Cast Iron Pans, good brands?

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Lodge works for me. I suppose a little sanding wouldn't hurt, but the seasoning process builds a smooth surface on the pan. Can't beat bacon for seasoning a pan.
 
I need to reseason a bunch of stuff. From what I've read in here, 1)Build fire in the WSM, 2)Slather in bacon grease/shortening, 3) Place in the WSM, 4) Slather it up again, 5) Profit?
 
The simplest way to un season a pan found at a yard sale is to stick it inside your self cleaning oven and then start the self cleaning cycle.

This will take it back to the bare metal. The true color if cast iron is gray.

Open the windows and turn on the fans cause it will smell. But in about an afternoon you have a bare metal pan ready to be reseasoned. Make sure you give the pan a few hours to cool down before you take it out if the oven.
 
The simplest way to un season a pan found at a yard sale is to stick it inside your self cleaning oven and then start the self cleaning cycle.

This will take it back to the bare metal. The true color if cast iron is gray.

Open the windows and turn on the fans cause it will smell. But in about an afternoon you have a bare metal pan ready to be reseasoned. Make sure you give the pan a few hours to cool down before you take it out if the oven.

I just throw mine in the fire pit out back with a hardwood fire, or in the gas grill. No need to stink up the house.
 
There's a simple method that my mother in law taught me (they're good for something ;)). She called it "bluing" the pan although I'm not sure of the expression.

You just scrub the pan with steel wool to get any chunks off, then pour salt to cover the bottom of the pan, about a 1/4" deep. I just use standard table salt. Crank your stove top on high and let the sucker go for 30 minutes or so.

After everything cools, dump the salt out and coat the pan in vegetable oil. Voila, a perfectly seasoned pan. No muss, no fuss.
 
Do as recommend above (its called seasoning). Its a must. Also its a good way to clean your pan. Lodge is solid.
 
When I met the perfect woman I knew it because she owned and used cast Iron pans. To the relationship she brought three very nice and much used Lodge pans. God Bless Her!

I myself have a mish-mash of 20 some pieces of Griswold, Wagner and others not so well known that passed from my grand mother to my mother and then to me. The reason I got them was because I loved cooking with them and my sisters weren't all that fond of them (Or cooking for that matter). Of them all I love granny's deep walled chicken fryer and the 14" dutch oven I picked up back in the 90's
 
I have a couple of well seasoned Lodge pans and a Wagner dutch oven, you cannot beat cast iron it will last forever.
As a kid someone had to do the dishes, at a pretty young age I was pretty happy with myself when I got all the black stuff of the pan as the parents chilled, Mom's face said she was not amused!
 
Griswold and Wagner

Honestly go get one at a second hand store, flea market etc they can be re-seasoned pretty easily and are a lot cheaper

+1

The old cast iron was better finished than the newly made stuff.

It is almost impossible to wear out cast iron that's been well cared for. This makes buying used a very practical idea.
 
We have a large flea market across from the speedway (LCS) up past White House Artisian Springs. I look for old,but decently cared for cast iron there. Decent prices for old seasoned cast iron. I def like the old,old stuff.
 
I inherited 2 cast iron skillets from my grandma and they are still the best things for cornbread and most of my cooking. I like a straight flat steel spatula when I cook in them. My wife bought me a couple of the newer Lodge's but they aint as smooth or as good as these ancient one from my grandma. They seem lighter and for lack of a better word, less durable.
My Daughter likes the Le Creuset but I aint never used them.

Old Thread, I know but I got a sad story to tell:

My Niece, Bless her, trying to help out with our yard sale this past weeekend before we move, put my Grandma's old skillets out for sale with other pots and pans. She said they sold real quick, I asked for how much, she said $5 each.
My Wife and I had been in town getting paint for the interior of the house to get ready to sell.
I nearly broke down and cried! She even sold the Lodge pans my Wife had bought - $10.
 
Lodge work superbly if you know how to season a pan correctly. First off, pre-seasoned is joke. With a new pan, I take oven cleaner to it to get all coating off. Then I bake it in the oven coated with flaxseed oil, and only flaxseed oil. You have to let the pan cool after, then add another coat. Repeat at least 5 times. This completely smooths out the pan, and gives a new impenetrable surface. I learned this trick from Cook's Illustrated. They even showed that a dishwasher did not damage this coating, and they found that flaxseed oil works much better than any other oil/shortening for this purpose.

I second this, about using flaxseed oil. Flaxseed oil is food-grade linseed oil, and it polymerizes under heat to give a very hard, tough finish.

Bacon grease, lard and other animal fats also work, especially if you're going to use the cast iron mostly for frying. But they give a softer finish.
 
I have KOTC's mother's old 14" Lodge cast iron skillet and that thing is like glass inside. I take very very good care of it.

A friend of my Mom's gave me an old Dutch oven she had. It's not a TRUE one because there are no legs nor does the lid let you put coals on it, as it's domed and has special ridges inside that let the steam condense and drop back into the pot.

ANY way, she had tried to reseason it for me and it was a gummy sticky ugly MESS. In a brainstorm moment, I put it, upside down, into my self-cleaning oven and set the clean cycle. That thing came out PRISTEEN and I reseasoned it (I use coconut oil) and it's fine now.

Also found a smaller skillet at a garage sale for $1 - it was a rusty mess because someone had used it as a succulent planter - gave it the same treatment and it also came out great. A little ash left in it, which I wiped out and then commenced reseasoning.

Subsailor, I WOULD HAVE CRIED had that happened to my stuff! Oh my.
 
I have KOTC's mother's old 14" Lodge cast iron skillet and that thing is like glass inside. I take very very good care of it.

A friend of my Mom's gave me an old Dutch oven she had. It's not a TRUE one because there are no legs nor does the lid let you put coals on it, as it's domed and has special ridges inside that let the steam condense and drop back into the pot.

ANY way, she had tried to reseason it for me and it was a gummy sticky ugly MESS. In a brainstorm moment, I put it, upside down, into my self-cleaning oven and set the clean cycle. That thing came out PRISTEEN and I reseasoned it (I use coconut oil) and it's fine now.

Also found a smaller skillet at a garage sale for $1 - it was a rusty mess because someone had used it as a succulent planter - gave it the same treatment and it also came out great. A little ash left in it, which I wiped out and then commenced reseasoning.

Subsailor, I WOULD HAVE CRIED had that happened to my stuff! Oh my.

Indoor flat bottomed Dutch ovens are still Dutch ovens... as a matter of fact, that was the type we used on camping trips when I was a kid. My dad could turn out a perfect cake or batch of biscuits by setting it at the edge of the fire, rotating it regularly, and moving it in or out to control the temperature.
 
Old Thread, I know but I got a sad story to tell:

My Niece, Bless her, trying to help out with our yard sale this past weeekend before we move, put my Grandma's old skillets out for sale with other pots and pans. She said they sold real quick, I asked for how much, she said $5 each.
My Wife and I had been in town getting paint for the interior of the house to get ready to sell.
I nearly broke down and cried! She even sold the Lodge pans my Wife had bought - $10.

To someone who doesnt know, they are old heavy, iron pans. Not family treasures. I'm sorry for your loss. Don't hold it against the girl, she didn't know. It would have been nice to have a pan in the family for 4 generations. Like a birthright.
 
If you can't find these^^ a Lodge will do. It's the last US mfr.

Lindseed Oil is the best seasoning oil IMHO.


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A lot of the linseed oil sold on the market is for making paint and other wood finishing products. It is boiled and treated with chemicals that make it inedible.

IMHO Linseed oil would not be my first choice of a seasoning oil, unless I was just using the skillet as a decorative item.

IMHO.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linseed_oil
 
I find used pans all over. I pick them up cheap and re season them. I always hear about Wagner or Griswold being good brands. However, just find cheap ones and make a bunch of french toast, bacon or oancakes in them and youll get a nice well seasoned pan!
 
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