Beautiful. Needed very little work.
This is a really nice piece of cast iron & I'm glad that after hemming and hawing for a long while, I got it.PROS:+ Very nicely packaged (if gifted, that would be a plus)+ A good weight - not as heavy as some of my others, but no lightweight+ It's a beautiful pan overall.+ Having a pan already milled & all smoothed down is what I've been missing.There are no big negatives for me. Of course, I would never try to use this without taking the time to season as I always do, no matter what. "Pre-seasoned" only means they got you started! LOLIt took no time at all to season this. I rubbed this down with grapeseed oil and did 30-minute sessions in a 450F oven 3 times, cooling in between. I made sure to use a lot of butter the first time I actually cooked in this. After that, it was good to go. I did burgers (turkey-beef mix) and those tend to release a lot of water and get a bit sticky. No problem. I wiped this out & basted it with some grapeseed. I've been cooking in it almost every other day for the past week and have had no problems. Meat comes right out and any residue can be wiped out with an oiled rag. I haven't had to scrape out anything so far.This pan is worth every penny I paid and it's a really nice addition to my kitchen. It's the first milled piece of cast iron I've own & I will probably buy this kind in the future. I have other pans that I have thought about sanding. This saves me the trouble.
✔ Verified Purchase
Non-Stick Pans, Eat Your Heart Out!
I often leave reviews, but I'm not often EXCITED to leave a review. But this pan is special :-)We have a collection of Lodge cast iron pans, and we've dreamed of having an heirloom pan with the smooth milled finish, instead of the shortcut Lodge now takes by leaving the casting rough. But we don't have ancestors to pass them down to us, and we are a bit dubious about the non-food type uses that old cast iron pans were often used for back in the olden days, so buying a flea market cast iron wasn't really on our list of things to do lol.This pan has exceeded all our expectations. Right out of the box, it fried a beautiful egg. A quick slip of the spatula underneath and nothing stuck. I just fried up some breakfast potatoes and fried eggs and, Day 2, the egg was skating across the pan like a champ.Here's some info to keep in mind, based on questions people seemed to have and misconceptions people seem to have:- The more you use it, the more seasoned and non-stick it will become, but you Must cook with fat. I think people who say their pans stick are either not letting it get hot enough first, or not cooking with enough fat? We are a high-fat moderated-carb household that go Keto if we need to shed a few lbs, so we aren't afraid of cooking with olive oil/avocado oil/butter (the good fats). If you are still on the Low Fat Diet bandwagon, you'll probably be too sparing and find it sticking.- Many foods that initially stick will self-release from the pan when it's ready to be moved. This is especially true of cooking Fish (or Grilling Fish). If it's sticking, it isn't ready to flip yet.- The "circles" visible in the photos on the bottom of the pan are just the Machining Marks from the milling process. The pan is perfectly smooth to the touch and the marks are a normal part of metal machining.- The handle does get hot, I suggest getting the silicone handle cover unless you like having oven mitts on the counter all the time, and occasionally burning your hand because you "forgot" it's hot :-) Who needs fingerprints anyway, right?- Acidic foods/sauces will do 2 things: 1) Take away from the seasoning in the pan, and 2) Take on the Iron flavor of the pan if simmering for any length of time. We have an Enameled Cast Iron pan for use with tomato sauces and the like.- Cast Iron gets hotter than Non Stick pans, and retains heat much better. You'll find yourself cooking on lower heat, and your food will cook more uniformly because the heavy pan bottom is perfectly flat and uniformly heated throughout.- Bring the pan up to temperature before putting in your fat. You can test the heat of the pan by dripping some water onto the pan surface. If the water skates around in little round balls, the pan is hot enough. If it just sizzles and evaporates, wait longer.- Works amazingly well in the oven and broiler. I remove the silicone handle cover from our cast iron pans when putting them in the oven.- Don't use soap to wash it. Water only. 99% of the time we just wipe it out if nothing needs to be scrubbed. A chainmail cast iron pan scrubber is the best way to remove anything that's being stubborn.- After going back to non-stick pans the past year after moving to a new house, it's a strange experience to use metal utensils in a pan, but that's another perk to cast iron - you don't need to use the plastic type utensils that seem to always melt.Overall, this pan is a 10/10 for us. We bought it figuring it'd make a good all around "use it and don't worry about it" type pan.Non-Stick pans stop being Non-Stick within a year or two. Cast Iron gets better the more you use it. No need to buy fancy high-tech pans for $150/pan that will be junk in 2 years when good ol' cast iron will do everything you need it to, and do it better. Anyone that says that cast iron is too much work and sticks too much is doing something wrong. Don't be defensive, just research and learn how to do it better ;-)
✔ Verified Purchase
S
Snowbunny
August 23, 2020
Very Smooth, Yes. But Might Need Some More Work Before Cooking
I had a small, 8" CI skillet made by some non-major CI manufacturer for past few years. While I thought it was a perfect size for my need, occasionally encountered situations where food item was shaped long and did not fit in the skillet. Yes, I can always cut food in half to fit them in, but chopped hotdog/polish sausages and grilled mackerel didn't look as neat. Hence my search for a slightly bigger skillet had begun. It needed to be not too huge, so that I can lift. I was looking at Lodge skillet that is on sale. TBH, I like the design of Lodge's short handle. I should be able to fit that skillet in my small countertop oven. However, Lodge is known for being heaviest of the CI products. It is also known for the rough surface people go out of their way to sand the pan. I sure didn't want to do that, but didn't want to spend so much time and oil to smooth out the rough surface. I was thus interested in searching for a smooth surface skillet to see how those "vintage" state pans work.Then found this pan on sale. I was almost ready to go for a Field or Stargazer at that time, but liked the price and the deal, as well as the company mission. So after reading product reviews, decided to order from this manufacturer.The skillet arrived quickly and safely. Well packaged. Other than this mysterious shipping label with someone else's name/address on the skillet box that was cut out to remove from the box, the product seemed an unopened box.After unboxing, I touched the innerside of the skillet to feel the surface. Yes. It is smooth. The outer surface in contrast was quite rough. It won't scratch you, but I can feel the grooves. It is odd, because of this distinctive roughness, the metal felt a little cheap. If anything, my no name skillet which has some rough surface feels smoother, and the metal "denser". But outside surface doesn't matter, right? So I went on to check the seasoning.This is where I knocked off one star. In summary, uneven, incomplete seasoning. If you can see the first photo I attached, check the bottom of the skillet where bottom meets the wall, the lighting makes it easy to see the top left quarter, 9-12 o'clock area. You notice the edge along the bottom is not seasoned. It's perfectly silver. Third of an inch wide silver ring along the bottom of the pan. I almost thought someone tried to remove the pre-seasoning and started out sanding the seasoning along the bottom edge but gave up. I should also mention that the skillet felt a bit sticky. Preseasoning probably didn't baked on fully. (To avoid rusting in transit?) But hey, everyone washes the skillet first and re-do the seasoning anyways, right?I would never sand skillets (it's scary, and I don't have electric sander either) but I don't mind doing some seasoning before using it. So I went on to do 4 layers of seasoning on top of gas stove, then followed by another 3-4 layers of seasoning in the oven. (I used my takoyaki oil brush to oil the pan in a very thin layer each time.) The result is the secong photo. Maybe a little hard to see, but where there was a wide silver ring along the bottom, we now have a thin layer of chocolate colored seasoning covering the area. The skillet is not sticky and with some more careful handlings, it should be ready for cooking.I made stir fry with small bite size chicken pieces. Unfortunately, despite careful fire level management, some pieces stuck. However, using some coaxing from my stainless steel spatula, what appeared to be stuck was easily dislodged. Next, I went on to pour pancake batter and made a one big and thick pancake. To my surprise, it flipped without any pieces missing. The size made it hard to flip, but pancake rolled in one piece. Next I made chicken vesuvio［sp?］and nothing stuck. Remember, I am takoyaki oil brush person, so I barely use oil and it won't make skillet glistening or pools oil on the bottom. Then I made cheese omlet a few times, made (warmed up) leftover pilau rice. That time, some rice stuck, but nothing a metal spatula couldn't lift up. It pretty easily dislodged again.Now, today, I shallow fried tonkatsu (pork cutlet). Rather than deep frying them, I used very small amount of oil, though much more that I usually use in regular cooking that the skillet has some shiny bubbly oil layer visible. (See the third photo.) I was expecting pork stick to pan at least right after they were placed in the skillet, but eventually release, but to my surprise they didn't stick at all from the very start to the end. I used medium heat to heat up skillet, then oil. When I started on pork (or anything, actually), reduced heat to low, and cooked to the end.The manufacturer currently does offer a silicone handle holder free of charge. A pretty shade of light green. It will keep handle manageable if you are cooking something quick, like fried eggs or omelet. It does get hot if you are cooking for more than a few min. I use small knitted cotton dishcloth for grabbing CI vessels, so used it on top of silicone handle when it was getting hot.I am currently eyeing their CI lid. It appears it doesn't cover the spouts. Looking a little bulky in design, too. For splatter proof, I temporarily used Lodge's 3qt. enameled CI Dutch Oven lid and it sat on the skillet nicely, but a royal blue lid does look odd on a bare CI skillet. A glass lid that fits 6qt. IP is too small. An extra large universal silicone lid is currently sitting on top of the skillet to block dusts from falling in it.Conclusion. If you are fine with doing a few more layers of seasoning before starting, this skillet does the work nicely. I would recommend this product. No sanding required.
✔ Verified Purchase
