TDG: Regarding Lodge's Pre-Seasoned Cast Iron

[Fat Guy]

Perhaps you've been wondering about this stuff.

Enjoy.

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[Beachfan]

Practical cooking advice and rock and roll. A good mix.

[Suvir Saran]

Thanks for all that information Dave.

Great stuff!

Would you be able to share a recipe for that delicious looking pear upside down cake?

[Anna N]

Really, really interesting discussion. Years ago I owned a cast iron skillet which I used for practically everything and I loved it. In time however, it develop a disgusting, cruddy exterior. Gunge accumulated that I could not remove. Afraid that someone else might see it and wonder about my kitchen hygeine, I threw it out.

I acquired a Le Creuset jobbie - the huge one, lime green with a wooden handle. And I love it - still love it except of course, it can't go in the oven.

Then, in the past year or so, I picked two other pieces of uncoated cast -iron. The first an 8 inch chicken fryer - picked up for $1 at a thrift store and which I cleaned and seasoned. It won't hold much chicken and I never fry chicken anyway, but it has been a very useful little pan - mostly I cook for only two of us so it's big enough.

Then, deperate for something that might imitate a BBQ, I bought a Lodge griddle. (We live in an apartment and BBQ's are forbidden due to fire regulations.) It's the kind that is ridged on one side, smooth on the other and sits over two burners. It was not cheap! $60 Cdn. But I cannot imagine how I lived without it.

Still, despite experience in seasoning cast iron, it took many, many uses before it became what I consider, non-stick. Even now, the ridged side is a devil to clean.

So, a pre-seasoned pan sounds like a darn good idea. Cast iron can take so much abuse and I have no fear of it buckling as even my stainless steel skillet has done after sticking in a very hot oven.

I am now on the lookout for a cast iron skillet for my daughter and they often show up in thrift stores for less than a song!

[Jinmyo]

Good job, Dave.

Cooking with cast iron is like learning to cook: Each time you use it, it becomes more seasoned, more durable, and more nuanced. I have one skillet that must be forty years old. Black as black can be.

[Rachel Perlow]

Really, really interesting discussion.  Years ago I owned a cast iron skillet which I used for practically everything and I loved it.  In time however, it develop a disgusting, cruddy exterior.  Gunge accumulated that I could not remove. Afraid that someone else might see it and wonder about my kitchen hygeine, I threw it out.

Eek! That's what self-cleaning ovens are for. You'd have to start over with the seasoning, but throwing out cast-iron???

[Marlene]

Really, really interesting discussion.  Years ago I owned a cast iron skillet which I used for practically everything and I loved it.  In time however, it develop a disgusting, cruddy exterior.  Gunge accumulated that I could not remove. Afraid that someone else might see it and wonder about my kitchen hygeine, I threw it out.

Eek! That's what self-cleaning ovens are for. You'd have to start over with the seasoning, but throwing out cast-iron???

You use the self cleaning oven feature to clean cast iron pans? This is a new one. I've never heard that before!

[vengroff]

Thanks, Dave!

In the past I have wondered why manufacturers didn't offer pre-seasoned cast iron. Coating and heating are two of the simplest industrial processes around. I always concluded that they didn't do it because even if a pan was perfectly seasoned out of the box, it would need proper care to stay that way. It will be interesting to see how Lodge's strategy pans out, so to speak. I wonder how many returns they will get from consumers who are upset about how it performs after being tossed in the dishwasher.

[Anna N]

Really, really interesting discussion.  Years ago I owned a cast iron skillet which I used for practically everything and I loved it.  In time however, it develop a disgusting, cruddy exterior.  Gunge accumulated that I could not remove. Afraid that someone else might see it and wonder about my kitchen hygeine, I threw it out.

Eek! That's what self-cleaning ovens are for. You'd have to start over with the seasoning, but throwing out cast-iron???

Self-cleaning? I'd settle for one that isn't avocado green! Seriously, I live in an apartment with a stove that is close to thirty years old and self-cleaning it ain't! But today, if all the planets are properly aligned, the landlord will be bringing me a brand new stove - WHITE! Basic as basic can be - no self-cleaning features but it go a little better with my almost-as-old Harvest gold 'fridge. But I am not complaining. Reading this board and knowing how difficult it is for some to even stand long enough to cook, I count my blessings!

[Suzanne F]

Aw gee, thanks a lot, Dave! I bypassed the pre-seasoned stuff and bought a regular 12-inch -- which I am still seasoning after several weeks. Now you come along and tell me that the pre-seasoned stuff really is as good as they claim, and I needn't go through all this wiping and heating and wiping and heating.

Oh well, on the upside: we're eating a lot more bacon than usual.

Thanks for an excellent report.

Edit-ion: after I told He Who Only Eats about the writeup, he wanted to know: does this mean you now need to have three sets of pans -- one pre-seasoned, one for the regular season, and one for playoffs and post-season?

Edited September 6, 2004 by Fat Guy (log)

[Dave the Cook]

Thanks for the kind words, everybody.

Would you be able to share a recipe for that delicious looking pear upside down cake?

Suvir, I can't post it (copyright, you know). I used the recipe straight out of Family Circle. It's in the January 14 issue, which is still on the newsstand. I can't even provide a link, since FC has not posted it.

You use the self cleaning oven feature to clean cast iron pans? This is a new one. I've never heard that before!

Yes, it works, and I believe even Lodge recommends it. But for Anna, and anybody else who needs to know, here's a link to another thread, where Fat Guy taught Wilfrid how to hand-strip seasoning:

Cast iron pan problem -- can’t get it clean

Here are some other C-I-related links:

Best cookware in general -- separate from the best non-stick thread

French steel / black metal / carbon steel - - underrated, virtually unknown cookware

And, for Suzanne:

Stovetop grilling -- what pans out?

Because, Suzanne, you got me started on this by recommending a cast-iron grill pan. Since Amazon had it on sale ($15), I bought the Logic version rather than the raw version. However, as Anna points out, grill pans have a specific problem -- cleaning. Otherwise, the article would have been about the grill pan instead. I decided it wasn't fair to Lodge to hang my lackadaisical dishwashers (aka sullen teenagers) on them. Overall, I'm not nearly as pleased with the grill pan as I am with the skillets (or with the flat two-burner version [the same one that Anna mentions] I've had for several years, but it's not practical to use on the range I have now -- a ceramic-top electric).

As an additional reference, I also bought a raw 12-inch skillet at the same time as the Logic Chicken Fryer. I've seasoned the skillet and used it ten or twelve times, but it still hasn't caught up to the Logic pan, which has now been used only three times and is black as night. Sorry, Suzanne. As for HWOE:

Jin, as usual you are right. If one pays attention, a cast-iron pan is almost organic. Over time, you teach it and it teaches you. That's why, if I have sufficient advanced warning, I like to give seasoned pans as housewarming and even wedding presents.

[Suzanne F]

As an additional reference, I also bought a raw 12-inch skillet at the same time as the Logic Chicken Fryer. I've seasoned the skillet and used it ten or twelve times, but it still hasn't caught up to the Logic pan, which has now been used only three times and is black as night. Sorry, Suzanne.

Whew! That actually makes be feel a lot better. I thought I was doing something wrong. I wonder what it is about the 12-inch skillets that make them a bit more difficult to season.

HWOE says thanks you.

[Dave the Cook]

I wonder what it is about the 12-inch skillets that make them a bit more difficult to season.

I wonder, too, but it must be related to size. I swear the other two (8 and 10) didn't take nearly this long.

[Suzanne F]

Exactly. My 12-inch still looks kind of splotchy, although it's darkening pretty well in most places. I HAVE noticed that the edge not that close to the flames takes a long, long time to heat -- have to keep moving the slices of bacon into the middle to get crisp. Funny thing is, the "raw" spots are in scattered all over the surface, not only around the edge. Oh dear, I hope Lodge hasn't changed the way they make the pans I expected more even heating.

[charlotte baker]

" I wonder how many returns they will get from consumers who are upset about how it performs after being tossed in the dishwasher. "

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Not very many I'd guess. The cleaning instructions for the seasoned cast iron call for cleaning them with sponge, soap and hot water, drying thoroughly. spraying with Pam and then wiping the pan. No dishwasher.

I've been using my seasoned pan for several months and I love it.

[mamster]

"  I wonder how many returns they will get from consumers who are upset about how it performs after being tossed in the dishwasher. "

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Not very many I'd guess.

I worked in a high-end kitchen store for a while, and two things I learned are: (1) people never read instructions, and (2) they will throw everything into the dishwasher, including things much weirder than cast iron. We also got a lot of cast iron pans back with a thick coat of rust, people having completely ignored the seasoning instructions. None of this was particularly surprising.

Oh, hey, here is an amusing story. I have this great blue chef's jacket that I got during the monthly employee draw at the store; we'd take returned and broken items that we couldn't sell and put employees' names in a random order, and they could choose whatever they liked. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the chef's jacket, but it had been washed, and it had this note on it, written by the employee who took the return:

"It shrunk, said the fat man."

[DaveFaris]

Fat Guy said (in another thread) : "I've tried a few times to get food magazines to let me do a cast-iron-versus-all-other-types-of-cookware cookoff test demonstrating that the best cookware for the largest number of kitchen applications is a $10 cast iron skillet, but nobody was buying."

I understand there's now a new webzine that is looking for this sort of content. Maybe you should pitch this idea to them?

[vengroff]

"  I wonder how many returns they will get from consumers who are upset about how it performs after being tossed in the dishwasher. "

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Not very many I'd guess.

I worked in a high-end kitchen store for a while, and two things I learned are: (1) people never read instructions, and (2) they will throw everything into the dishwasher, including things much weirder than cast iron.

Those are exactly the two factors that I think will work against Lodge. I'm afraid it will be even worse in this case. End users will get it into their head that the store display, box, and/or salesperson assured them it was a different and better kind of cast iron than that rusty crap they bought and had to return last year.

I've always thought it was a shame that kitchen stores have to put up with returns from people who have ruined their products through blatent misuse. It just jacks up the prices for the rest of us.

[DaveFaris]

My Griswold Chicken Fryer has seasoning instructions etched into the bottom of the pan. People may still not read them, but you have to admit, they're always handy and available.

[azlee]

Almost a decade ago, I purchased a beautiful Wagner cast iron teakettle. I successfully started the seasoning process but a now former member of the household decided to do me a favor and clean the kettle in the dishwasher while I was away on vacation. This same person also had a very bad habit of leaving half filled kettles on the hob fo days on end. Sadly, by the time I returned the kettle had the most advanced case of rust I'd ever seen. This happened quite a few years ago and I have kept the kettle but never figured out how to get rid of the rust. Does anyone know if it would be salvagable at this point and what I'd need to do in order to remove the rust and restart the seasoning process. I understand that Wagner no longer manufactures the teakettle so I'd be very pleased if there's a way to reclaim the old one. I do have a self cleaning gas oven and wondered if the incineration method would wipe out rust the same way that it does caked on grease. Thanks

Edited January 1, 2003 by azlee (log)

[Dave the Cook]

Azlee: I don't think the oven will remove rust. But the worderful world of chemistry can help. Go to a hardware store and get a bottle of Naval Jelly, a 1/2" paint brush and some kind of heavy duty scrubber.

Loosen and remove as much rust as you can, then apply the jelly to the rusted areas -- following the manufacturer's directions. You might have to apply it more than once if the rust is really thick, but don't leave it on too long for any single application, as the metal might pit. Once the rust is gone, you might want to rinse the pot with a heavy solution of baking soda to neutralize any residual jelly (mostly phosphoric acid -- pH 1). Do not apply any protective paint or sealer that the jelly maker might recommend. Just re-season the pot as if it were new.

Good luck -- it sounds like a nice piece, and worth saving if possible.

[azlee]

Good luck -- it sounds like a nice piece, and worth saving if possible.

Thanks Dave. It's a terrific piece and I had hoped that it would become one of my favorites. If I can save the kettle, it'll be a New Year's dream come true! Thanks, I'll let you know if things work out.

Azlee

[pjs]

azlee, Dave gave you some good advice but going the acid route would be my second choice. First would be calling around to local automotive and general machine shops and asking them if they have a bead blaster and if they'd mind blasting clean a slightly rusted cast iron kettle. Bead blasting is similar to sand blasting but done with glass beads or other less abrasive media. It is often used to clean rust from cast iron and other metals. I'd think it would take 10 minutes to bring the kettle back to as-new condition as long as it wasn't heavily rusted. It's so easy I'd do it for you for free if I had the piece here.

BTW nice article Dave.

PJ

[azlee]

azlee, Dave gave you some good advice but going the acid route would be my second choice. First would be calling around to local automotive and general machine shops and asking them if they have a bead blaster and if they'd mind blasting clean a slightly rusted cast iron kettle. Bead blasting is similar to sand blasting but done with glass beads or other less abrasive media. It is often used to clean rust from cast iron and other metals. I'd think it would take 10 minutes to bring the kettle back to as-new condition as long as it wasn't heavily rusted. It's so easy I'd do it for you for free if I had the piece here.

BTW nice article Dave.

PJ

Well, bead blasting certainly sounds less toxic than the chemical stripping. The kettle is not heavily rusted and the rust is only on the inside (last time I looked, anyway). Thanks to you both for the great suggestions. Just enough information to force a chronic procrasinator like myself to wait another ten years before actually making a decision about how to proceed.

[Dave the Cook]

Just enough information to force a chronic procrasinator like myself to wait another ten years before actually making a decision about how to proceed. 

I'll help. Go for the bead blasting. Great idea -- wish I'd thought of it.

Thanks, PJ.