Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Cast iron skillet ??

My lodge deep skillet with a lid took years to get smooth. My dutch oven seems to be taking a lot longer but I do a lot of braising in it and i think the acidic nature of the braising liquid is holding it up,

The lodge “pre-seasoned” pans would more accurately be called “Here, you finish it.” Have found simply following their directions using healthy amount of crisco in one, at most two, cycles in the oven turns out a fine result.

I also have a 12 qt. dutch oven - don't use it much .

All my Lodge was rough as a cob , that's what internet people said needed grinded [ground] off so I got a fiber grinding wheel chucked up on a drill and took it outside and smoothed them out inside and edges .

I'll try some more seasoning them - as MontanaMan said they don't need babied , my Grandma paid her zero attention as far as I know - that's what I wanted .

Got them cooling -going to give them another treatment tonight and if the season comes off ---oh well ..

When I read that Lewis & Clark left with Lodge cast iron cookware and came home with two things -their guns and their lodge cookware -- I had to have some.

I've noticed that after braising with red wine in my dutch oven.Ir inse well after use and a good layer of crisco

Flax seed oil. Very thin coats wiped on and stick in oven about 400 for an hour and shut heat off, let oven cool without opening door. 5-7 Times the same process, pan upside down in oven.

this lady does an excellent job explaining the chemistry. http://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/01/a-science-based-technique-for-seasoning-cast-iron/

Thanks Sandbilly, I wrote it on my fridge grocery list ...

Yep....i use olive oil in mine all the time.
Regardless of what oil I use I wash them immediatly with hot water and a sponge and then dry em on the stove.
The eight incher that I cook my eggs in (with butter and evo) every day goes right back on the stove, the others get wiped down with a little lard and stored in a cupboard.

One thing I don't do is cook anything with tomatoes in them....other than that I use em for dam near anything.

My sister said there are some studies out there that people wit Old Timers disease have a higher probability of them using Aluminum pans . This is why I only use cast iron, your body needs it anyway. We gave our sone a Lodge cast iron pan . Just use it for beacon or butter N eggs. Sometimes I leave it in oil for a while and seldom clean it.

Yep FieldGrade I learned my lesson early on with tomato stuff - in my case it was spagetti sauce , ate the seasoning right off my dutch oven .

Thanks to everyone .

I'm subscribed on Cowboy Kent Rollins channel ., I love old timey stuff like that ..

I use my lodge more than my Wagners and griswolds. The rough texture doesn't make it more sticky imo. Fwiw, my lodge is 25 years old. I have cooked every food known, but I have never washed it.

I've used flax seed oil like Edwin 264 and it has held up well. I love my cast iron cookware and
have many pieces including a Griswold skillet that I got from my grandmother. I am always on
the lookout for more. Have a friend who got a new piece of Lodge ware, unseasoned. He carried
it to his favorite Chinese food place and had them season it. They did it while he waited and it
didn't take long. I worked one summer building tow boats. One day at quitting time,the foreman told
us to bring our cast iron the next day if we wanted it cleaned up. Seems they were prepping the
tow boat for painting the next day by sand blasting. Put your name on the bottom with an electric
engraver and at quitting time; your cast iron was like brand new; ready to be seasoned! A nice
perk thought up by the foreman. He was a remarkable man with a 6th grade education. He carried
the plans to 3 different sizes of tow boats in his head. The boss always wanted him to work with
a marine architect and convert his knowledge to paper. He always refused saying "then you wouldn't
have any use for me". He could make anything out of metal. I've never seen any one with his
skills with a cutting torch. He lost his father at an early age in the Depression and quit school to
support his family working in a blacksmith shop.

Mike...some good advice here. Sandbilly nailed it.

I've completly stripped down and seasoned quite a few CI impliments using an electrolysis bath. Always used Veg oil to season.

Use the absolute thinnest coat on all surfaces. I use a paper towel to apply.

With the pan turned upside down in a gas BBQ and using an IR thermometer to keep the pan temp around 450, I let each application "cook off" for 30-45 minutes.

...then I repeat up to 5 times. The process generates a fair amount of smoke, so outdoors is a good way to go. I keep things hot between applications.

I've brought a few relics back from the dead.

Old CI trumps new due to the finer grain sand used in the casting process, although I do have a new Lodge that works just fine.

My mother said never season cast iron with any oil or grease containing salt! Use lard not shortening! The only one of mine that was hard to season is a large chicken fryer (Lodge brand)! I finally used a scotch Brite pad on a angle grinder and smoothed it well! Then lard and in the oven several times! Now to clean I bring water to a boil, dump and wipe dry, coat with oil wipe out excess done! My Griswold 9" skillet is my favorite!

And for the love of all things holy, wipe the outside with your oil so it doesn’t look ghetto when hanging.

Pure home rendered hog lard is the only thing I ever saw my maternal grandmother use to fry or bake anything in her cast iron skillets.
Mom used Crisco solid vegetable shortening in a can sometimes but her cast iron skillet was already a slick, well seasoned hand-me-down.
We have my Mom's old skillet now and have used it for years.
Besides lard we've used all types of commercial liquid and solid vegetable shortenings but apparently it is so well seasoned from countless years of use nothing has affected the flavor of food cooked it yet.
To my knowledge it has never been washed with soap or an abrasive cleanser of any kind.

Boggy Creek Ranger claimed all you had to do to season a cast iron skillet was to make cornbread in it a couple times before cooking anything else in it.

He’s right.

To All,

My secret to finding GREAT cast iron skillets & other pieces is to HAUNT the Salvation Army & Goodwill stores for OLD cast iron. ======> MUCH better cast iron than Lodge or the other "modern" stuff.

I've recently bought pieces at Goodwiill for 1-8 bucks each.
(My TREASURE is a 12" Dutch Oven with lid for 7.00 plus tax. - I use it mostly for frying chicken & making stews.)

yours, tex

No offense but I think if you'll just quit worrying about it and use it, it will be fine and you'll enjoy some good eats. I've got old ones that were my Mom's and Grandma's and I've got Wagners and Lodge's that we've bought. They are all fine. Honestly, I usually do use dish soap and water, then oil it up using whatever I've got. Ours are black and I haven't lost the seasoning much like everybody claims. Stuff tastes great out of them. I don't put them in the oven and re-season every time either. If they get splotchy, IDGAF. Have used about every oil imaginable on them. One of the big makers used to recommend Planter's Peanut Oil and we used that quite a bit. I've used Olive oil, corn oil, vegetable oil and I don't know what else to oil them up afterwards and to cook with. I expect the initial seasoning on the new ones was usually Peanut Oil though. I think it was ScottF who turned me on to using Safflower oil which is supposedly the best.