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Racks for hanging pots and pans

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John F

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Racks for hanging pots and pans

by John F » Thu Apr 08, 2021 9:49 am

I’ve always wanted a hanging rack for pots and pans. My wife has not! We recently bought a sort of country/mountain home in Western NC and after 30 years of whining she has agreed to the rack! The person who is helping design/rebuild the kitchen has selected a rack that will hang over the island in the kitchen. It is a rectangle and supposedly has space for 12 hooks to hang pots and pans. With no basis for saying this 12 seemed like not that many.... but what do I know? Do any of you have these hanging racks and do you have an opinion on the “12” factor?

This rack will also have some embedded lighting to project onto the island which is helpful as lighting in the kitchen needs to be improved. But I’m wondering if the lighting feature is limiting the pots and pans features!

Lastly, this rack is going to be essentially custom built and in my opinion quite expensive. If 12 is a good number then fine - if I would be super bummed out with 12 I need to intervene!!

Many thanks
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Re: Racks for hanging pots and pans

by Jenise » Thu Apr 08, 2021 10:36 am

Okay, I have a pot rack and I LOVE IT. It hangs over a wide peninsula that's my plating station when serving food and my pastry station when baking. IOW, no traffic underneath it. At the end of that peninsula I put in a bookcase, and that's where my mixing and salad bowls live.

I'll take a picture and post it for you because I think you'd like what I have. It's very substantial and did not come ready-made with X number of permanent hooks; rather, the outer rim was made to accommodate any number of what at the time they called "meat hooks". I can hang as much stuff up there as I want and I can move the hooks. What the picture I'll show you makes patently clear is that this apparatus is not limited to pots and pans. Every pan up there would qualify as "most often used" (I have a cupboard for the less popular ones), but what that I keep there gets used virtually EVERY day? Two colanders of different types for different purposes, and several strainers.

Not sure how many hooks I have up there but it's more than 12!

Making salad? Grab lettuce out of the fridge and on the way to my mixing station I grab a colander and a salad bowl without ever bending over or opening a cupboard. Making rice? Get rice out of the doorless pantry with my left hand at one end of the kitchen and use my right to grab my fave rice pan and a strainer on my way to the prep sink at the other to measure/rinse. Racks don't just look cool, they greatly improve your efficiency because you never have to open, and dig through, a cabinet--which you can't do one-handed because the pan you want is never on top.

Only one negative about my rack, and it's specific to some racks but not all racks: it hangs from chain, anchored to the ceiling in two places not four so it's susceptible to being a bit lopsided if too many of the heavier pans end up on one side. But it's otherwise quite hurky and industrial which is exactly my speed.

I was very lucky to find it. In this strange little town I live in there used to be a company called Magellan who imported all kinds of stuff to resell to the Williams Sonomas of this world, to name one client. They'd photograph the items for their B2B catalogs then stuff them into a warehouse where, once a year, they'd hold a sale to get rid of that merchandise for peanuts compared to what they'd be go for at retail. And they happened to have one of those sales when I was in the middle of my kitchen design. I paid $50 for this rack--Williams Sonoma sold it for like $800. I recall there were two racks available and the other was quite a bit smaller--I took all the hooks meant for both of them. :)

I cannot imagine ever being trapped in a conventional kitchen again.

I'll go shoot some pictures.
My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov
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Re: Racks for hanging pots and pans

by Jo Ann Henderson » Thu Apr 08, 2021 10:51 am

Oh, Envy!! :(
"...To undersalt deliberately in the name of dietary chic is to omit from the music of cookery the indispensable bass line over which all tastes and smells form their harmonies." -- Robert Farrar Capon
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Re: Racks for hanging pots and pans

by John F » Thu Apr 08, 2021 2:08 pm

Jenise - thanks so much for your response. I’m attaching a pic of this contraption which was taken in a showroom. I now have learned that the hooks can be longer or shorter (a mix) and they are not “ fixed” and can be moved around... and the person makin this says foe the size they recommend no more than 5 on each long side and 3 on each short side for a total of 16. That seems like probably a decent amount to me and especially since at least for the next few years we will probably only use this house a. Our months a year max...

file:///var/mobile/Library/SMS/Attachments/2b/11/4CEDE75B-E96A-4E17-BB4A-D441CDFEDD73/IMG_5446.jpeg
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Re: Racks for hanging pots and pans

by Jeff Grossman » Thu Apr 08, 2021 6:45 pm

A question about open racks: don't the pans get dirty (grease in the air when cooking, dust/pollen settling overnight, etc.)?
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Re: Racks for hanging pots and pans

by Jenise » Thu Apr 08, 2021 6:48 pm

At my house the problem's floating cat hair. :) Which sticks to the rack but not the pans--everything gets used so often, it's not a concern.
My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov

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