If you don't know where they've been or what was in them, I would stick them in the wood stove or a fire till they turn a dull red to burn off all the surface crud. Then wash well and dry. Then coat with vegetable oil right away, or just cook in them.

Thanks guys great tips. i have them all seasoned now! i cannt wait to use them this coming summer while camping.

why wait until summer? I have 2 and that's all I use, do like triple creek onced seasoned and working good to clean boil water drain sprinkle with salt wipe with a paper towel rinse and coat with oil and put away. The mother-in-law would use them and wash them with soap( lost the shiney look) I would growl so they would wash it and wipe with oil so it would look shiny but still stuck so I gave them one and told them paws off the other now that I got it working right I showed the wife over the weekend, I was frying eggs and told the wife to to look, I slid the eggs in my plate and told her "that's how cast iron is supposed to work!" lol

Why wait, the little lady has her pots and pans form the house hold. Told her iwas going to get some old cast iron for camping. She says she doesnt need my old rotten pans! But thats fine with me, as she willnot have a chance to burn anything in My castiron!!!!

I inherited one that looks like it was seasoned but some of that has worn off or chipped off. Do I need to start all over (the hot fire or oven cleaning tips?) or do you think I will be successful if I just season the unseasoned places by cooking with it?

Blister you came to the right place for you question. I am sure the fine folks of trapperman will help you out just fine. Thay all did right by me.

You will never be able to make them safe to eat from but if you will ship them to me I will dispose of them for you.

Blister now when to say chips I take it just the coating and not the pan if so then I would reseason the whole thing once or twice remember NO soap to clean up and if it sticks the first time then it will be stick free after acouple times cooking with it.

I get the over hot about 350 or I will use my grill. put some cooking oil in the pan let it sit in there for a while about 1/2 hour I will do this a couple times. then after each use I put oil on the pan to prevent rusting.

Blister

Dont worry about what has chipped out....just reseason the whole pan....little dips wont effect anything. I always recoat a pan as soon as Im finished with it and just put it on the cookstove or cast trivet. We use cast everyday for everything....so it always stays seasoned.

Here is one way to do it. Went fising one night with an old fellow in East texas. He brought an old 14" spider all covered with rust and 1/2" by 1/16" pit in it. Said he was going to cook supper in it. Built a hardwood fire and when it got good and hot, he put the spider in it upside down. When it had tuned black, he pulled it out and wiped it down good with a burlap sack, put it back in the fire and reheated it. Took it out, rubbed it good, inside and out, with some salt pork and reburnt it. After wiping it out again, he sliced sone bacon into it and cooked that, letting it burn a little bit. Then he sliced up the taters, fried them in the grease and then a big slab of steak. Wiping it clean again, he oiled it and set it aside while it was still hot. Never have eaten anything so good from the kitchen. Andno, the taters and steak didn't stick!

"Spider"??

Bigbob, spider is like a deep skillet
with legs.

Thanks Dave

Thanks for the suggestions. I will do a re-season on it. I was hoping it wasn't ruined because I love to cook on/in cast iron. You guys are so much help, I am going for broke here!

I have not learned how to use the cast iron Dutch oven. I would love to be able to bake biscuits over a fire like Gus did in Lonesome Dove, but my Dutch oven lid always gets moisture on the bottom/inside of the lid and drips on the stuff inside. What am I doing wrong?

I cannt help with your last question Blister. But am sure somebody here will know. What a great bunck og folks here!!

Does your dutch oven have legs? Is the lid concave or domed? Concave is for a baking oven to put the coals in, domed is a stew pot and moisture will condense inside the top of the lids when stewing.

I always use wood coals to bake with in the dutch oven, there is a science involved with charcoal briquetts (sp?)..a certain number of coals makes Xnumber of degrees...I've never tried it, never use the charcoal.

Generally speaking, I put the oven on a bed of wood coals, put coals on top and bake for ?? minutes depending on the contents of the oven, then move the oven off the bed of coals but leave the coals on top to finish the baking...again for ?? minutes depending on what's in the oven. Sometimes it's necessary to rotate the lid to distribute the heat evenly or more coals are added to the top.

It's easy to overdo the process as once the oven is heated, it's the cast iron that does the baking. Maintaining a steady temp is the trick.

Rule of thumb: Put 1 briquet per oven dia on top and bottom, plus 2 extra for the lid. ie: 12 in oven equals 26 briquet's.
This will give you approx 325 degree's oven temp. add 1 briquet top and bottom for ea additional 25 deg. Cold air temps may require a few additional briq's.
Rotate both lid and oven 1/4 turn every 15 Min's.
Those chimney type charcoal starters are great.
Keep the lid hot.
Wood fires take some getting used to.
Dutch ovens stack well and you can use the lid coals of one for the bottom coals of the the next.

Pies in dutch ovens:

Three beer bottle caps in the bottom of the dutch oven hold the pie pan up off the superheated bottom, and alow for air flow like a convestion oven. A home made wire rack alows for a second pie pan to be perched above the bottom one.

I have a matched pair of 16 qt ovens (with legs, otherwise they are not an oven). I have never cooked meat or other protien or fat in them. They are seasoned with canolla oil... 6 oil baths when they were new. These two ovens are ONLY USED FOR BISCUITS, BREADS, AND PIES, and my familly knows that they are not to even look at them, moreless touch them.

The ability to create 24 biscuits, 2 12" cornbreads, and 2 pumpkin and 2 keylime pies means that I have never yet gone camping with anyone who doesn't regularly re-invite me.


Bob, All that stacking and turning...what are you trying to do? Give away all our secrets? BTW, the formula for temp given by BigBob is the same basic one that I use, but it needs to be adjusted thusly: add one cosal to the bottom and two coals to the top for every drop of 10 degrees below 40...ie one step up at 30, two steps up at 20, three steps up at 10 etc. Also add coals (dont know formula) when you go up in altitude. I learned the hard way that coals burn cooler due to less oxygen the higher you go. You can barely bake at 9500 ft.


PS, Bob, I love the quote in your sig.
I have been using it often in everyday life since I first saw it.

The stacking is cool. I saw someone do that once at a TE class. I haven't used charcoal in literally years. I'll have to write this down for future reference.

Thanks!