I have a #10 modern day skillet from Cabelas, a vintage #8 Griswold and a little baby vintage #3 Griswold. Love em, anybody cook with theirs right on top of the woodstove?
Yup, all the time Razo! With cast… Just don't get the pan to hot, it "can" warp! Contrary to what you have may heard, exceeding 450* can screw up a pan.
i do it all the time. i try not to slide the pan a lot though. would not want to drop the pan on it either
I HAD a cast iron cauldron that I salvaged from the barn at the family farm (est 1871) before it was sold and demolished. I cleaned all the hay, dirt, and bird poop off of it and it weighed a ton. My father offered to refinish it at the plant he worked at, at the time many years ago, and I have yet to see it again. I wonder if something went wrong...?... My founder of the farm made his initial income as a blacksmith so I was confident it was quite old and that he forged it.
Phew! Our new cooktop has heating elements that connect two burners and dear husband has already used a large cast iron rectangle griddle on them. Yes, the breakfast was awesome, but we spent a pretty penny on the cooktop, glad to know you have had success!
I imagine things are different in your location, but on my previous Freecycle network in Colorado I saw cast iron cook ware often. Check yours out. PS, its .org, dont bother with .com
I found a small Lodge dutch oven a few years ago during black friday on amazon. Last year I found the large one. Both are ceramic coated which are easier for me to clean, but they still work great on the wood stove when the power is out!
No, they are actually cast iron burners. I did the pork chops on the grill and set them there when done to cool a bit. I don't know if you can use your cast on glass or not? It'll hold the weight because it's tempered but it may scratch the surface.
Ok so has anyone ever put theirs in the woodstove to clean off the gunk to get it ready to reseason if needed? I am thinking of doing mine but was not sure if that would be to hot. Not a roaring fire just a bed of coals type deal.
yea I'm not sure what to think there, Dave mentioned not to exceed 450 degrees or they could warp, I was on a cast iron cookware site once and they said to re-season, crank your oven as hot as it would go, like 500 degrees, they said it could take hotter but most ovens only go to 500 degrees. I mean I would think cast iron could take a lot more heat than 450 degrees but I've only ever had mine up to 500 in the oven. If Dave is speaking from experience then I trust that he did in fact have one warp above 450
I don't get crust on mine very often but the couple times I have I put a little water in it and boiled it...then steel wooled...dried...and reseasoned.
NOOOOOO!!! "sorry"... You can destroy the pan, thats a old myth. Go to, http://www.castironcollector.com/collecting.php or http://www.panman.com/portrait.html Best thing to do is use Heavy duty Oven cleaner like easy off. I have a pan soaking as we speak. It takes a bit but read those links, you'll understand
Also, by setting it in a bed of coals you can get what they call a "hot" spot area on the pan and could possibly make a weak spot for cracking down the line. You always want to "evenly" heat you pan as best you can. Yes, you can read where people have done that, "but" if it's a nice or a collector pan you really don't want to do that. The best thing is take your time and clean it slow. I always use oven cleaner and put it in a cheap tupper ware container from the dollar store and flood it down with the oven cleaner. Wait a day then scrape it lightly with a plastic putty knife, the Pan man has some good advise. And for the record, yes I'm speaking from expericence, I screwed up a real nice pan once by cranking up our stove to 500* to clean it, it cooled to quick and warped "bad", It wasn't worth a crap then.
That easy-off oven cleaner method works good, I just put mine in a white kitchen garbage bag and soaked it with oven cleaner for a day, worked real good. Good point about cooling too quickly!
