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Dutch oven, 140 yrs old,came west in a covered wagon to the gold fields of Kali,setting in my fave pan 16 incher.
Attachment 173816
OK, here is the cast DO
You can instantly season your cast iron. Turn on your stovetop on high. After it gets red hot, place your skillet on it for 3 minutes. Remove it from the hot eye and pour olive oil on it, then wipe it all around with a wad of paper towels. Let it cool for a couple of minutes, then apply a generous amount of butter to the cooking surface. It will then be so non-stick, that it will be hard to get the spatula under what ever you're cooking. After this process, don't use soap to clean your pan, until you feel that you need to. If you need to use soap, just repeat this process afterwards.
An arrow or a gate mark?
Gentlemen, all my cast iron is Lodge. My question is what brand of vintage cast iron should I be looking for? All input would be greatly welcome!!
Thanks, Gene.
This is a very informative site for cast iron.
Cast Iron Cookware Trademarks & Logos - The Cast Iron Collector: Information for The Vintage Cookware Enthusiast
A gate mark is where the molten metal was poured in the mold. When finished it was ground down leaving a fairly straight line mark on the bottom of the skillet. These are very early pieces from before 1900 or so. Most say they date from 1875 and before.
Look on the bottom of this skillet, it is a gate marked skillet.
Just finished up a Good Health #6 and a Victor #8. Both were made by Griswold.
Gene, how is it cooking for you ? I've got a collectible Griswold, and a collectible Wapak with the Indian head. They probably don't cook fried chicken any better than your Lodge but they cost quite a bit more than a newer pan. As my old AA sponsor used to say ....... "Wants and needs ....... do you have what you want ? No, how about what you need ?" ,,,,,,,, Just sayin', cookware can become as big an AD as razors, and take up a lot more space ........ ask me how I know .... :)
Cast Iron is cast Iron,all my stuff is old,but is it any better than the newer stuff,I think not
Most of my cast cooking pots/pans came from my parents and there parents and from them I really don't know how far back. I make corn bread and fry potaters in the pans and cook fish in the smaller pots and make gumbos and stews in the larger pots (5-10gallon). I have what we call chicken fryers (large deep fry pans). I have looked and there are markings on the bottom of most of them but I can't make anything of them. I do know they do cook good.
I clean them in a lye bath. Usually takes a few days. For rust a 50/50 mixture of vinegar and water works great.
For seasoning I use lard. Heat the skillet up on the stove put the lard on put in the oven at 350. After 15 minutes take out and wipe all the excess lard off and put back in the oven for 2 more hours.
Right, any hardware store should have it. Make sure it says 100% lye. I go 1 pound of lye to 5 gallons of water. As had been said, be careful.
Always, I mean always, add lye to water NOT water to lye.
Thanks for that heads up. I have no experience with using lye but I do know it is dangerous if handled carelessly. More info here ;
Wagner and Griswold Society
It is like buying a current production S&W or an old blue one from the '70s or earlier ..... same with Case XX pocket knives. It ain't that they are that much better, just that the older ones are prettier. Even if they are slightly better where the rubber meets the road, are they $$$ better ? OTOH, if you pick 'em up reasonable on Craigslist or at yard sales, flea markets, that is cool. Just going on ebay and paying a premium isn't necessarily worth it, IMHO.
I've used new Lodge and imo the older stuff is easier to cook with. The smooth inside is a dream to cook on.
Cast iron is cast Iron,The old stuff is nice because it has been used,some for a century or more,well worn, well seasoned to the core.
Even the new lodge stuff,given time and alot of use will come around.
One of the best, IMHO, materials for cooking ever. Have several pieces including a couple of dutch ovens (one for camping with legs and a couple for the kitchen both enameled and bare seasoned), a griddle, a pan, and a couple of old "corn stick" molds.
Thank for the info fellas, I do think the grainy surface is from sand casting. My wife and are going to look around for an old one that is smooth till we get ours that way. Now I know why every one wanted their grandparents cast iron, very used, and just thinking about how much grandma used it..... Priceless!!
With the older stuff, Lodge included, they used to mill the inside smooth so it didn't take as much to get a good non-stick surface.
I started using cast iron pans about 5 years ago. I love them.
I have a 9" Lodge, 6" no-name, and a 12" Lodge. I got the 6" and 12" at a flea market, removed a lot of rust and caked on stuff, and seasoned them well.
I've got the modern production lodge stuff - few pans and skillets and a dutch oven. They don't mill the insides anymore, so they are pretty grainy - those pockets is where oil pools and it doesn't get seasoned as well.
There isn't mystery to the seasoning, it's burned fats that polymerize forming a layer which doesn't stick to the food. To form good layer that's bound to the iron underneath it has to be very thin and a grainy surface + gravity makes for varying thickness of the fat layer.
Pretty much any fat would work for seasoning as long as they are polymerized properly.
The one food I still cook in teflon pan is gyozas - it's probably because the cast iron needs less heat from the stove than I'm setting.
I have a couple three cast fry pans, old Griswolds and one Wagner from Sidney. The older ones are way and far away smoother finished, whether from being brushed for 90 years or not I don't know. The new stuff, inside, is rough even with the faked seasoning. I won't be around when the new stuff might get smoother ..