Any Way I can Rescue My Dutch Oven?

[UKAnn]

OK - we can't get dutch ovens in the UK so I lugged one all the way over from the US when I was holidaying there last year, and the girls used it for the first time last week (when I wasn't there to supervise) and I think they may have ruined it! They used it on an open camp fire and badly burned the food inside. The inside now has a VERY black crusted surface. I have followed the instructions by not soaking it in water, not using soap, only using nylon scrubber, using boiling water, etc. but nothing is shifting the black crust! Any ideas really appreciated.

 

Ann.

[dancinfox]

Ann,

Yes you can. Go ahead and wash in with soap. Scrub it with a plastic scruber. When done getting off the burnt food, place in on the stove with flame or over coals with water. When the water boils, dump it out, and boil water again. When done boiling the second time, dry off good, rub the whole dutch oven with lard, not a lot, just coat the whole oven, including the cover. Preheat your oven to 300 degrees, and place the dutch oven in the oven for at least one hour. This will take the caked on food off the dutch oven and recure it. Remember after each use to boil hot water in it, scrub it with a plastic scruber, and rub a little veg. oil on the inside. The use a dry clean cloth or towel to wipe off the excess oil. This will keep it cured. Remember that dutch ovens will have some crusting on them. Use Alum. Foil on the inside to keep food from burning on the inside. I also oil the outside of my dutch ovens to keep them from getting rusty.

Good Luck

Dancin

[saltheart]

This link might give you a little more information about the subject...

 

http://www.macscouter.com/Cooking/DutchOven.html

 

[UKAnn]

Thanks for your replies - much appreciated. I'm off to follow the advice - I'll let you know how I fare.

 

Ann.

[ozemu]

Hi Ann and welcome,

 

Ive burned things pretty badly too. Once the food was not only unfit for consumption; it made an excellant fire starter.

 

Ive done the boiling water thing as preference but in desparation have used steel egg flipper and steel wool with no damage to the oven as long as it is oiled and reheated.

 

 

[nldscout]

Ann,

We all have burned one good once upon a time. Its not the end of a dutch oven, you can use this as a lesson for the girls on how to care for one.

 

 

My first time using one , I cooked a pineapple upside down cake. I put like 20 coals on bottom and 6-8 on top. Talk about burned. The brown sugar was sooooo badly burned even steel wool would not touch it. We boiled it for what seemed like hours. Ended up taking it to work to the automotive shop and puting it in the Bead Blaster(sand Blaster) to get burned sugar off. Then had to reseason it from scratch.

 

 

[UKAnn]

Thanks for all your help. I will see what I can do! I think it was cherry cobbler that did the damage There was cherry pie filling on the bottom and I think like the last poster, the sugar just burned everything onto the bottom of the pan. Looks like you can be pretty tough with the oven - as long as you re-season?! I'm going to have another go at it tomorrow. I'll let you know progress.

 

You guys are the greatest - many thanks.

 

Ann.

[eagle90]

LOL, NLDScout. I've done the same thing. One of our dads has a machine shop, and the sand blaster did the trick! Of course you have to re-season after that!

 

As long as you re season, those ovens can take a lot of abuse and still lst for years and years

 

[silver-shark]

My father-in-law and I have bought many old rusty, or extremely greasy peices of cast iron over the years and likewise have found that you can't be too aggressive at trying to get something off.

 

Heat them up real hot to make it easier to get rust or greasy stuff off with a brass brush. I haven't had to blast one yet but have to admit it would have been much easier. The key being in the re-season of the peice.

 

One tip, if you don't like the smokey smell of the re-season in your house, just take it out to your propane grill outside. I've even done this in the winter. No mess, no smell.

[Mike F]

About the only way to ruin a cast iron dutch oven is to get it good and hot, then dump cold water on it. The resounding "crack" can be heard to the far side of the largest of campsites.

 

Aluminum dutch ovens can be melted with fire that's too hot as some of our guys found out while heating on a propane "volanoe" burner to burn the crust out. Crust came out OK, but melted a 4" hole right through the dang thing. (I never liked cooking in it anyway - heat doesn't distribute as well in aluminum.)

[nldscout]

I like both the cast Iron and the aluminum ones. We use both regularly and I have found no difference in cooking.

 

[mrs red feather]

red and I have bought all our cast iron at auctions and yard sales, including crusty, greasy messes. I once put an especially bad skillet in the oven and set it to self-clean. It worked, after 3 1/2 hrs extreme heat all the gunk was reduced to ash. But it did stink up the house.

 

red has been known to take skillets on overnights and put them upside down on the coals.

 

I have heard that you can use a spray-on oven cleaner like Easy Off. Spray liberally, close the pan in a black garbage bag and set it out in the hot sun for a few hours. I haven't tried it, seems like the ammonia smell and taste would be a problem.

 

I prefer the older pieces made by Wagner and Griswold. They seem to take seasoning much better than the newer ones, which seem much more porous.

 

I season mine in a slow oven for at least a couple hours using vegetable shortning, wiping out and reapplying several times. I have heard that lard works better but haven't tried it.

 

Paula

[silver-shark]

Mrs. Red Feather

 

"red has been known to take skillets on overnights and put them upside down on the coals." I have to admit that we have done this too, but you have to keep a close eye on the peice and turn it occasionally. This would be a definite no-no for aluminum peices, with their much lower melting point.

 

I've seen my father-in-law get iron skillets hot to the point of a soft orange glow on a fire before. The rust and gunk comes off easier this way.

 

I've always been told that lard will turn rancid in the cast iron pores, but vegetable based products won't. I don't know for sure, that's just what I've been told.

 

We too love the Wagner and Griswold peices, but I haven't seen as yet any flat lid dutch ovens, so I use Lodge for this. It has the best porosity/lid fit that I've seen in new peices.

 

[SagerScout]

OK, I just wanted to pitch in this tidbit: Once you get that nasty mess out of the oven, however you do it, the key to not repeating the problem is entirely in temperature control.

 

I had about half-an-inch of "sticky buns" scorched into mine, and it took me all day to get it out using the stove- boil water-scrape and dump-repeat. It took about 10 times. I scraped with a spatula. It sounds worse than it was, though, ,because each scrubbing is only a few minutes, don't beat yourself up when you get to the part that doesn't come off, you just put water in it and put it back on the stove. When it finally is all out, reseason at least twice, but be sure to heat the oven upside down so that you don't get a sticky, slimy spot on it.

 

I've seen people line the oven with foil and obviously that works too, but you lose some pie filling in the folds of the foil and frankly, once you've re-seasoned the oven it is really unnecessary to line it. Just carefully arrange the bottom coals on a pretty flat surface with an inch or two between them and pick up your oven and turn it 1/4 turn every 15 minutes or so to eliminate the hot spots. I turn the oven one direction and the lid the opposite way to get even heating. Since I figured this out I've never had even a small problem with sticking, and my baked goods come out better than in my old home oven.

[UKAnn]

Thanks so much for your help. Can you experts help me out re cooking with my dutch oven? From what I can read/gather most of the cooking seems to be done on coals (briquettes?)- are these special coals you buy and cook on? It seems like there are a certain number to achieve a certain temperature. I don't think we can get them in England - I was using my dutch oven on an open fire on hot embers. Do you have any tips for cooking on a campfire? Or if there are any English readers out there, is there anywhere we can get these coals/briquettes in England? Other than that I am going to Florida in December so I may try and buy some them if they are not too heavy!

 

Thanks again for all your help.

 

Ann.