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I noticed a trivet at Aldi going for quite cheap and picked one up. My understanding of a trivet is that it's something you use to diffuse the power of a burner however, the one I got seems to be made to put hot pans and pots on. There are no instructions on the packaging however, so I'm not sure.

The trivet I purchased can be seen in the picture below, it's the round one. It's cast iron, enameled all around. I was wondering if something like that could be used on a gas stove?

Edit: Assuming I removed the thin layer of rubber coating on the feet of course.

enter image description here

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  • I'm trying to imagine a scenario where this could really be useful in the way you think it could on anything resembling a modern stove. It is going to diffuse the heat too much to be useful, not to mention the fact that stoves generally have controls if you want to lower the heat. If you put the burner on full and use this, you might get the equivalent of the burner on low in the pan, with massive amounts of wasted heat energy diffusing into the environment.
    – goldilocks
    Commented Jun 27, 2015 at 21:06
  • A data point: manufacturers tend to rate enamel as heat stable up to somewhere between 250 and 300 Celsius. While it won't melt at such a low temperature, I guess it could crack, separate from the metal, or simply discolor if overheated. I don't know how close it needs to be to the center of a flame for this temperature to occur (enameled pots can certainly be licked by the flame of a gas burner), but placing it too close to the center of the flame might be a problem.
    – rumtscho ♦
    Commented Jun 28, 2015 at 11:39
  • @goldilocks, if I were to use it, it would be in cases where the lowest heat on my lowest burner is too high for what I'm doing. I ended up taking the trivet outside and burning it over hot coals. The enamel darkened slightly at first, then black and blistered, then became a light green (guessing it was an undercoat as the top layer burnt away) that way easy to scrape off with the tongs. So yeah, now I'm left with bare cast iron. I have another one so I might see how that fares on the stove
    – NRaf
    Commented Jun 28, 2015 at 22:09

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I would not recommend using this trivet on any heat source. First, because that is not what it is designed to be used for. Secondly the description says that they have rubber feet, not a good match for a heat source. And while I suppose you could remove them, I couldn't recommend that in good conscience.

EDIT

As per @Jefromi's comment below and as evidenced on Dictionary.com , there are two types of trivets.

noun

1.a small metal plate with short legs, especially one put under a hot platter or dish to protect a table.

2.a three-footed or three-legged stand or support, especially one of iron placed over a fire to support cooking vessels or the like.

The type shown in the ad/picture in the question is designed to be used to protect table tops and counter tops from the heat of a hot pot or pan.

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  • Let's suppose I did remove the rubber coating, the question is, is enamel safe to use on a direct heat source?
    – NRaf
    Commented Jun 27, 2015 at 13:37
  • I think you might want to explicitly say what it is meant to be used for, since it sounds like that's the root of the misunderstanding. Nowadays the common meaning of "trivet" is something to set a hot dish on top of on the table, to protect the table from that heat. There's no reason to expect they'll be usable for the older sense of the word (holding something over a fire).
    – Cascabel ♦
    Commented Jun 27, 2015 at 14:33
  • I would use it when the lowest heat of my weakest burner is too strong for my needs. The most common personal use-case would be making Arabic coffee on the stove (the trivet is also useful because it helps to stabilize the base of the pot which doesn't always sit well on a stove). Another example would be keeping a small pot at a bare simmer for some time.
    – NRaf
    Commented Jun 27, 2015 at 15:18
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    @NRaf You may have a very good idea. But because the trivet is not designed for this use, there is no way to know if it will work or not and it would not be responsible to recommend it. But because you are talking about lower temperature usage, personally I think I would try it and see how it does. If you do, please let us know your results.
    – Cindy
    Commented Jun 27, 2015 at 15:50
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    If it's the same as the enamel on the pans, it's capable of standing a fair amount of heat (besides the conduction in the pot, gas burners also waste heat up the sides of the pots too), so that's a fairly good sign. If you have a pot/pan with the same material that mentions a temperature it's oven-safe to a given temperature, and you also have a thermometer to test your stove, you might be able to get a slightly better idea before you try it.
    – Cascabel ♦
    Commented Jun 27, 2015 at 18:26

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