Cast iron cookware and SHTF....

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I have found some good quality ones in Junktique shops if you look past the rust.

Plenty of videos on restoring. A personal favorite was by Stony Ridge Farmer. He used the oven cleaning cycle to help remove rust.
I have put them in my wood stove when they were to nasty,,,,,, and you can't get a wood stove hot enough to hurt one but it will get all the grime off one
 
I have found some good quality ones in Junktique shops if you look past the rust.

Plenty of videos on restoring. A personal favorite was by Stony Ridge Farmer. He used the oven cleaning cycle to help remove rust.
I once restored a completely rusted cast iron skillet that had been left at a KOA campsite.

All I did was use a drill with a rotary sanding attachment, and sanded all the rust off. I used a cheap, dollar-store sharpening stone to get in the crevices and other tight areas, and simply seasoned it with Crisco lard when I was done.

It was a great pan, about 12 or 14 inches, if I remember correctly.

I ended up giving it to a friend who was going to culinary school to be a chef, and it's my understanding that he still uses it regularly in the restaurant that he works in.
 
I have put them in my wood stove when they were to nasty,,,,,, and you can't get a wood stove hot enough to hurt one but it will get all the grime off one

I liked this one because it heated the pan as the oven temp rose. I would be nervous about throwing an unheated pan in high temps.

Everyone has different ways with cast iron, but it is the best when seasoned.
 
These are 2 of my favorites.

On the left, a Lodge Grill pan. Grill lines anything on the stove top

On the right, an Upan sausage cooker from New Zealand. Ingenious design makes any normal curved sausage cook straight for a bun. And evenly cooked too. Works great on my grill too, cause the sausages donā€™t roll. I just got it and after 2 uses it vaults to number 2 of 10 cast iron pans list.

View attachment 12872
I like the grill pan. I had an aluminum one once, got from mom. Didn't like it. I'll look for a cast iron one.
 
A really cool place to find cast iron are at garage sales, flea markets, and farmer's markets.

Also, you can get cast iron for free from Freecycle on Craig's List. Estate sales are also good places to score cast iron.

I know somebody whom actually completely furnished a kitchen for free by using Freecycle.

She had a complete set of cooking implements, a microwave, a coffee maker, and so forth.
 
All of my cast iron utensils are from the second hand shop and flea markets for just a few bucks, except the big broiler and chili pots...they were found in the junkyard in the "scrap-metal" container and I got them for free when nobody was looking!!!! Never been used, probably not understood and tossed by the grandkids when grandma and granddad died...
 
Teflon is scarey to me. If you have a pet bird (like parrots or mynah birds), they can very easily die from being in the same room with people cooking on teflon. See beliw:

https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/teflon-polytetrafluoroethylene-poisoning-in-birds
If it poisons birds, then why do we want to eat food that's been cooked on it?

Excellent, Outstanding, documentary on Teflon from 2018 called "The Devil We Know".
Rotten Tomatoes gave it 100%
Dupont used pregnant factory workers as "test cases" to see what would happen when they were exposed to the long chain of carbon atoms (C8). The results were miscarriages,stillbirths, and babies born with both physical and intellectual impairments.

"This is Wiliam "Bucky" Bailey. His mother worked at the plant with the C8 waste while she was pregnant. When William was born in January 1981 , he had similar birth defects to his nose and eye that were found in the rats." He has endured over 40 reconstructive surgeries on his face........Dupont denies any wrongdoing. Bucky has been in a few films and is married. and has two healthy children. God Bless! šŸ˜‡

IMG_0366[1].PNG


"Citizens in West Virginia take on a powerful corporation after they discover it has knowingly been dumping a toxic chemical- now found in the blood of 99.7 percent of Americans--into the local drinking water supply."

Pretty much the entire water table of WV is now polluted... when I drive through it I do not drink any water or fountain drinks. Absolutely disgusting what happened to wild, wonderful West Virginia.
Now why would they think a chemical created for the Manhattan Project and the first Nuclear devices could cause harm to humans???

Erqueen75 :USA:
 
Right now we got such a waiting list for the lye bath I started building a E-tank and will start it up tomorrow.
My wife has found a lot of what she calls scratch offs. You donā€™t know what you have, til you get the crud off.
The old Wagner and Griswold's from 30ā€™s are a really nice pan. The old single notch Lodges from that era were too.
They do make an American brand, Field, that has met those qualities. It is a really nice, but really expensive. About 5 times the price of Lodge. My wife repaired a rusted one for a friend.
 
Been a while since I read the thread so I don't remember if anyone said this. I have cleaned several rusted cast iron items by soaking them in used motor oil for a while, then cleaning them off with gasoline to dissolve all of the oil. Then of course, some good soap and water to clean them up. Like new!
 
Been a while since I read the thread so I don't remember if anyone said this. I have cleaned several rusted cast iron items by soaking them in used motor oil for a while, then cleaning them off with gasoline to dissolve all of the oil. Then of course, some good soap and water to clean them up. Like new!
With respect, I donā€™t know if I want to cook off used motor oil and gasoline any more than I want to eat off Teflon.
I donā€™t think the motor oil is gonna get 90 years of crud off the pan.
The seasoning is building the protective layer on. I would rather eat off natural edible oils, not petroleum.
Even though Lye is an evil thing in todayā€™s society, itā€™s been a natural thing for a thousand years. Wood ash and water was the original soap recipe if I recall.
In doing the Electrolysis tank, I explained today to a friend that I was building a reverse silver/gold plating system. A tank, a stand, an old fashion battery charger, scrap anode, some wire and Washing Soda.
 
I have cleaned several rusted cast iron items by soaking them in used motor oil for a while, then cleaning them off with gasoline to dissolve all of the oil.
Motor oil has detergents in it to clean your motors "innards" and will help. But, I would not use it as the pores of the cast iron do store some left-overs maybe. If you want to clean cast iron (or a stuffed and dirty metal file) soak it in battery acid. (ONLY OVERNIGHT!) The small filings which clog up your metalfile are soft and eaten by the acid, but the hardened metal of the file itself are not affected, the cast iron is also cleaned and the sulfuric acid will be 100% removed by washing. You are re-sharpening your file with this method. After soaking, use your file brush to clean out the rest from the pan too or a brass wire brush on your drill or electric screwdriver. If you want to cure the pan again, either cook some potatos in a filled pan till they are done, rub the pan with pork lard and bake it or as sometimes seen in germany, fill the pan half full with vegetable oil, mix about a half a cup of salt in the oil and cook it OUTSIDE!!! till the oil and salt are really smoking, pour out the mixture and let cool till you can rub it down with a clean cloth with some lard or oil of your choice. Stay away from the strong smell of the salt/oil smoke tho.
 
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A good vinegar soak will lift a lot of rust off iron


DILUTED vinegar - not straight - given time an all vinegar soak will eat holes and eventually consume the object ...

you'll need to go directly into seasoning after cleaning off the vinegar gunk - oxidation is almost immediate ....
 
We restored a 100+yr old waffle maker. They turned out better with each waffle.
Because it has the original handles, it is particularly desirable and is a high version that works on a gas stove.
This is one I donā€™t want to sell because I can have waffles in SHTF.
6848BB18-8E41-4797-85D9-F0FD0584BB72.jpeg
 
Picked up a Lodge 6qt dutch oven with the wire bell yesterday. Hung it over a fire and cooked some steaks this evening which turned out ok. The more appropriate foods will be chili, stews, cornbread and biscuits but for a first run through, it's hard to mess up steak.
 
Picked up a Lodge 6qt dutch oven with the wire bell yesterday. Hung it over a fire and cooked some steaks this evening which turned out ok. The more appropriate foods will be chili, stews, cornbread and biscuits but for a first run through, it's hard to mess up steak.
Season well before anything acidic like chili.
My theory is cornbread is a +1 for seasoning, chili is a -2. Rule of thumb from an old timer that taught me.
 

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