What's new
The Shaving Cadre

Welcome to The Shaving Cadre, a forum dedicated to gentlemanly discourse about wet shaving and other topics of common interests. Membership is always free so register today and join in the fun

Cast Iron

My wife and I cook almost exclusively with cast iron's as well. We have all Griswolds. They are expensive unless you restore and old rusty one then re-season it. My wife cleans them with corn meal, water and a plastic scrubby then a light wipe with canola oil before putting them away. We didn't have good luck using any soaps for cleaning. The last pan I bought my wife needed to be seasoned, so I did that and it's working great. Cast iron is an investment for sure, but once you start using them you will never go back to the cheap junk with the non-stick coatings. We've found that you need less heat and that things cook more evenly with cast iron. They will be the last pans you ever buy. Most of our pans date to the early to mid 1900's s, so they've been feeding families for a loooong time. If you take care of them, they will take care of you.
 
I love you guys, another great thread. We exclusively use carbon steel fry pans. (Easier to find here, lighter because they are thinner, and more responsive) We have a De Buyer dealer nearby, so they have been my preferred option.

In fact I just bought a couple of new ones last month, a very thin 1mm, paella pan and a thinker flat bottom wok type pan. I actually use the paella pan as an oven pan mostly my wife hates the oven getting too messy and this has made it super simple.

Anyway, I was really unsure how that thin 1mm steel would take a season but seriously it was very easy. Most people tend to use too much heat and overcook the oil. I used flaxseed oil, but honestly olive oil is just fine as well. Heck I've made it work with coconut oil, which is against all the rules.

IME the key is being patient the first uses. First season is, clean the pan, heat it on the stove top, or if you need to coat the whole pan then use a hot oven. 250 deg C is fine IME or med-high on stove top.

When the pan's hot, pour a small dollop of oil and wipe it around the entire surface of the pan, first time, keep it under heat 5-10 min, but not to the point it smokes.

Then take it off the heat, and wipe the excess oil off right away!

From then, every time you use the pan is a mini-seasoning, and how you take care of the pan post cooking is the main thing, never use soap unit the pan has a serious black crust built up. Getting the crust takes some time, but it will cook fine without it.
Just use plastic fibre dish brush, and for anything that sticks and wooden spatula or similar. The brush we have has a plastic scraper built in, that works great.

After cleaning, dry the pan immediately! Then pour a small dollop of oil in the pan and wipe it around, cleaning off any excess. For me, this post treatment has been critical, and it also help avoid any rusting. Some go as far as reheating the pan in the post treatment, but I don't find I need to do that.

I'll try to post some pics soon.
 
dangerousdon said:
I have used bacon grease (strained), butter, and coconut oil. All are saturated fats and all are stable at room temp. Last night I used coconut oil because it was available and didn't feel like opening another stick of butter. I think olive and avocado oils would probably be okay, like the article said, if you are using your pan often. I am vehemently opposed to any oils that are produced or processed with chemicals (hexane) or high heat. These oils would be vegetable oil, canola, corn oil, and soybean oil to name a few. Sorry...I realize I am getting preachy here. I am just giving my view and nothing more. I just appreciate people cooking with cast iron instead of popping something in the microwave! For the record...my great grand parents (great grandmother was born in 1904) used nothing but bacon grease or lard to season her cast iron.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've been using olive oil but was wondering if I should be using something else. So I did some googling. One site said the best thing to use is flaxseed oil. But they also warn not to use linseed oil as it is not fit for human consumption even though both are derived from the same source. Another site also said that the seasoned surface can tend to be more brittle with flaxseed oil. I also found it to be quite expensive, around $1 an ounce. Another site recommended refined grapeseed oil as the best for seasoning pans. I found it to be similarly priced to flaxseed oil. At this point my head is spinning. I'm just going to continue to use olive oil. We always have some on hand so it's easy.
 
Exactly! As long as you give the seasoning time to build up, it really doesn't matter what you use that much IME.
The thing that put me off flaxseed is it goes rancid quickly, and that's not something I'm wanting to deal with. Plus it smells horrible to me.
 
There's some interesting stuff out there on seasoning cast iron. From what I know, the die hard pros use crisco and canola oil. Flash points come into play, but I've seasoned one with canola and another with crisco. The canola oil gives them more of a brownish / black hue while the crisco gives it black coloring. My wife tries to cook fried chicken or fried fish in them as the first few meals and that really locks in the seasoning.

Kyle's cast iron pan unit looks like it was hand forged. @uacowboy Fantastic looking and love the stenciling next to it. I've yet to forge anything to hold ours because we haven't quite figured out the kitchen yet as far as where everything should go after the renovations. I want to forge a range hood someday so that is going to limit space.
 
I use canola oil if I need to re-season one for some reason, or first season on a new pan, but then just cooking with olive oil and real butter to maintain it. A couple of my old ones were passed down from my grandmother, to my mother, and now to me. So I'm sure they were crisco or lard seasoned and I haven't had to re-do them.
 
Finally, the promised photos...

From left to right are my ceramic coated that I have no idea who made (only the outside is coated), my 2 Griswolds, a $10 skillet just marked "made in China" that performs quite well, a Wagner that is my go-to and sees the most use of any, and 2 more Wagners. (And a bacon press sitting on the top.)


20190826_193203.jpg

Some close-ups of the bacon press.


20190826_194355.jpg

20190826_194406.jpg

My ceramic coated dutch oven.

20190826_193927.jpg

And a little muffin/cornbread pan. This one mostly hangs around just for decoration off the side of my big cabinet.

20190826_194433.jpg

I do have a very large 14 inch Ozark Trail that isn't pictured. It works well, but doesn't get used a whole lot. Comes in handy at times though, and it was pretty darn cheap. Less than $20 brand new if I remember correctly. Camping section at wally world. A bit rough in the fit and finish, but the price was right.
 
Blade-meister said:
Kyle's cast iron pan unit looks like it was hand forged. @uacowboy Fantastic looking and love the stenciling next to it. I've yet to forge anything to hold ours because we haven't quite figured out the kitchen yet as far as where everything should go after the renovations. I want to forge a range hood someday so that is going to limit space.
Click to expand...

I wish it was hand forged. It was just something I ordered from Amazon when we moved in because we needed a good place to keep them. I do like how it looks though.
 
Pulled out the cast iron dutch oven to clean it up a bit since it hasn't been used in a very long time! I have another large cast iron dutch oven in the attic and has never been used...it is still in the box. It was a wedding gift (almost nine years ago) and I meant to use it for jambalaya...just never did. I need to get them both cleaned up and start using them. Especially as it gets cooler outside!
 
dangerousdon said:
Pulled out the cast iron dutch oven to clean it up a bit since it hasn't been used in a very long time! I have another large cast iron dutch oven in the attic and has never been used...it is still in the box. It was a wedding gift (almost nine years ago) and I meant to use it for jambalaya...just never did. I need to get them both cleaned up and start using them. Especially as it gets cooler outside!
Click to expand...

A dutch oven is on our wishlist. At knap-in with flintknappers guys were known to cook cobblers over the camp fire and those things would be simmering all day just in time to eat late afternoon or after supper. If you have the proper camp cooking set-up cast iron works really well over the camp fire. Imagine jambalaya cooked over the camp fire.........
 
Blade-meister said:
A dutch oven is on our wishlist. At knap-in with flintknappers guys were known to cook cobblers over the camp fire and those things would be simmering all day just in time to eat late afternoon or after supper. If you have the proper camp cooking set-up cast iron works really well over the camp fire. Imagine jambalaya cooked over the camp fire.........
Click to expand...
Okay...now I am instantly hungry!
 
I have an old no-name dutch oven bottom with a handle on it that I have to test for lead and nasty things before I use it to cook with. I hear you can use good heavy aluminum foil for a top if needed. Mmmmm, slow simmering chili over some hot camp fire coals with chunks of meat cooked over the open flame and thrown in the chili. Now that's lunch!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top