I read over and over about people burning food around the edges of their disk bottom pans (Sitram seems to be involved in many of these complaints) because the disk doesn't extend to the edge of the pan. This confuses me because I thought the purpose of having the heavy aluminum or copper disk was to conduct heat and get the pan hot since stainless steel by itself is not a good conductor of heat. If the ultimate heat occurs where there is no disk, then what is the purpose of the disk in the first place?

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Stainless Steel Body with an Aluminum Base
- This design begins with durable, nonreactive stainless steel and adds the thermal benefits -- evenness of heat, high specific heat per cubic centimeter, responsiveness -- of aluminum to the bottom of the pan.
- Because the aluminum base only covers the bottom, virtually no heat is conducted from the base up into the heavy stainless steel sides of the pan.
- Moderately expensive to expensive.
- Things to consider: 1) Due to the way this cookware is manufactured, the aluminum disk can never quite cover the entire base of the pan. The percentage of the base covered by the aluminum disk varies from manufacturer to manufacturer and is one indication of quality. 2) Cooks are sometimes apprehensive that foods will scorch and burn on the parts of the pan that are not covered with aluminum -- namely the sides and the portions of the base not covered by the aluminum disk -- because these are essentially plain stainless steel. This is only possibly a concern in conditions where the flame heating the pan is larger than the pan itself, and significant heat from the heat source is in direct contact with those portions of the pan. Such conditions are rare in the home kitchen, and can largely be mitigated by adjusting the flame appropriately and not using pans of this design that are too small in diameter for the stove on which they will be used. 3) Some manufacturers claim to employ special “multi-layer” bases that are better than pure aluminum bases. Don’t be fooled by this marketing ploy. The bases on these pans are 99% the same as those employed in the other aluminum disk bottom designs.
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Short answer: Burnt food around the edges of disk-bottomed pan can usually be pinned on operator error.

The solution? Lower cooking heat, or use a different pan, perhaps a triply, or a duel-ply (stainless/aluminum.

Disc bottoms are good for non-stick egg/omelet/pancake pans, because you're not using the sides. Also tall sauce or stock pans that cook all day but don't get too hot.

Better disc bottomed pans have thicker sides. See the e-gullet article.

I only have one decent piece of cookware at the time--an AC 12" SS frypan--and I'm looking to add in the very near future 2 sauce pans (Paderno GG is in 1st place right now but may get one GG and one Sitram Catering). I use sauce pans mostly to reheat soups and stew type dishes so I'm not using a lot of flame and therefore I shouldn't have a scorching issue.

I've attached a link to Demeyere's description of how their disk bottoms are constructed.

Just for you, solarpowered, because I always enjoy you info on cookware:

To include a link in the body of your post is easy. My instructions look complicated only because I have to separate them carefully. I do this all the time, and it takes a couple seconds. Follow these steps, using a space ONLY where indicated:

Step 1: type this symbol: <

Step 2: follow that with the letter "a" (don't use quotes)

Step 3: follow that with one space and then "href" (don't use quotes)

Step 4: follow the href with an equal sign

Step 5: cut and paste your desired url here

Step 6: close the url with this symbol: >

Step 7: type the word you want your link to be embedded in (e.g., Demeyere)

Step 8: Now close by first typing the symbol: <

Step 7: then type a slash mark

Step 8: then type the letter "a" (no quotes)

Step 9: then close with the symbol: >

It will look like this.