Thread: Cast iron?

Originally Posted by sonnythehooligan

Ham and Beans, and some cornbread.

I'm sure most of you have seen Blazing Saddles...

For anyone who hasn't seen that classic movie---

For years when I was a poor college and grad student all I used was a Victor 723 #9 11" skillet (made by Griswold). Now I have a #8 no name skillet and a number #5 Martin Stove and Range skillet. Between those three I can cook pretty much anything. I like the old skillets, was looking a some new ones and was surprised by the weight and how rough the finish was.

Ever look at Skeppshult Cast Iron? They are Made in Sweden from a long time outfit and what's different is they have a plate on the bottom which evenly distributes the heat way better than most cast iron. They also control the entire process from smelting on and use high purity iron.

Compared to Lodge it's night and day. Of course the prices are too.

Interesting, had heard of them before now looks like good stuff but as you mentioned kind of pricey. I ran across another company the other day called the Field Company. They are expensive but from what I can tell look like the old fashioned kind of skillet. Some people must buy the new Lodge stuff, can't figure out why. It is cheap but so coarse and heavy for its size it is almost unusable. The older Lodge skillets aren't to bad, my parents have one and it is more like a Wagner or Griswold.

My girlfriend came home with a new old cast iron skillet yesterday (we'd been looking for a larger one for a long time). It looked to be in great shape, but as I as seasoning it today, the bottom kind of began to disintegrate. It was smoking a lot! I took a copper scouring pad to it for a while and got some stuff off, but not nearly enough. It still smokes. Any ideas?

Well, if it was coming apart it either has corrosion and that's coming off or it's just a very poor quality piece and the casting process has issues.

If you look back a couple pages, OCDShaver has posted about soaking in a lye bath for an extended period. Then seasoning with a product called Buzzy Waxx. I will be doing this and Cudarunner already has with very good results.
You'd find out if it's just corrosion using this method.

Hard to tell but it looks like some baked on crud or something judging by how the number is sort of filed in. It could also be carbon left over from when someone was using over a camp fire. This might be like finger nails on a blackboard for people who restore cast iron but I've used a wire wheel for that type of thing on skillets. Just the kind kind that goes on a drill, not an angle grinder. Haven't tried it on cast iron but I think the heavy duty knotted wire wheels for use with angle grinders might leave some deep scratches.

Back before I had a shop and was living in an apartment I used a flat head screw driver to very carefully scrape stuff that looked what is pictured off the bottom of a pan. It was kind of a tedious process, but kept me from going nuts without a car or other piece of machinery to work on.

Because of the smoke I'm guessing it's caked on crud, but it wasn't coming off very easily. I'll look for that post about the lye soak.

Originally Posted by joelkerr

Because of the smoke I'm guessing it's caked on crud, but it wasn't coming off very easily. I'll look for that post about the lye soak.

This will help you:
https://sharprazorpalace.com/plate-g...ml#post1866470

The lye is cheap and you can get food grade plastic buckets from your local bakery. Mine often has the buckets and lids in a cart marked free. I've never really paid any attention but Home Depot has those 5 gal orange buckets for sale but I don't know if they also have a lid.

I'm frugal so I always keep a lookout for the free buckets.