it gives outstanding value in both performance and durability, and is well worth the cost. And you can usually find cuisinart soup maker competitive prices online at reliable sites like Amazon. Fully clad, it’s superb at delivering quick and even heat distribution to all surfaces of the pot.