Cast iron pans.

[Catt]

4 hours ago, GReb said:

OG Magnalite pot is required for gumbo

 

Yes & no! That depends on how many Cajuns I'm feeding. On many occasions I've made gumbo in the huge pot I boil crawfish in.

 

 

[fishhugger]

6 hours ago, Darth-Baiter said:

Cast iron actually heats fairly uneven, that’s why some people preheat them in the oven. 
 

snd as far as soap.  I find it’s no big deal. Soap isn’t made from lye anymore.  I use dish soap on occasion and I can’t hurt my seasoning. It’s robust as heck. 

I don't see how cast iron can heat unevenly... it's solid cast iron... It's one material, and of even thickness.  It must be your heat source,IMHO.

Actually, I'll move my pans around on my heat source, thus controlling where the heat is directed... so part of my pan may be right on the heat, another part slightly off it.

And Soap can harm the seasoning. But I just continue to cook with the pan, and simply add oil to it, to cook. Pretty quickly the seasoning is fine again.  Or you can reseason it... no big deal .

I don't own any non stick pans. No thanks.

[TnRiver46]

My wife re seasons ours regularly so I will use a tiny drop of soap when it’s dirty .

 

If this tells you anything, here is my wife two weeks ago in the wilderness probably 8-10 miles from a vehicle. She put the cast iron pan in her kayak and paddled it down the river to the campsite haha

 

 

[Darth-Baiter]

Wow!  And is that a full sized ice chest?

9 hours ago, J Francho said:

 Get over your obsession with pans.  Cook how you know to cook. 

You like telling people how to live?    I don’t read that anyone is obsessed w anything here. 
 

And just supposed to be friendly banter (this thread). 

[TnRiver46]

@Darth-Baiter, we had two full size ice chests in our canoe, plus tents sleeping bags etc. You can see them

behind me in this pic, canoe is a pack mule 

 

then my buddy found a huge igloo cooler on wheels up in the woods and took that home too! 

 

as far as the cast iron, just wash it with river sand/gravel. 

[flyfisher]

1 hour ago, TnRiver46 said:

...as far as the cast iron, just wash it with river sand/gravel. 

When backpacking people used to always ask me why don't you bring stuff to clean your cookware and my response was the best thing to clean cookware is pine needles and other foliage which you then just rinse off and you are good to go.  

[gim]

1 hour ago, TnRiver46 said:

as far as the cast iron, just wash it with river sand/gravel. 

Didn't you just say that the Tennessee River was one of the most polluted rivers around in another thread?

 

Hard pass on using mother nature to clean cookware here.  I know what's in the water and I don't trust it without boiling it.  A lower intestinal issue is not something I'm willing to risk.  Placing it in the sun for a few hours under UV light might help.

[TnRiver46]

6 minutes ago, gimruis said:

Didn't you just say that the Tennessee River was one of the most polluted rivers around in another thread?

 

Hard pass on using mother nature to clean cookware here.  I know what's in the water and I don't trust it without boiling it.  A lower intestinal issue is not something I'm willing to risk.  Placing it in the sun for a few hours under UV light might help.

Yeah but I was camping on the Cumberland in the wilderness. We even filtered drinking water straight from the source no boiling 

 

all our municipal drinking water comes from the rivers, can’t hide from it 

 

I don’t know if the TN river is one of the most polluted waters, it’s just stuff you hear/read. Seems like articles came out saying it had the most micro plastic in the world but I didn’t conduct the study so who knows 

[Mobasser]

I have two cast iron Lodge skillets. We use them for some cooking. My wife really likes her stainless steel skillets for the easy clean up.

[flyfisher]

23 minutes ago, gimruis said:

Didn't you just say that the Tennessee River was one of the most polluted rivers around in another thread?

 

Hard pass on using mother nature to clean cookware here.  I know what's in the water and I don't trust it without boiling it.  A lower intestinal issue is not something I'm willing to risk.  Placing it in the sun for a few hours under UV light might help.

Not sure about you but usually when I cook I use heat and that heat will kill anything on the pan.  There is no way on anything more than 1 night I am bringing enough water for the entire trip.  

[Will Ketchum]

When my mother passed away, I went through her stuff and came upon her old cast iron pans. They looked like they could use some washing, so I cleaned the heck out of them and put them away. My brother asked if I still had them, so I gave him one. His wife cooked something in it and it came out "rusty". Moral is, don't over-clean.

[TnRiver46]

35 minutes ago, Will Ketchum said:

When my mother passed away, I went through her stuff and came upon her old cast iron pans. They looked like they could use some washing, so I cleaned the heck out of them and put them away. My brother asked if I still had them, so I gave him one. His wife cooked something in it and it came out "rusty". Moral is, don't over-clean.

I could be off here but…….. I think they should have cleaned the rust out of them. I’ve seen people restore 50-60 year old cast iron that sat out in the yard but they had to “over clean” it for a few days to get the rust out 

 

my aunt gave me one from the 1960s that was rusted. I cleaned it out with steel wool for quite some time, lots of elbow grease. Then you have to coat them with oil and re-season them in the oven.

[fishhugger]

5 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

My wife re seasons ours regularly so I will use a tiny drop of soap when it’s dirty .

 

If this tells you anything, here is my wife two weeks ago in the wilderness probably 8-10 miles from a vehicle. She put the cast iron pan in her kayak and paddled it down the river to the campsite haha

 

 

wow - she's camping with a cast iron fry pan the size of my biggest cast iron fry pan..... i wish mine had the handle on both sides...that stove looks.... tiny?

[TnRiver46]

13 minutes ago, fishhugger said:

wow - she's camping with a cast iron fry pan the size of my biggest cast iron fry pan..... i wish mine had the handle on both sides...that stove looks.... tiny?

Just a little camp stove, the two burner Coleman wouldn’t fit in the kayak haha. She also cooked a 3 lb sirloin on that setup that day!!!

 

thats our biggest pan too, she wasn’t going to risk taking her grandmas. she wants to be buried with that thing when it’s all said and done 

[fishhugger]

7 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Just a little camp stove, the two burner Coleman wouldn’t fit in the kayak haha. She also cooked a 3 lb sirloin on that setup that day!!!

 

thats our biggest pan too, she wasn’t going to risk taking her grandmas. she wants to be buried with that thing when it’s all said and done 

oh --- too bad she can't bring a two burner. that would be pretty awesome. yeah, you wouldn't want to drop grandma's cast iron in the drink...... 

[Mobasser]

40 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

I could be off here but…….. I think they should have cleaned the rust out of them. I’ve seen people restore 50-60 year old cast iron that sat out in the yard but they had to “over clean” it for a few days to get the rust out 

 

my aunt gave me one from the 1960s that was rusted. I cleaned it out with steel wool for quite some time, lots of elbow grease. Then you have to coat them with oil and re-season them in the oven.

I agree. I restored an old 12" cast iron skillet also. I scrubbed well with steel wool, and then greased it up and put it in the oven to season it. It works good. This one was badly rusted, and took a little work. These old cast iron pots and pans can last forever.

[TnRiver46]

6 minutes ago, fishhugger said:

oh --- too bad she can't bring a two burner. that would be pretty awesome. yeah, you wouldn't want to drop grandma's cast iron in the drink...... 

we take the two burner on shorter trips where we can paddle back and forth to the car. This was 20 miles one way downstream with rapids so most of the space was allotted for….. beer 

 

Here’s some pics from island camping 2020 where the two burner and grandmas cast iron made the trip. The car was only a few hundred yards away for that one, creek arm

of a reservoir with no rapids 

[Kirtley Howe]

I love cast iron cookware. But my wife does most of the cooking, and has very bad wrists and cannot lift a cast iron pan. She has a whole set of ceramic coated pans with thick aluminum bottoms. They actually work very well, are non-stick, and don't shed teflon or other coating particles. They don'ty hold heat as well as cast iron, but they do heat very evenly.

I usually cook Sunday breakfast, and for that I still use my 16" cast iron fry pan. It makes the best bacon, eggs and sausage.  We have a propane gas stove in the house, and a propane gas grill. I often use the cast iron pan on the grill for vegetables and small things that would fall through the grill grates.

[fishhugger]

grandma's cast iron looks the perfect size --- is it larger than my 9" (measured along the top edge of the pan)?  mine's a wagner.  i get the impression the older cast iron was a little thinner than the current lodges are....  when they can freeze dry beer, you'll be totally set....!

[J Francho]

9 hours ago, Darth-Baiter said:

Wow!  And is that a full sized ice chest?

You like telling people how to live?    I don’t read that anyone is obsessed w anything here. 
 

And just supposed to be friendly banter (this thread). 

Not sure why you are singling an out of context comment in a quote.  It wasn't directed at you.  No single pan can do it all.  You aren't going to get any fond in a non stick pan.  Likewise, cooking an egg in a poorly seasoned pan is worlds worse than cooking an egg in a non stick pan.  Different tools....Anyone can hammer in a screw and call it lasagna, lol.

[Darren.]

We cook with gas, have several cast iron items. Love them.

Try to clean them by either pouring water into them while

very hot, or using a brush to get sticky stuff off of them.

 

Seasoning is a pain. I try to do it like the YouTube vets

(Cowboy Ken Rollins, et al) show, but I can never quite

get the right seasoning- or if I do, someone scrapes it

off using the wrong cooking utensil, or some acidic

food stuffs.

[Darth-Baiter]

2 hours ago, J Francho said:

Not sure why you are singling an out of context comment in a quote.  It wasn't directed at you.  No single pan can do it all.  You aren't going to get any fond in a non stick pan.  Likewise, cooking an egg in a poorly seasoned pan is worlds worse than cooking an egg in a non stick pan.  Different tools....Anyone can hammer in a screw and call it lasagna, lol.

Sorry 

[dave]

I clicked on the post because I mis-read the title, I thought it said, Cast Iron Pants...  Thanks gin...

[WRB]

The issue with dish soap and cast iron pans is soaking in hot spooky water. I was thought to put water in the hot pan, boil the water and rinse. Any residue a drop of soap and hot water rinse is all that is needed. Pre heating your iron pan is like ore heating your oven or BBQ grill you want even heat. Cast iron heats evenly given time to heat, something that will ruin most other pans. 

Peach to his/her own cooking methods. My wife is a far better over cook/chef then me, my skill is on the grill....and apple pies?

Tom

[T-Billy]

Iron is all we use. Works just fine on a glass top.