Stockpot choice, fissler OP or Lagostina Accademia

Hi all, would love to hear your advice on choosing a stockpot. How does a Fissler original Profi 24cm stockpot compare to Lagostina Accademia 24cm 6.7L
. I am currently using gas stove and might switch to induction in the coming future.

I understand their difference in construction. fissler is a heavy disc bottom design. The Lagostina is a hybrid disc bottom + thin clad side wall. In case of heating liquid or soup, there is no major advancetage for these 2 designs. For the case of heating thicker stew, the lagostina has edge advantage over the fissler so I am slightly more favor the lagostina for a good deal. And It can pair well with my 28cm lagos frying pan, lol.

I want a long lasting pot and only choosing 1 to complement my other cookware. So your comment is appreciated.

My current cookware collection is below:
20cm Staub dutch oven 2.2L
24cm Staub French Oven 3.7L
24cm De Buyer Mineral B Pro frying pan
28cm Lagostina Accademia frying pan

I think you have analyzed this sensibly. Between those two, I too would choose the Lagostina.

I guess it comes down to whether you believe sidewall heat makes a positive contribution. I’m one who does believe that, so for me it would be an easy choice. I think you would find (even with stock), the convection currents in a conductive sidewall pot are more complex, making it easier to hold the faintest of simmers.

That being said, however, this hybrid design has only scant sidewall conductivity. Some is better than (almost) none, but you alone can decide if sidewall heat trumps other factors that miht be drawing you to the Profi.

Good luck,
Kaleo

thanks for your reply. Each of them has its own strength. I believe the fissler is more robust and long lasting though. The Lagostina is more elegantly designed and have better ergonomics.

I have some older disc bottom (extent to the edge) stockpot using for gas stove for years, no problem heating the liquid. Just because of the non clad side wall, it always get burn and turn black, and take forever to clean. I think Cladded stock pot wont have such issue.

Not sure where you are in the world, but here in the US, you could get an All Clad D3 8qt stockpot for about the same price as the Lagostina you mention.
I own the All Clad and have successfully braised pot roasts and stews in it with easy clean up and no scorching. Very sturdy, dishwasher safe, can lasts for years and years. I’m a big fan of clad cookware.

Le Creuset also makes very good clad stainless. I don’t have the stockpot but I do own a saute pan and two skillets from this line and they work splendidly. They are a bit less expensive than All Clad, but the quality is comparable. The brand is also more widely available in Europe.

I hope the info is helpful… I don’t have any experience cooking in Lagostina, but it is beautiful cookware.

I have (used) both, on gas. You can’t go wrong here, both are excellent. Imho the only worthy omission is the Paderno GG which has an actual 1:1 ratio of width and height.

Personal impressions. The Fissler is tough with good handles, and hence always feels safe, even when full of liquid. It’s built like a tank (at least the older style OP, no experience with the new style).

Where I’d prefer the Lagostina is if also using it for stews and such. But then you already have a Staub.

In the end I’d just pick the one that you can get at a good price.

I got to ask here, Damiano.

The Fissler OP - in my view - resembles the Staub more than the Lagostina, since the Fissler OP has stainless steel walls, so why do you imply the Lagostina Lagofusion would be better for stews, by comparing it to the Staub, Damiano ?

Staub & Fissler OP - passive slow conductive sidewalls
Lagostina Lagofusion - active fast conductive sidewalls

Hi Claus,

Both the Staub and Lagostina have conductive sidewalls, whereas the Fissler does not.

The Staub is literally ‘cast’, so straight iron, and while I have never measured them, the sidewalls seem as thick as the bottom. In my experience the sidewalls of enameled cast iron can conduct heat well. Hence my comparison between the two, versus the Fissler.

What kind of stock/broth or other you want to focus on?

Hi Damiano, You are right. I can do the same job for both Staub and lagostina as both of them have conductive sidewall, smaller batch on 3.7L Staub vs latger batch 6.7L on Lagostina. The Fissler build quality is build to last for decades.

May be for Induction stove, both of them work great. My concern for fissler is on my current gas stove, there is always burnt hydrocarbon spread through the non-conductive sidewall and form a thick burnt layer around it.

Hi Jen, there is no local supply of All-clad in my country, but i can access for Fissler, Lagostina, Zwilling more easier, so I am not able to compare all-clad to fissler/lagostina on hand.

If I get Fissler, i need to buy from Amazon, almost 40% cheaper than my local store. Price for Lagostina is also rediculous here, but i manage to get a brand new offer from second hand user.

We received two Revere Ware stock pots for wedding presents 36 years ago and the one we still have has been used a lot over the years and still works very well. One that we lent our daughter was stolen by her college roomate. I use the pot for making sotock, canning, boiling mass quanities of pasta and corn, etc. It has also been handy for when the ceiling sprung a leak, brining a small bird and icing down hand cranked ice cream. It is lightweight enough for me to carry a full pot of boiling whatever from the stove top to the sink and pouring to drain. I once cooked half of a Smithfield ham in it . I have used it to sous vide a roast. I love it. For long cook stocks and such I also use my larger crock pot, aka, slow cooker.

I learn new stuff everyday.

I wasn’t aware of that cast iron is considered a conductive material compared to for instance ply and copper ?!?

I thought cast iron was more like pure stainless steel when one considered heat conductivity.

I’m not sure I agree with you, Damiano.

Look at this list over thermal conductivity for different materials.
Link: https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-metals-d_858.html

Thermal Conductivity measured in
- k -
(W/m K)

Stainless steel 14
Cast iron 52
Aluminium 237
Copper 413

Yes, cast iron is almost 4 times as high in thermal conductivity as stainless steel, but still only at 52.

I would not consider that a conductive material, if you look at the number for aluminium (237) and copper (413)

I do agree that stainless steel is an almost dead material when it comes to thermal conductivity, but I never have considered cast iron as a conductive material either in my cooking processes. It’s pretty dead too.

Hi Claus, I will consider iron as a conductive material, that’s why cast iron, carbon steel cookwares exist so long, although not as good as Aluminum, Copper, Silver. Stainless steel is extremely low conductive so it needs to clad with good aluminum or copper to spread heat evenly.

Hi Claus, do you find the floor of the pan to be dead too? So, not conductive?

Yes the floor conducts heat, but so does stainless steel - but only by ¼ of the conductivity of cast iron.

But my Fissler OP pots sidewalls do also get very hot, it just takes longer.

I’ve actually cooked in an all stainless steel camping pan, which lacked the sandwich Alu bottom and yes, it was slow and not very conductive, but it did heat up and managed to sauter some mushrooms and chicken.

It’s an argument over what we see as conductive and what we don’t see as conductive.

I agree with you, stainless steel is not very conductive - but it does conduct heat.

Cast iron conduct heat 4 times more effectively than stainless steel, yet I would not consider it heat conductive compared to copper and aluminium.

But all in all I do get your point.

This is effectively untrue–the Staub does not have conductive sidewalls, unless by “conductive” you mean that the material has some rate of thermal conductivity. But if that’s the case, then all pots and pans have conductive sidewalls.

It is true that monolithic-sidewall pans will have a simple rate based mostly on the single material used. Cast iron’s rate is relatively poor, but not terrible.

The picture is more complicated with layered, e.g., clad, bimetal, constructions. These vary widely, but almost universally involve stainless steel. SS, on its own, has terrible thermal conductivity. But when it is layered with a good or excellent conductor (e.g., aluminum, copper, or graphite), the amalgamation produces an effective rate of conductivity far in excess of bare SS’s, and in fact better than cast iron’s. That’s the point of going to all the extra effort to make fully clad pans and hybrids like the Lagostina.

However, where it gets dicey with the amalgamation is when the layer(s) of high-conductivity material(s) are thin OR the layers of SS are many, OR both. The middle aluminum layer in the Lagostina’s pan body is quite thin, which means that, proportionally, there is more SS in the sidewall, which means its effective sidewall conductivity drops nearer to cast iron’s.

Whether many people would notice the difference between the Lagostina’s <2mm triply sidewall and the Staub’s approximately 3mm monolithic cast iron one is unclear. But what many cooks will notice is that the evenness and responsiveness of the Lagostina are both greater than those of the Staub. And for that matter, the responsiveness of the hybrid Lagostina will be better than the Fissler’s. How much and how important are the questions, but if you value actual sidewall heat input to the food, neither Fissler nor Paderno are good choices.

As I’ve posted before, if I were designing a hybrid for use where sidewall heat is desirable, I would give the pan body more aluminum or copper, and thin the underlying bottom disk by a similar thickness.

Cast iron may not be a fast conductor, but once it gets hot it does hold the heat very well. This is what makes it a good choice for low and slow cooking such as stews and pot roasts. All of my CI cookware is enameled (LC and Staub) so I won’t speak to bare cast iron.

Not specifically reply to you, but rather the entire thread.
First, it depends how we consider the cut-off of a good thermal conductivity. We all know copper and aluminum are very good, carbon steel and cast iron are next, and then stainless steel and finally something like glass or ceramic…etc. I suppose some people make the “cut off” right after copper and aluminum and some people define later.

Second, I believe Demeyere had a video (probably more than 1 or 2) about how the conductivity of the cookware sidewall does not matter for stock pot because the liquid inside will move around and do vast majority of the heat transfer via convection.

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I think that is true. I think what will make a big difference is when we are cooking thicker and most viscous liquid where the convection does not work well.

Between these two my preference would be for the Fissler, for the simple reason you’ll use less energy to cook stock over the hours it takes to simmer. The Lagostina is a lovely piece of cookware, no doubt, but because of its more conductive sidewalls it also loses heat to the surrounding air more quickly, and as such requires higher burner output to maintain a steady simmer.

Also, as Chem noted, there’s truly no advantage to having conductive sidewalls when simmering thin liquids such as stocks and soups, even on a gas cooktop. Stockpots with fairly non-conductive sidewalls, such as the Fissler, will still create their own convection currents and extract the soluble goodness very effectively. And they’ll be lighter and easier to maneuver on and off the cooktop.

If you were considering a small saucepan, I’d likely steer you towards the Lagostina, but for something this size the Fissler (or a Paderno, or a Lacor) is the way to go.