Cast Iron Tips

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And welcome into our house. We're glad to have each and every one

to have each and every one of you. Oh, we apologize for yesterday

The link, we didn't get things going right, and we was pretty busy, and the next thing you

know, it was too late. So we appreciate y'all tune him back in tonight

Michael Matcheck is the one really that sent us some really good questions that we're going

to deal with tonight, and it's all about cast iron, something that's near and dear to my heart

that I've been around for a long, long time, and we'll go through

some stuff that he asked but we'll feel free too that y'all have a question just go ahead and hollered out

if if i can't answer it we'll get to beagle in here and i'm sure he can we got gary macallister

jumped on and patty and mike patty and mike and gary we thank y'all so much for uh and bv i don't know

full name there well that's enough you know it might stand for bovine you know could be so you know cast iron

been around forever and ever. There's a lot of good cast iron in the United States

and there's a lot of bad cast iron. Caste that was made so many years ago

was probably the best cast there was in my book, anyway. The old Griswolds, the Wagners, Birmingham stove and iron

They used to make some really good iron. The collectible pieces really that I have

a lot of them were hand-me-downs, and they were Wagners or Griswolds

but I have picked up a few more along, you know, different flea markets, estate sales

something like that. But you have to be really careful when you're looking for some of that old stuff

because you don't really know for sure where it's been or what's been in it

You have a question, Shinn? Well, I'm just going to, let's just start with my first question

What are your most treasured cast iron pieces and why? The most treasured cast iron pieces I have

I have a little eight-inch griswold skillet that was my grandmother. and then it was my mother's

And I know telling how many eggs have been in that thing

or how many pieces of sausage or bacon, you know, because it was always a little small skillet

that my grandmother would turn to, but usually, you know, my mother used it a lot

and I was sort of glad to have it. The other one of my 20-inch skillets, you know

They're made by lodge. They don't make them anymore. And you can put a lot of stuff in a 20-inch skillet

you know, when we're cooking breakfast on ranches, We usually have two of them big 20s up on on birth at the same time

And you can put a lot of groceries in one of them. But like I say, they make a 17, I think now Lodge does

But them 20s were really handy. And it's back when they had a really good finish on them too

They wouldn't what they call pre-seasoned. And we thank you, Michael, for all these questions that you give to us

Did we have it? You have the one on there that you're talking about? I think so. I'm sorry it's a Wagner shen all that time it is a yeah well I've got another one in the barn

well I just got through cooking something in it so let me get it out here here's a good cotton glove

it had some cornbread in it but uh you can see the finish that those things got on it and this is a wagner

the eight inch griswold is in the barn we use a lot too but um

Wagner Ware been around forever and ever, and I mean, this little old thing, like I say, it don't weigh much, and they ain't no telling how many breakfast meals or how many little batches of cornbread have been cooked in it

Wagner also, and a lot of y'all might not know this, there was some cast iron that come out a long time ago that was sold in this made date me, and some of y'all may not know what this story is, Montgomery Ward

and they called it wardware. It was made by Wagner so many years ago

and put in Montgomery Ward stores and they just called it wardware. And they sold a lot of it

A lot of times you can get collectible pieces that way when you bought so much they'd throw in a skillet

So let me put this back up before I drop it. Bill wants to know what do you think is a fancy one

like the corn fritter is shaped like corn? You know, all them little fancy cornbread

bacon things that's got all the little ears of corn or something

To me, when you make a piece of cast iron really rough

you just make it really hard to clean. My grandmother had some of them that looked like a little ear of corn

and they were really well-seasoned. But some of the newer ones that you see

and things can be a pain in the butt to clean. One thing I will give you with that, though

is you can always clean them pretty easy with just hot steaming water right after you get cooking

because that's the best time to clean a piece of cast iron, not after you eat supper

It don take maybe two minutes to clean it and get its season back right after you eat and it always clean up easier right after you get through Michael Gallagher wants to know which in your opinion is the best brand of cast iron

The best brand of cast iron. And thank you, Michael. You know, if I was looking back to old stuff, I'd go with, you know, Wagner or Griswold

The new stuff, and there's, you know, used to, you could only find really lodge cast iron in the United States

There's a lot of foreign-made stuff that was sold in the U.S

That wasn't good. But thank you, sweetheart. But I guess if I had to pick a brand now, and they just sent as a skillet not long ago

there's two companies that really stand out to me, and that is the Field Cast Iron Company and this Marquette casting

Isn't that who it is? It is a good piece of iron

We'll do a review. view on it. It is a skillet to me that when we got it, and you can see it's well-seasoned

and we hadn't had it, what, two months, three? But it's something to me that I noticed right

off the bat that it accepted seasoning really well and probably seasoned quicker to a good

finish than any other skillet I've ever had unless it was some of that old stuff. So if I had to

go by too it'd probably either be a field or a marquette like this one

um bb says he's got one that has a sandpaper like inside is that different than the smooth

bottom yeah you know they they pre-seasoned cast iron now and it'll feel always told people

it felt like well there's something in there i don't know what it is but could be all that smoke we swallowed today shooting video

But they pre-season that cast iron. It's a high polymerized coating that's put on at high heat

And they say eventually over time as you season that will cover up and build you a better surface

I always tell folks it's sort of like a truck bed liner. It doesn't take much just to smooth it off

And I'm not telling you you take it all off there, just take you a piece of good 80 grit sandpaper or an orbital sander that's got that on there and just sand the bottom long enough to where it's just a smooth finish

It doesn't feel like you're running it through a really. riverbed there in way and then go to seasoning and you'll be in better shape than what you was when you started

Next, Jen. Michael's next question is, what are your must-have pieces of cast iron

Must-have pieces of cast iron. Well, if I couldn't take but two, it'd probably be a 12-inch shallow shallow

And you got some lemon? A 12-inch shallow Dutch oven, yes ma'am

and then probably one of them 20-inch skillets. Because a 12-inch Dutch oven, that's a shallow

you can cook 20 biscuits in there if you crowd them a little. You can get a casserole in there that's going to feed four to six people

I've cooked a lot of brownies in them, a lot of cakes, but also a lot of pies in them

So they're pretty light. Like if you're going backpacking or something like that, they're pretty good

We used a lot of eights and tens there for a while at cooking school

and they're all right, but there's just hardly big enough really to feed a group of people that you might have with you

But they do come in handy. Bill wants to know, is there anything that we shouldn't cook in cast iron

Well, Bill, if you've got new cast iron or you've been using it for a while

and it's not what I would call well-seasoned, which I think is something that you've been using two or three years

anything that is acid-based is hard on new cast iron whether it be citric from a cobbler whether it be

tomato paste or tomato juice based barbecue sauce anything with acid is going to eat away at your

seasoning as you're cooking well-seasoned cast iron i've never had a problem now sure if you

if you didn't clean and re-season every time you would and that's what i think

tell folks about our cast iron. Every time it's used, I don't care if it's once a day, twice a day

four times a day, it's going to get cleaned and seasoned ever trip. And that's what's really

going to bring you that high, glossy finish that is slick that you can slide an egg out of

their end because the more you use one, the better it's going to get. And it just, they're always

going to give back to you. You're never going to wear a piece of cast iron out. It will outlive

each and every one of us and can be handed down from generation to generation

Do you have some buying tips for cast iron? Now, if you're buying cast iron, and let's say you're going to the store to buy cast iron

and everything you buy, if it's Dutch oven-wise, you know, I don't know anybody other than lodge

it's making a Dutch oven that has a lid that you can cook with, and that's what I mean

when it's got the beveled edge around the top that's hanging up there that'll hold the colds on

The USA launch. Yes. But if their Dutch ovens are all going to be pre-seasoned, you know

and they're something that I'm going to take and probably do a light sand on to do that

But I always make sure when I'm buying a Dutch oven in a store or something like that

I try to take it out of the box. A lot of times they going to tell you you can But always look You want to make sure that that lead fits on there really well and it will spin all the way around because we going to need to rotate a lid as we cook

But make sure that there's no humps, bumps, or lumps in it to where the lid wobbles one way or the other

And if it don't spin really well, when it gets really hot, it's just going to get worse, going to get tighter

But make sure that there's a pretty even surface in the bottom of that Dutch oven or something

skillet whatever you're after. Because if there's something that's raised up or something that's

got a divot in it, it's just some place for something to try to hide or to hang on to where you can't

clean it easy. B.V. had a good point here. He said he outlived his cast iron because he put it in cold water and

it cracked. It will BV for sure. You know, cast does not like to be shocked from one extreme

to the other. You know, even the cast that we have. have in the house, we never throw directly on high heat. Always let it warm up first before we

ever start because I have seen a lot of pieces crack. I had a guy helping me in the mountains

when we was cooking out there, Guy Nell ers, and he took a 16-inch oven that I just pulled a

bunch of baked potatoes out and set it in a snowbank outside. I had two halves the next morning

but a lot of people do ask the question, you know, my skillet has been handed down from family

to family and it's got a little crack in it. What do you think? Is it safe

to use well when you have something like that that's got a crack in it if it

doesn't run down the side very much on a skillet you probably are but if it's if

it's creeping its way down there towards the bottom and say you're frying

baking in it one morning and it just all of a sudden decides that I'm gonna

crack in half that's a bad grease fire it is so they will crack on you on

occasion a lot of the cheaper stuff really will when it gets from one-inch

stream to the other. Always pre-warm cast iron before you use it

So how many pieces of cast iron do you own? How many pieces of cast iron do we own? I can't count that many

You know, I used to tell people, we have enough cast iron probably to sink the Titanic again

And a lot of it is Dutch ovens, you know. We probably own more Dutch ovens than we do skillets

But it's close, probably be nearly half and half now with the stuff

that we're picking up here there and yonder, but I don't think you can ever have too much

You know, there's a guy told me one time he said nobody will ever in their life when they're

reading the wheel fight over who's going to get the teflon skillets, but they might over the cast iron

And there's another question coming in live on the phone, Shan, right there. It's Randy

It's Uncle Randy. But it's something like I say, if you're a collector, there's a lot of kids

cast iron out there. Just be really careful of what you think you might have. A lot of the really

old stuff that I had for a long time, I didn't know what had been cooked in. Like them little eight

inch skillets. So many years ago here, when people were doing a lot of trout line fishing, they would

melt lead down to make weights. And they did it in them little eight inch skillets. So you can get

a lead checker from Amazon. They don't cost that much. And you can make sure, because

people always say, hey, I found this skill in this old house, it's got paint all over it, you know

Well, you know, is it a lead-based paint? You know, I don't ever put anything in my cast iron that I

couldn't swallow that wouldn't, you know, it's always got to be good for you. And that's the way I look

at cast. It's going to give you back every time what you get in it. Leslie says that she has a Dutch oven and the lid has the little points inside that help diffuse water

rising off a stew. Yes. We call them dripper. You know, that's all my grandmother had there for years, sat on a stove, was a big old cast iron

skillet that was deep. And I don't know who got it, but I wished I had it back

It was probably six inches deep, but you could fry two whole chickens in that thing after you had

them cut up. But it had them drippers on the top where if you want to stick that chicken in the oven and that

steam and condensation would run back up there and then let that water come back down and

that steam always helped to keep something a little more tender. And if you've got one of them, that's probably a good family heirloom to hang on to

Them old things could, they'll cook a roast. They'll cook a chicken every Sunday. I mean, they're good

Michael says he watches a channel where a lady is constantly scraping her skillet with a metal spatula

and she says it won't hurt it. It might not hurt the iron, but what about the seasoning

Well, we have a rule. We may serve with something metal, but we're never going to clean with metal

because you're going to eat away at your seasoning when you're scraping an oven or you're cleaning something like that

Say you have a metal spatula and you're just going to run it across that oven. Well, you're scratching your seasoning off

A lot of people use them chain mail scrubbers. Ain't that what they're called

Yeah. I don't think them are as bad, but I just, I'm always just going to be wood or hot water

That's why we've used them mesquite spatulas for so long. That's the reason I made them was just a clean cast iron with

If you can keep from ever scratching your seasoning, it's gonna last a whole lot longer

What oil do you recommend for seasoning The oils that I recommend for seasoning now especially if you starting something brand new is grape seed oil You know grape seed has a high smoke point It make a great foundation

We used to use quite a bit of flaxseed oil, but over time flaxseed will get a little brittle and it'll crack on you, so we quit that

I use some avocado oil now. All my old stuff that's been around for 40 years or more, it'll, it'll, it'll, it'll

see some olive oil most of the time on occasion when we're in a ranch because they've got such

a finish on them it don't take much just reseason every time but if you're looking for something

to really get you started well I would just go with grape seed every time um do you have any tips

for buying vintage or old cast iron let's say first you're going to the antique store you know a lot of them

They're trying to make a living just like everybody else, but they've got that stuff usually priced more than what I think it's worth

So make sure that you sort of know what your budget is, but also maybe what iron is worth

Them people sometimes will mark stuff up to where $200 is not right when it ought to be like $80

So pay attention in there. Flea markets. Estate sales is probably where I've done some of my best stuff at

Because you go to an estate sale and a lot of times, sure, it may be one of them

deals where there's two cast iron skillets in a box of 14 dozen Christmas lights, you know

but you can get the whole box for $5, especially if it's a Wagner or a Griswold, something

like that. But don't be afraid either to buy a piece that has some rust on it

I mean, if it's not, if you can see it where it ain't got no cracks and it's a Wagner or a Griswold, Birmingham Stovina, or something like that, just go ahead and get that

You know, we have a playlist on our YouTube channel to where you can go back

We show you how to redo that cast iron if it's got rust in it, which is pretty easy to do

A lot of old rusty cast iron I've got for as cheap as a quarter

So that's probably where the best bargains are. and people that go to really auctions that are just selling antiques and stuff like that

they're always going to be a whole lot higher. Any more questions, shit

Not just now. Well, we hope y'all enjoyed the deer hunting video, them grandsons of mine, I swear

they'll each out of house and home. We made, I don't know how many pounds of jerky with that deer

and I don't think they got none left now. They keep telling me we're going to bring another nut, Papa, and I said, well, y'all know how to do it

Y'all don't have a refresher course. So that's what's going to happen next time

You can tell them what we just got finished shooting for coming up videos? Let me see

I guess the Christmas video that's fixing to come out, which is, it's some fine dining

It is a homemade eggnog French toast. Now, you've got to have eggnog, and so we give you a homemade recipe for that

but when you can make eggnog French toast to go with that, I'm telling you Santa Claus will stop by every day of the week

just to get some of this stuff. And then after that, black eyed peas soup for New Year's Day

You know, you got to have black eyed peas. That's something that's been in our family forever and ever

And you got to dry weather, Shend. and then today we did a smoked salmon

with honey chipotle glaze and might have been some of the best smoked salmon

that I've ever eaten my life I look forward to that video coming out

but we do have some bonuses coming out too with that deer video that we did with the deer chili

we're going to show you how to make sausage out of that as well so it's coming at you

it'll be out Sunday Sunday it will, yeah. On YouTube. So be sure and check that out because you can go buy you some good cheap pork make and just make your own sausage and usually be money ahead for what you're paying for a role

And I want to say, I don't know if this is the same Michael Gallagher, but thank you for the Christmas card

Yes. If that's from you, Michael, we thank you so much for that Christmas card, my friend, we do

And speaking of Christmas, we hope each and every one of you have a very blizzard

blessed and safe Christmas. I thank y'all for your prayers that you gave to us

We are on the road to recovery. Things are getting better every day and getting a little stronger

and still cooking and still building fires. Anybody else, you ain't got a question before we sign off out of here

I don't want to leave nobody hanging. Let me just check one more time

Nope, we're good. Well, thank y'all so much for letting us come into your living room, cell phone, TV, wherever you're at

We appreciate it, and we do hope you have a very blessed Christmas and a happy new year

And remember, the best part of every day is just getting some castor out and cooking something in it

So God bless you each and everyone. We'll see you next year