A month ago I foolishly left a pot of water on to boil WAY too long. It was a small pot and all the water was gone (though it had been covered) and it continued to sit on the stove burner with the flame on until I remembered much later on.
When I realized, I let it cool down and heard crackling as it did (which I'm told was the sediment deposition on the bottom). The pot (All-Clad, stainless steel) was discolored (though looked kind of cool) and with some advice from here and other sites, I cleaned it as best I could (white vinegar, barkeeper's, dishwasher). The pot still looks discolored but has worked fine, though the water appeared to boil strangely at times (with unusual bubble patterns that hadn't been there before), but no big deal.
I only use the small pot for boiling water. But today, about a month after this happened, I put about half a cup of hot water from the faucet in it and i heard a loud pop. Thinking this unusual, I thought maybe I misheard and I heated up the water as normal. Then I heard a few more (but softer) pops. Finally, the water was boiled, I took the pot off the flame, and left it to cool on a cold burner. POP another strong one!
My thinking/hope was that the pot was ok because it's stainless steel and based on what I've read, permanent damage was unlikely after my initial over-heating incident. But I have no explanation (nor can find one) about this new popping, long after this happened. And I'm worried that the pot might split or shatter, or that it might be dangerous in another way.
Any information or advice?
Thanks!
Best Answer
If you heated the metal to the point where you get rainbow colors on the surface after cooling, you'll likely have tempered and nontempered areas on the pan bottom. These areas 1) have different coefficients of thermal expansion and 2) can move around with subsequent heating. The pops are likely the bottom of your pan buckling as it adjusts to different parts of itself expanding/contracting at different rates. I wouldn't worry about it.