Last week, my neighbor let me take his Dutch oven and “rehab” it. As you can see from the pictures, it was pretty badly rusted. I did one of my own that had gotten all oxidized as well. Here, you can see a pic of them both. Mine is the long, oval one.
I started out by cleaning them off, using a wire brush attachment to my power drill. It wasn’t easy. My hands and wrists got really tired, and I had to do it in stages. Here’s a few pics of that process.
Then, I heated up my gas grill. I much prefer the grill because the process smokes a lot, and I’d rather not do that inside.
I adjusted the burners so that, with the lid down, it measured at about 500 degrees. I coated the Dutch ovens in vegetable oil. I normally like to use shortening, like Crisco, but I didn’t have any there. I put the oil in a spritz bottle to get better coverage. Then, I set one of them into the grill, upside down, with the lid separate (also coated). My grill wasn’t big enough to do them both at the same time. I let it bake for about a half hour or so, then (using heavy leather gloves) took it out and spritzed it again. It went back in for another half hour.
The first one, I pulled out to cool. The second one, I just left in the grill and turned off the gas.
Here’s what they look like when the came out:
Mark has discovered a love of Dutch Oven Cooking. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.
I’ve not posted much this summer. I’ve actually been very active in Dutch ovening. I’ve cooked quite a bit, and I’ve judged a few cookoffs. But I haven’t been writing much. There are a lot of reasons for that, including overall stress and working on another book, but the big reason is that I’ve been working on a big Dutch oven project in the back yard. Last week, it was unveiled.
I’ve been building an outdoor kitchen!
As many of you who read my blog know, I like to cook all winter long. I also like to cook when it’s raining or any other kind of inclement weather. Basically, I like to cook, and I don’t like it when the weather gets in the way. Now, at times, I’ve used umbrellas, tarps, or caps, or even moved my cooking onto a covered porch or into my garage. But those really aren’t solutions to the problem.
So, this spring, my sweet wife and I talked about options for making a good Dutch oven space in a corner of the yard. It started out simply enough. I had a mental vision of a sort of wood shelter overhead with a shallow deck underneath.
Jodi, on the other hand is a master at finding things cheap, and secondhand. She used a local classified ad website to find cheap paver and patio bricks, similar to the ones that were already in place in other parts of the yard. She found a 13 x 13 metal gazebo that someone who was moving wanted to sell for next to nothing (I spent two weeks disassembling it, then bringing it home, and digging and pouring footings for it before reassembling it in all its glory). Laying the brick was a real challenge for someone of my weight and age. It really killed my knees.
I used cinderblock and a steel table for the cooking space, and I brought out a tall bar table to use for food prep. The grill fit in nicely, and my father-in-law built a rolling serving table.
But finally, it was all done. Last Sunday, we had visitors over, friends from Jodi’s work. Other families with kids with special health care needs. We all sat around and ate well while visiting and playing guitars! I cooked bacon-wrapped chicken, au gratin potatoes, and brownies. I also made a couple of loaves of sourdough bread that were amazing. Two of the best I’ve ever made, I think.
I’m very excited to use it over the years to come!
Mark has discovered a love of Dutch Oven Cooking. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.
I got a post on my facebook fan page from someone asking about how to choose and buy a dutch oven. Rather than reply there with what will be way too long of an answer for facebook, I posted this article:
The simple answer is... Send me some money and I'll buy you one! :-)
I guess the real title for this article should be: "How to shop for a dutch oven, and buy one that's the best for you." There's a lot of "That depends on what you're looking for" in the answer, so let's break it down. I'm presuming, by the way, that those reading this are primarily interested in buying their first dutch oven. If you've already got one or two, and you're looking to buy another, you'll still be looking for the same basic things, but your reasons for buying will be different, and you'll have a different result, possibly.
There are four basic variables that you'll want to consider when you're deciding which kind to buy: The type, the size, the material, and the quality.
The Type
You have two basic options here: "Camp" dutch ovens, or "Stove" dutch ovens. Which you choose will depend on what you're going to do with it.
A "camp" dutch oven is primarily designed for outdoor cooking using wood coals or charcoal briquettes. It's got a lip around the perimeter of the lid that keeps the coals on the lid, and prevents ash from falling down into the food when you lift it. It's also got legs on the bottom that lift the dutch oven up above any coals you want to put underneath.
A "stove" dutch oven is designed primarily for use indoors, in a conventional oven or on your stovetop. It won't have the legs, because you're setting it in your oven or resting directly on your stove's burner. It doesn't have the lip around the lid because there's no coals to be put on top. Some of these will even be coated in colored enamels.
It IS possible to use a camp dutch oven indoors, but it's not as convenient. It's possible to use a stove dutch oven outdoors, but it's tricky.
The Size
Dutch ovens are primarily measured by diameter, and sometimes by quart capacity. Common sizes are 10" and 12". You can buy them as small as 5" or as large as 22" (which take considerable effort to lift, even without food in them). Which one you end up buying will depend largely on who you'll be cooking for. If you're cooking for yourself, or you have a small family, you won't want one as big. If you have a larger family, or if you're thinking you'll end up cooking for groups of friends, you'll want one bigger.
If this is your first oven, and you're just interested in experimenting a little, I'd recommend a 12" shallow oven. This will have the capacity to feed a family of four with some leftovers, and can easily cook for a gathering of as many as 8, depending on what you're cooking. Breads, stews, chilis, desserts, and even small roasts can easily be done in a 12" dutch oven.
Larger and smaller ovens will come in handy in more specialized situations. For example, I use my 14" ovens to cook turkeys and larger specialty meats. My 8" dutch oven I'll use for sides of rice or sauces.
The Material
There are two basic materials used to make dutch ovens: Cast iron, and aluminum. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Even though all of my dutch ovens are cast iron, I've seen chefs that swear by each one.
Cast iron is probably the most popular. It's the historic choice. It heats very evenly (if slowly), and it holds the heat very well, so your food stays warm in it, even after it's "done" cooking. It can take a lot of heat without damage, too. Unfortunately, it's also very heavy, and the bigger the oven, the heavier. Cast iron has to be seasoned to be used effectively, but with regular use that seasoning patina gets better and better, and it becomes non-stick. Cast iron also lasts forever.
Aluminum dutch ovens are much lighter than cast iron, so it's often the pot of choice for campers, river runners, and backpackers that carry their gear in to their campsites. It won't rust, so you don't need to season it. It heats up quickly, but that also means that it cools quickly, and it's prone to developing hot spots.
Some say that cast iron-cooked food tastes better, but I've tasted delicious food from both kinds.
The Quality
The best dutch ovens I've ever seen come from three companies: Lodge, Camp Chef, and Maca. There are lots of littler brands, like Texsport and a few that are even no-name. You can often come across dutch ovens at yard sales and antique stores. Some dutch oven chefs I know will swear by one brand or another. While it's true that there are some that are better made, keep in mind that our pioneer ancestors cooked successfully in dutch ovens made hundreds of years before modern companies were formed and contemporary casting procedures were invented. I've cooked delicious meals in off-brand dutch ovens. I prefer my lodge, but you can be successful with anything.
Here are some hints to check with the quality:
First, check to see that the lid fits well. Press down on the lip of the lid all the way around. If you find a spot where the lid rocks back and forth, that's a sign of a poorly fitting lid. That will let more moisture escape when you're cooking. Again, you can still cook well in that pot, but it won't be quite as effective.
Some off-brands will use different alloys or different sources for their cast iron stock. That can make for variations in the thickness of the pot, as well as the density of the metal. In either case, that can make for more uneven heating and hotspots. Unfortunately, you can't really check for that in the store. It's one reason why you might want to go with a more respected brand.
Still, my forefathers that crossed the plains didn't have a Lodge or a Camp Chef.
Summing it All Up
Ok, so this is really a $75 answer to a $10 question. What dutch oven should I buy? My recommendation is that if you're wanting to get started in outdoor dutch oven cooking, get a 12" shallow Lodge or Camp Chef (these, and all other links in this article are affiliate links, by the way, and I'll get paid if you buy from them). You'll possibly notice that almost all of the recipes in my blog use that basic size. My two 12"ers are the workhorses of my cast iron collection.
Whatever you end up buying, now you have some knowledge to help you make a wise choice, either to get started, or to expand once you've gotten a few recipes down!
Mark has discovered a love of Dutch Oven Cooking. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.
Today was a big dutch oven day, in many ways. I was up cooking from 8:00 in the morning, until 4:00 in the afternoon, then cleaning and conditioning afterward.
Jodi's annual family Christmas party was today, and many of them asked her if I would do that citrus turkey that I'd done for Thanksgiving. I was cool to do it. Then her stepdad said he would buy the turkey and got a 22 pounder. That's OK, but it was too big for my 14" dutch oven. I wasn't sure how I was going to do it. I'd looked into buying one of those Maca big deep oval ovens. They look so cool. Since they're oval, they're perfect for turkeys.
Like I said before, we can't afford it, at least not this year.
So, I got on the IDOS message board, and asked if anyone had one they would loan. Within a day, I got a response. We communicated, and made the connection to pick it up. Now, not only did I get to use a dutch oven, but I've a new friend.
Jodi's family was not only impressed with the food, but also impressed that someone would loan that out to someone they'd met online. Dutch oven people are such cool people.
So, I made three recipes I'd done before today. One was the Dutch Oven Citrus Turkey. I started that one on the coals at 8:00. It was pretty tricky keeping the right amount of heat on it, but I kept replenishing and it worked. I went through almost two big bags of kingsford in the whole day. I started out with just the stuffed turkey and the baste. The veggies I added after about three hours of cooking.
Right after I got the turkey on the coals, I started mixing the bread. I used the same recipe I've used so many times. And I used the glaze from this day. I'm not so specific with the amounts, especially the brown sugar. I just mixed it to make a thick syrup, almost a paste.
My stepdad-in-law had also bought a couple of spiral-cut hams, so I put those in the 14" dutch ovens, and did my best ham evarr soy sauce/mustard/honey glaze recipe. And it turned out even better than that time.
The family raved about them all. Well, the turkey and the ham mostly. I only heard a few comments on the bread, but I loved it a lot. It had this sweet citrusy taste, and with butter it was heavenly.
When it was all done, I got the dutch ovens cleaned and put away. Tomorrow, my friend said he'd be out in this area and will pick up his oven. It was just a wonderful day. My muscles are all sore from hefting around big iron dutch ovens full of food, but it was pretty wonderful.
I got started cooking in my dutch ovens two years ago last Father’s Day, when my wife presented me with a 12” shallow Lodge Dutch Oven. I didn’t remember it at the time, but apparently at some point in our marriage I had mentioned to her that I wanted to learn to cook in one. So, she surprised me with one.
I knew that I would have to practice with it or I’d never get it down. We only go camping at best twice a year, and I knew that I’d never really learn if that were the only times I’d cook. So, I started cooking dinner every Sunday.
At the time, we were living at my in-laws, waiting for our current home to be completed. Sometimes, my food turned out great. Sometimes, not so much. But my family was patient with me, and not so critical when it didn’t turn out so yummy.
At any rate, I’d been noticing that the patina that I’d built up over time on that, my favorite dutch oven, was wearing a bit thin. The outside, also, was a sort of dark amber/brown, a sign that it was never truly seasoned correctly. The 8” dutch oven that my son had picked out for me, for a birthday present later that same year was also showing some wear. So, this week, instead of cooking something, I decided to reseason those two pots.
And, I thought it would be a good thing to share with all of you. Unfortunately, I didn’t take pictures.
I started by firing up my gas grill and removing the upper level grills, to make room for the dutch ovens. I have a thermometer on the lid of my grill, so it was easy to track the temperature (assuming it’s accurate). My goal was to heat it up to 400°. More about that later. I put the pot part of the dutch oven, upside down, without the lid, on the grill. The lid, I set on the legs of the upturned pot. I put the 8” dutch oven next to the 12”, set up the same way. I just let them heat up, with the grill lid down to trap the heat.
When they were at 350°, climbing up to 400°, I pulled the dutch ovens off the grill and set them on my back porch. Brendon and I spread a layer of shortening over them, inside and out, lids and legs and all. It was very tricky putting on the grease, because the pots were very hot. A couple of times I touched the pot a little and got zinged. I put the pots back on the grill the same way as they’d been heating up, and closed the lid again.
After about 20 minutes, I opened it up and both pots had a beautiful, smooth night black patina on them.
I turned off the gas, and left the lid open for them to cool a little. After a few minutes, I pulled them off and coated them again in another layer of shortening.
After I let them sit and cool, I brought them in. The 8” was perfectly coated in a shiny black patina. It looked great. The beloved 12” dutch oven was nicely covered, as well, especially outside, but there were some spots on the inside where the patina had burned and cracked, flaking off. I washed it off with hot water, using a plastic brush to shake off the flakes. It still has a good usable patina underneath, so I’ll keep on using it.
The heat was obviously too much. Two thoughts: One, that I should have been shooting for more like 350°. Two, I wonder if my thermometer on the grill is accurate. At any rate, on this grill, as the thermometer is currently calibrated, I should heat it up to read 350°.
Checking back in the archives, I just noticed something fun. As of last week, the Black Pot is one year old!
As I mentioned when I first created this blog, it all got started when my dear wife bought me a Lodge 12" regular dutch oven for Father's Day. I've been cooking in it ever since. I've also added five more to my collection since then.
I'm kinda curious, folks, where you're from. In the year I've been doing this, I've gotten some good contact from folks that read here, but I'm curious where everyone is reading. Post a comment and just check in and say what city or state or region you live in.
I acquired two more ovens today! My step-father-in-law, Ray, finally sold his trailer up in the hills overlooking Bear Lake (on the border of Utah and Idaho). His wife (my mother-in-law) is getting too feeble to enjoy vacationing up there any more.
So, he brought home all of his things that he wanted to keep. Included in that were two dutch ovens. One of them is a shallow 10". I've been coveting this oven for a long time. See, I mainly use this 12" pot that I got about a year ago. But as great as it is, it cooks too much food for my small family of 4. Sure, I get some lunches to take to work for a few days, but that eventually gets old, and much of the food (as good (like the roast) or as bad (like the Kofta) as it may be) ends up being thrown away.
So, today, at our Mother's Day gathering, he told me that I could take them. If he ever needed them (which he doubted), he'd just borrow them back. I eagerly snatched them up. As soon as I got home and got the kids into bed, I scrubbed them and they're in my home oven getting reseasoned as I type.
So now, I've got six.
The first one I ever got was one that my wife and I bought early in our marriage. It's a deep 14" oven. It spent most of its life in storage. Literally. I mean, I've been married almost 20 years, and I can't remember when I used it. That is, until we moved into this new home last winter. Then I found it, remembered it, and cleaned it up. It cooked our Christmas turkey and our Easter ham. Now, I store all my ovens in a stack in the corner of our kitchen, and it has the honorable place as the base of the iron tower.
The one that really started all this was a simple Lodge 12" shallow that my wife bought me for father's day last year. I don't really know why she got it, other than that I may have mentioned that I'd like to learn how to do dutch. But I didn't feel any real urgency to get one. But, she got it, and I was excited. I decided that I wouldn't just let it sit and use it only on our campouts (once or twice a year), but that I really wanted to learn how to do it, and do it well. So, I began cooking our sunday dinners.
Not long after that, we were invited to a friend's home to cook them dinner. I wanted to do a main dish, and Jodi thought it would be a cool idea to do a cobbler desert, too. So, on the way over, we stopped off and picked up a deep 12" pre-seasoned pot. The dinner went well, and I had another one on the team.
Then, since I was enjoying it so much, my then-8-year-old son picked out a cool little 8" oven for my birthday. At the time, I thought it was cute, but I didn't think I'd ever actually use it. It turns out it gets almost as much use as my 12" workhorse. Sauces, preparing ingredients to be added to the main dish, deserts... It's amazing how handy that one is.
Up until tonight, that was the entire collection. I re-discovered the 14", but nothing else was added. Now, we add the 10". I don't know the brand. It's shallow, and solid. I'm looking forward to trying it out.
The last one is another deep 12". It's made in commemoration of the Utah State Centennial. It's got the centennial logo cast into the lid, and "Made in USA" and a serial number cast into the bottom.
So, I was originally a bit bummed that I didn't get to cook this weekend. But now my spirits are raised again!
or 
(these, and all other links in this article are affiliate links, by the way, and I'll get paid if you buy from them). You'll possibly notice that almost all of the recipes in my blog use that basic size. My two 12"ers are the workhorses of my cast iron collection.
