cast iron adventure

[Tormahto]

I would have bet money I had a Lodge 15 in skillet but it's not on the wall.
Maybe I don't?
I have cast iron scattered everywhere.
Always one or two on the stove.
I have the next size down 13 3/4 and the 17 inch dual handle cast iron pan.
Years ago Lodge made one I think was 20 inches.
Cowboy Kent Rollins has or had one in his cast iron arsenal but he might not have it anymore.
One his place in New Mexico burned to the ground and he lost several pieces of cast iron that got warped.

The 17" skillet would fit in my oven with not a lot of space between the handles and the oven walls. My 15", on sale, cost about 1/4 that of the Yellowstone 17", and fits just right. I would also need to invest in some heavy duty grilling gloves if I was to go one size skillet up. It's a guarantee my hands would be occasionally bumping into the sides of the oven.

I see most online listings of Lodge 20" skillets at $1,000+, that's listings not sellings. Maybe a 20" would fit in my oven, with handles aligned corner to corner.

If I could do it, I'd have a custom made rectangular skillet to fit my oven, with a different dual handle design, shorter, no finger openings, just tapered thicker going outward, so that my hands would not slip outward.

[worth1]

@Tormato
They might be getting that price because the old skillet and cast iron craze has taken the place of Harley Davidson motorcycles.
And the prices have skyrocketed.
Up where you live there's lots of cast iron outdoor gatherings going on seems like quite often.
Selling all manner of old cast iron.
But like anything else let the buyer beware.
A guy called Cast Iron Chaos on YouTube seems to have a couple of videos on them and he lives in Massachusetts.

[worth1]

[JRinPA]

Here's my take on polishing the cast iron.
It's mostly a mistake because I can't get the seasoning to stick.
One skillet I had to scratch it up to get seasoning to stick.
What needs to happen after polishing out the skillet is to sand blast it to make the surface accept the seasoning.
Or acid etch it which is highly dangerous.


The other option is to just leave it alone and let it do it's own thing.
Maybe take out any bumps higher than the rest.
There are so many silly videos on YouTube about this that it's overwhelming simply because they don't know what they're doing.

I ran across just one person that explained cast iron the way it should be as far as it's conductivity of heat and heat retention.

Funny thread...I'm reading it for the first time and thinking, why would someone want a mirror finish on cast iron???? and then 2024 comes.

[Tormahto]

I live about a mile from US Route 20. From there, it's roughly 30 miles, east, to Brimfield. For me, once is enough for that place. Prices were always very high, because wealthy collectors in the northeast HAVE to do Brimfield at least once in their lives. The dealers were always looking for those wealthy customers, even if it took hauling their "antiques" twice a year for several years, just to make a huge profit on the piece that finally sells.

One does not go during or shortly after a rain, as the fields become mud. I went on a dry field day. Back about 35 years ago, it was door stoppers that had all of the cast iron action, not cookware. The only thing that interested me was old fishing equipment, but the stuff there was more for a wall display, rather than being in working condition. I couldn't even find any Boston baked bean pots, either, other than little pint-sized, and I mean true pint-sized ornamental ones.

[worth1]

They used to have rummage sales in small town Missouri along with bluegrass music.
You could always pick up something reasonabley priced but that was many years ago.
Back then barns were full of stuff and nobody wanted cast iron cookware.

[Tormahto]

The 15" skillet came out so well, that I picked up a 15" Lodge pizza iron (no sale price ). I'll be doing the same partial sanding/smoothing, then seasoning with grapeseed oil at 475 degrees for 1 hour.

My first cornbread in the skillet will be all corn, no wheat flour. A 1:1:1 mix of coarse corn meal, fine corn meal and corn flour, with one extra egg, which might be needed to hold it all together. From there, I can then start modifying the ratios, adding other types of flours, herbs, cheese, blueberries, etc... until the results are what I'm looking for. I'll probably wind up liking several different recipes.

[worth1]

@Tormato
Soon you may have a wall and ceiling covered in cast iron like me.
I've got the stuff scattered everywhere.
I imagine if a did a count I'd have over 20 pieces of cast iron.
And they aren't just wall hangers either.
I use my Dutch ovens in the oven.
Anything that can retain heat in the oven cuts back on the fuel bill.
If I'm cooking something on a low or medium heat in the Dutch oven I just leave my skillet or two in the oven as well.
Sounds lazy but it's effective and convenient.

[Tormahto]

The handles will take more time cleaning the thin sharp flash. Sandpaper won't do it, so out comes the Dremel and a small stone bit.

[Tormahto]

@Tormato
Soon you may have a wall and ceiling covered in cast iron like me.
I've got the stuff scattered everywhere.
I imagine if a did a count I'd have over 20 pieces of cast iron.
And they aren't just wall hangers either.
I use my Dutch ovens in the oven.
Anything that can retain heat in the oven cuts back on the fuel bill.
If I'm cooking something on a low or medium heat in the Dutch oven I just leave my skillet or two in the oven as well.
Sounds lazy but it's effective and convenient.

Ceiling?

I'll likely hang them on the wall.

A neighbor said she possibly has her husband's (he's 80 years old) grandmother's skillet that she wants to give to me. Older, smaller than 15", common pieces will likely be found at tag sales. Those will be for stove top and oven, the two 15" pieces oven only. The way the pizza iron is designed on the bottom, it cannot be used on an electric coil stove top. I once had a very large tripod Dutch oven, but it disappeared.

Dusting off the stud finder, and a trip to the hardware store for heavy duty hooks and lag bolts, may be next.

[worth1]

@Tormato
Soon you may have a wall and ceiling covered in cast iron like me.
I've got the stuff scattered everywhere.
I imagine if a did a count I'd have over 20 pieces of cast iron.
And they aren't just wall hangers either.
I use my Dutch ovens in the oven.
Anything that can retain heat in the oven cuts back on the fuel bill.
If I'm cooking something on a low or medium heat in the Dutch oven I just leave my skillet or two in the oven as well.
Sounds lazy but it's effective and convenient.

Ceiling?

I'll likely hang them on the wall.

A neighbor said she possibly has her husband's (he's 80 years old) grandmother's skillet that she wants to give to me. Older, smaller than 15", common pieces will likely be found at tag sales. Those will be for stove top and oven, the two 15" pieces oven only. The way the pizza iron is designed on the bottom, it cannot be used on an electric coil stove top. I once had a very large tripod Dutch oven, but it disappeared.

Dusting off the stud finder, and a trip to the hardware store for heavy duty hooks and lag bolts, may be next.

Do yourself a favor and buy a long board to screw to the wall then you can put more screws at an angle in the board to hang the cats iron.
That's what I did.
The ones from the ceiling are hanging from a brace beam.

[worth1]

Like this.
I used torx drive screws.

IMG_20240818_173309550_HDR.jpg

[Tormahto]

I can only envision hanging 4 pieces, the two 15" oven pieces, and one small and one large stove top/oven pieces. I don't expect to go down the rabbit hole of a waffle iron. But, then...

Somewhere around here, I think that I have a few of the ear of corn molds, but don't remember if they have any hanger holes.

[worth1]

The ear of corn cornbread molds have hanging ears regardless of manufacturer.

[worth1]

The movie support your local sheriff had them in the general store.
Problem is they weren't made at that time in the 1800s.

[Tormahto]

The first cornbread experiment was a success (only coarse corn meal, fine corn meal and corn flour, 1:1:1 ratio, no wheat flour).

It doesn't fall apart like some all-corn meal ones do. It doesn't rise as high as I would like, even adding buttermilk. So, the next experiment will use less coarse corn meal, and may add some other type(s) of flour. Now it has me thinking about picking up a very small (about 5-6") skillet, to run the experiments. I wonder what an all corn flour cornbread would be like?

The first one did have, perhaps, the corniest flavor of any cornbread that I've ever had, or made. Baked for 22 minutes at 400 degrees (recipes usually recommend 20-25 minutes) it had a thick crunchy golden brown bottom crust. THAT is the reason for using a pre-oiled, pre-heated cast iron skillet. I now have to figure out how to BEST remove the cornbread in one piece. Virtually nothing stuck to the iron, and cleaning was a breeze.

I need to get those two 15" Lodges on the wall, soon.

[worth1]

@Tormato
Not for sure what you mean by corn flour.
We have regular cornmeal and mass harina.
I've made it with masa harina before and it came out great.
The mass harina comes yellow and white and one is more coarse that the other because one is for tamales and the other for tortillas.
Not a lot of difference though.
But both are more fine than cornmeal and it does rise.
Many tamale makers as well as myself use a little baking powder in our tamale dough.
Oddly enough in the UK corn flour is what we call corn starch.

[Tormahto]

@Tormato
Not for sure what you mean by corn flour.
We have regular cornmeal and mass harina.
I've made it with masa harina before and it came out great.
The mass harina comes yellow and white and one is more coarse that the other because one is for tamales and the other for tortillas.
Not a lot of difference though.
But both are more fine than cornmeal and it does rise.
Many tamale makers as well as myself use a little baking powder in our tamale dough.
Oddly enough in the UK corn flour is what we call corn starch.

Doesn't masa harina remove the hull?

Corn flour is ultra fine corm meal (think the fineness of wheat flour), but it is not corn starch.

[worth1]

@Tormato
Not for sure what you mean by corn flour.
We have regular cornmeal and mass harina.
I've made it with masa harina before and it came out great.
The mass harina comes yellow and white and one is more coarse that the other because one is for tamales and the other for tortillas.
Not a lot of difference though.
But both are more fine than cornmeal and it does rise.
Many tamale makers as well as myself use a little baking powder in our tamale dough.
Oddly enough in the UK corn flour is what we call corn starch.

Doesn't masa harina remove the hull?

Corn flour is ultra fine corm meal (think the fineness of wheat flour), but it is not corn starch.

Yes it removes the hull and is called nixtamal.
We just don't get corn ground that fine here that I know of.
We can barely get cornmeal anymore.

[worth1]

It's how they make hominy.