Does anyone own one of the modern cast iron or carbon steel frying pans?

[gsganzer]

I like the LeCreuset enameled stuff. Especially their Dutch oven. It's pricey, but nothing else like it.

 

[t1kilo]

I'm not sure the Smithey could be categorized as a light cast iron pan. I have the No. 10 and it's stout. I have a much larger Stargazer that's lighter. I prefer cooking on the stove with a carbon steel pan but not Smithey. I use a couple of different deBuyers and I'm pretty happy with them.

Wife and I cook pretty much everything with CI or carbon steel. DeBuyer isn’t cheap, but they are our favorite and they are non-stick as long as they are seasoned well. I cook eggs almost daily in ours.

We have pretty much every size cast iron piece from a 6” skillet to a huge Dutch oven (one with legs and one without). No soap ever, heated on the stove after washing with water, and a light coat of avocado oil. Same cleaning and oil process for the deBuyer pieces.

 

[RobertN]

We bought a cast iron pan at an estate sale. It was caked with way too much crud to even consider using. Using Easy-Off, elbow grease and other drastic means I got it down to bare metal. Then it sat on the lower rack of the oven for a while, with cooking oil (I forget what kind) in it, during several cooking sessions. It took a nice seasoning, and has been nonstick ever since.

The only cast iron I have used without stripping and seasoning was my Grandmothers. Otherwise, all of my other yard sale, thrift and flea market finds go in lye bath, electrolysis tank or both. Who knows what was in those pans, roasters and ovens... Not a bad idea to do a lead test either...

I've used Easy-Off in a plastic bag. Have had better results from a lye bath. Nice thing about a lye bath is you can use it more than once if you're collecting. Same for electrolysis tank. With the lye tank and electrolysis, I've never had to take drastic means. Sometimes I let them sit in the tanks longer, but that's about it...

 

[etpm]

I like the LeCreuset enameled stuff. Especially their Dutch oven. It's pricey, but nothing else like it.

Yeah, enameled cast iron is the best. I have several pans that I inherited from my grandmothers. From Belgium. And a couple of the LeCreuset pieces of cookware, one being a dutch oven. I love the stuff.

 

[etpm]

Even though I love my enameled cast iron cookware it is heavy and as I get older and my arthritis gets worse I would welcome lighter cookware if it performed as well as my enameled stuff. So I hope more folks respond to the OP's original request. I may just have to buy a lighter steel pan just to find out how it performs. I think enameled steel pans might just be the best.
Eric

 

[sixdogs]

Even though I love my enameled cast iron cookware it is heavy and as I get older and my arthritis gets worse I would welcome lighter cookware if it performed as well as my enameled stuff. So I hope more folks respond to the OP's original request. I may just have to buy a lighter steel pan just to find out how it performs. I think enameled steel pans might just be the best.
Eric

I'm the OP and from what I've been learning, a plain steel pan can be seasoned just like cast iron and they are well regarded. There are lots of high priced ones and Lodge, the cast iron people, make a line of steel pans. I also bought one of their lighter and thinner"camp ware" cast iron pans and it is lighter, thinner and cooks great.

I'm beginning to think price and performance do not equate and seem to give near equal performance. Still learning on that so FYI.

 

[otlski]

From what I could tell, the high-end Smithey and such just put a more highly polished surface on the pan. Lodge used to do the same but stopped doing so decades ago. They did it to save money, lower costs, and stay in business.

Some YouTubers make the claim that the more highly finished pans are not necessarily more nonstick.

 

[dfkrug]

Back in the 70s, there were expensive "lifetime" pans that featured 5 layers of metal, including copper, with the outer layers very smooth stainless steel. Called "Multicore", they were lighter than cast iron, and distributed heat very well. Plus cleaned up easier. I even had an electric skillet that had an oil core.

The explosion of good non-stick coatings kinda eclipsed them, I believe.

I will probably go back to a high-quality stainless steel pan.

 

[jyoutz]

I have my grandma’s cast iron frying pan. She got it in the 1930s, so it’s about 90 years old. It’s well seasoned and is great for cooking. One surprising thing is it’s thinner cast iron, much like some of the newer ones.

 

[jyoutz]

I've heard that old cast iron is better than new. The thought is that the casting method, metals used and finish were better. It's easy to find contradictory views however.

We have a couple we use frequently. If it's too crusty and stuck with whatever, I use a chainmail scrubber, maybe a little detergent, heat it dry and add a thin coat of oil - right now I'm using Avocado oil that the wife buys in a spray can.

We have a HexClad sauce pan the wife bought as a test. It doesn't live up to all the hype, but in all fairness it is holding up to the abuse my sons put it through, and it cleans up to a near new condition.

Since we're moving soon, the wife has decided to leave all the old cookware with our sons, and has purchased a full set of "Made In" cookware - that's the actual brand name. Haven't used it yet, but it's damned expensive so I hope it's worth it.

I'm not fussy, the only ones I don't cook with are aluminum or Teflon coated. My personal preferences are cast iron or stainless steel.

I use cast iron or stainless steel for cooking everything except eggs. For eggs I use a ceramic coated pan. It’s the only non-stick pan that doesn’t have toxic chemicals, and I’ve never had good luck with eggs in cast iron or steel.