The all new Cast Iron Thread [General]

2014 Nov 5
TOPIC continued from Forum - Cast iron, enameled and not

This old thread was too big so I was forced to make a new one

Forum - Cast iron, enameled and not

Costco has a 5 piece set of Lodge cookware at a really great price

www.costco.ca


2014 Nov 5
My 12" Lodge is my go to pan. It takes some patience, but if you keep at it the seasoning will eventually mature and work great!

2014 Nov 5
My best-est, most favourite-est cast iron pan ever (other than the one I grew up with that my mom is still using) is the one I acquired when I moved into my first apartment in Toronto. No brand name, just says 12" SKILLET on the bottom.

The last tenant left it behind in the drawer of the stove, and I was so happy when I found it! The pan surface and sides were perfectly seasoned, and still are no matter what abuse we throw at it now.

We've since added two more cast iron pans to go with it, but they feel much heavier in my hand. I don't know if that's good or bad. Just heavy I guess.

The Lodge we bought about 10 years ago is just about perfect now, and keeps it's seasoning well, but the most recent one (purchased 2 years ago) which is a Kitchen Aid isn't quite there yet. It does have a much longer handle that the other two, which is some times handy, sometimes a pain.

2014 Nov 6
Does using cast iron cookware help people who need iron too, or is it just cookware ?

2014 Nov 6
A well seasoned pan will not impart much iron to the food. Seasoning is a polymerization of the oil used in the pan. If you have a lightly/poorly seasoned pan or your scratch up the seasoning layer while you are cooking then you might get a bit of iron, especially if you are cooking highly acidic foods, but using cast iron cookware doesn't do much to add iron to your diet.

2014 Nov 7
I use my grandmother's old pan. It also doubles as a home defense weapon alongside my honing steel.

2014 Nov 7
For cast iron pans, old is the way to go. As was mentioned (years ago, wow) in the old thread, hit up garage sales, flea markets, church basements. A well-used specimen will not only likely be perfectly seasoned, but all of that cooking and scraping over the years will have given it a cooking surface as smooth as glass. Cheaper new pans like Lodge will have a rough cooking surface, both because it's cheaper to manufacture and because less iron touching what you're cooking will give the illusion of a more non-stick surface even before it's properly seasoned. More expensive ones will have been ground, if not polished, but why spend the money when there are thousands upon thousands of usable pans out there waiting?

You can also buy a Lodge and sand it down yourself, if you like a bit of DIY.

I've got one of my grandmother's Findlays (from Carleton Place, which is cool, because that whole side of my family is from northern Quebec, ten hours' drive away), at least 75 years old, and I could use it as a mirror. It's pretty good at steak, too.

For enameled Dutch ovens and so on, old is great, but it can be harder to find one without chips in the enamel.

2014 Nov 7
A timely and informative posting on the Serious Eats blog:

"The Truth About Cast Iron Pans" - www.seriouseats.com

2014 Nov 7
Cast iron pans are not easy to find at thrift stores as flandroid makes it out to be. I'm a thrift store junky and have been for years, and have never found a single usable pan at a thrift store. I did find a good one once at a yard sale.

Also saw a windowful of it at StVdP the other day, but was too late - someone had already spoken for all of it.

2014 Nov 7
Oh no, I wouldn't recommend thrift stores. Garage sales, flea markets, church basements. You're not going to find anything good at a Sally Ann or Value Village.

2014 Nov 7
Flandroid, that is not necessarily true. We moved from a house to a condo this year and took carloads of excellent stuff to the Sally Ann. I think what is true is that the good stuff gets picked up very quickly by firstly, staff, and then shoppers. I know we were dropping stuff off almost daily and one time I had a look around and saw none of my stuff anywhere.

2014 Nov 7
Well I go to garage sales, flea markets, and church basements all the time as well - not much out there. The one piece I did find at a yard sale maybe 8 or 10 years ago now, I snatched right up. Have not seen a single other piece since.

As for thrift stores, I get all sorts of really high quality / low use stuff there including lots of Paderno cookware, camping gear, and clothing. Just no cast iron ...

2014 Nov 7
Cast iron is pretty rehabilitatable. I wouldn't let a bit of rust scare me off from picking up an old piece unless the rust was coming off in deep flakes.

2014 Nov 8
I said nothing about rust. There is crappy cast iron out there - like the no-name stuff the Superstore was selling last time I looked a few years ago. One piece I passed over just a few days ago was a really old Le Creuset pan. Some googling on my smart phone told me that what I was looking at inside was a half deteriorated coating of somekind. Nope, not interested in that. And right beside it was a relatively new square griddle pan that had no marking stamp of any kind on the bottom, and appeared to be on par with the crappy Superstore stuff.

But honestly I think those are the first 2 pieces I've seen in a few years.

Anyway, regarding rust and other damage - good cast iron is almost indestructible and can almost always be revived.

2014 Nov 8
Flandroid, that is not necessarily true. We moved from a house to a condo this year and took carloads of excellent stuff to the Sally Ann. I think what is true is that the good stuff gets picked up very quickly by firstly, staff, and then shoppers. I know we were dropping stuff off almost daily and one time I had a look around and saw none of my stuff anywhere.

2014 Nov 10
Was just at the Superstore and decided to look at cast iron. They now have PC branded enamel on cast iron pans - 10" and 12". About $30 each. Very nice looking pans - similar in look to these starfrit ones at Costco

www.costco.ca

2014 Dec 14
For anyone interested, Le Creuset is on sale today only at the Bay. the 3.3L French oven is $159.99 down from $400.

www.thebay.com

2015 Mar 23
Hey so GT is now carrying Lodge cast iron from their online store, and the prices are really good too

www.gianttiger.com

2015 Mar 26
What's the best oil to use for seasoning it ?

2015 Mar 26
Peanut. Canola. Corn. Anything with a moderate to high smoke point. Just coat it with oil and put it in the oven for a while. There's a lot of differing info on the net about what temp and for how long. It's been a while since I've had to do it.

Most cast iron pans come pre-seasoned now.

2015 Mar 26
Serious Eats had a good article on seasoning cast iron pans, so you may want to check that out.

2015 Mar 26
My wife got one of these crepe makers. I seasoned it but the amber color is not uniform. However the crepes are not sticking, so perhaps with oiling and use it will even out. I could take it off with oven cleaner and start over I suppose . . .

2015 Mar 27
First, no. Don't strip it down. That's just wrong.

Second, HELL no. Leave it alone if it's working. You're put off because the colour isn't uniform? sigh

Third, if you can see the colour over the black of the cast iron, it may be possible that you've seasoned it too much. I've never seen anything but black on my pans, but I've never worked with a surface like that one either.

Fourth, that's an awesome looking pan.

2015 Mar 27
I read an article recently about flax seed oil being the best, and it made a lot of sense since it is the only food-grade oil in a certain type of oils used for this sort of thing. Boy I don't have much retention from that article do I?

:-)

EDIT: here it is - after reading this I am convinced it is the best. Though I have not yet tried it yet myself

sherylcanter.com

2015 Mar 27
LARD. Or coconut oil. I find it a lot easier and more effective to slather on things that are semi-solid at room temp. I've got a couple of nearly-hundred-year-old pans that get a lard spa once a year and they look as good and perform as well as the day they were given to me. My grandma only ever used lard on hers, for over fifty years, and I don't want to make her ghost cranky.

2015 Mar 27
It didn't turn black. It was shiny silver to begin with. I think it's stainless steel, not cast iron.

I heated it up to maximum and rubbed in the oil eight times, just like the video said. It's not a deep uniform amber. It's darker in the middle and kind of mottled going out from there . . .




2015 Mar 27
I'm not sure I trust lard . . . :-) I don't think my wife will go for lard. She doesn't trust teflon.

2015 Mar 27
Oh ... so not cast iron. Nothing at all to do with the thread aside from the seasoning, which is explained quite thoroughly in that video.

I guess we can't help.

I mean, we could guess. In that case, I'd say lard. That's what I use.

2015 Mar 28
I used canola, because of the relatively high smoke point, but from what I've been reading, the oil has to burn and cross link, to form a relatively durable layer that is non-stick. Maybe flax oil is the way to go. I know you should not cook flax oil and it goes rancid quickly at room temperature. Even in the fridge it only lasts about three weeks. (Flax seeds are stable and even heat stable though, as is fresh ground flax seeds, heat stable). But since the oil will be burnt and crosslinked, perhaps it doesn't matter.


2015 Mar 28
Cast iron and steel should be similar though. Maybe pore size is different, probably not.

2016 Apr 26
GT Online is carrying Lodge cast iron again, and today there is a 15% off sale with free shipping.

www.gianttiger.com