The stuff will last several lifetimes if you take care of it. Sometimes even if you don’t.
The Beauty Of Cast Iron Cookware
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The stuff will last several lifetimes if you take care of it. Sometimes even if you don’t.
What’s your favorite brand? ‘Lodge’ seems like the low-end, but it’s everywhere. Gotta be some higher quality names out there.
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The two big ones to look for are Griswold and Wagner. You won’t find them in stores, because they have been out of business for many years, but these are the best. You have to haunt the thrift stores and rummage sales, looking for someone who is disposing of Grandma ‘s old pans.
Old cast iron pans were ground smooth on the inside, and would season up like a piece of glass. Lodge pans are sand-cast and skip the finishing step. If Lodge actually finished their pans they could sell them at three times the price.
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You can grind your Lodges to a better finish. And take off that weak-assed ‘comes preseasoned’ bullshit that they put on their stuff.
Even just hand sanding the inside with varying grades of sandpaper works.
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I used the coarse side of my silicon carbide knife sharpening stone to smooth out our Lodge pans by hand. No real need for power tools and the big block helped keep the surface even.
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I’ve bought four Finex pans this year. Two for myself and two as gifts. The cooking surface is machined smooth for a non-stick surface without having to spend years scraping a pan smooth.
They aren’t cheap but I can attest that they are worth every penny you’re being charged.
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I’m using my grandfather’s cast iron skillets, the grandson has called dibs on it.
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My wifely unit and I are perfectly happy with Lodge, but I’m sure the other brands are just fine. I never got my mother’s set… it happens when you’re the fourth kid of four.
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The one on my stove is pushing a century old. I dug it out of an old foundation when I was a lot younger (say 40yrs ago). Only after ‘finding’ it again 5 years later behind the shed back home, I shot blasted the rust off it, tossed it in a nice hot wood fire until the fire was out. Pulled it out, Brillo’d it off, soaked it with bacon grease, wrapped it with aluminum foil and into an oven for a few hours at 350. Once out, wiped it again with bacon grease and use it nearly daily. Load of grease in it, eggs finish, wipe it out and grease it up again ad infinitum.
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Bacon Grease. Yup. I’ve tried seasoning with veg oil. Nope. Bacon grease for the win!
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Cast iron pans an pots are great cookwear .From camp fire to kitchen .My ol man made bomb chili in a cast iron pot yum!!!!
Ps im from willamette Damette .
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My current cast iron pan I bought at a yard sales for $1, it cleaned up nice.
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The best cast iron is the one I’m cooking in!
Years ago my dad & I were at a Calif beach, one where you have to walk down the trail to get to the sand. My dad stopped and looked down and said you need to carry your cast iron pans down, don’t toss them thinking they are tough and the sand has give, “the cast iron will shatter”. With that he started down the path to the beach.
He did a lot of camping in central Calif as he was growing up (Morro Bay)…. I think he was passing on a lesson.
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Hey Phil…what was that liquid you used to defuckify that rusted out gas tank on what I believe was an old tiller? I have a couple of old cast iron toys (not cookware) that are rusted pretty shittily and the objects aren’t very angularly friendly for a dremel and wire brush.
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You can try vinegar. The stuff you are probably trying to remember is Evap O Rust. I can only find it at Harbor Freight but Wal Mart sells a couple of different brands that are similar.
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And if you have holes, or close to holes, POR-15. Ain’t cheap, but much better than Kreem or anything else on the market. They sell a ‘kit’ for tanks that includes a stripper, primer and coating. Fixed more than one motorcycle/equipment tank with that over the years.
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I’ve had to refurb a cast iron skillet twice. First sucked. Lots of sanding.
Second was a breeze. Let me elucidate:
Get a shitload of charcoal glowing in the grill. Shovel a bunch inside the pan, and set the thing down on another pile. Close the lid, and go drink beer.
A few hours later, all the crud will be burnt off. shine it up with some emery cloth and re-season it.
Cast iron and carbon steel is about all I cook with these days.
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Ya gotta be careful with that kind of deal. I did that with two that I had gotten somewhere and it warped the shit out of the bottoms of both of them to the point they rolled around when you tried to set them down.
Ruined them.
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