Comments by "GH1618" (@GH-oi2jf) on "Why people love cast iron pans (and why I'm on the fence)" video.

  1. My nonstick egg pan is at least 15 years old. It’s a Vollrath N7007. Longevity comes from not abusing the pan.
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  2. There is a technical error in this regarding thermal mass. Aluminum has twice the specific heat of cast iron, so you need only half the weight of aluminum to hold the same amount of heat as cast iron.
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  3. The best ones have become expensive because they have become desirable and too many people want one. Your best bet for a cheap one is a generic pan found in a 2nd hand store. Are there still such stores? These days they are vintage or antique stores, where they will cost more. My first cast iron pan was bought at a yard sale in the 1970s for probably 50 cents. It might have been a quarter. Today it would be a few dollars, because it is ugly. I never bothered to clean off the built-up carbon crust. My second, a late-model Griswold, was free. I found it in my mother’s kitchen.
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  4. Crisco shortening
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  5. That’s exactly why you use it. If you cook bacon in the pan, dish soap helps get the grease out. First, wipe out the grease with paper towels, because you don’t want all that grease in the drain. Then wash the inside of the pan with Dawn dish soap (used sparingly). Store the pan clean and dry.
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  6. Soap is used only to get grease out of the pan, and it is used sparingly. You don’t want oil left on the pan. It should always be put away clean and dry.
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  7. You can put them in your garden, upside down, to use as stepping stones, if you have enough of them.
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  8. Right. Certainly not backpackers. Car campers like them, though.
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  9. Annealing of cast iron requires temperatures above 1000°F. You aren’t doing that in your kitchen oven.
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  10. Most of the time, you don’t need soap to clean a cast iron pan. Just hot water is sufficient to loosen stuck potato. When there is grease in the pan, such as from bacon or sausage, I use a few drops of Dawn. But you only need the soap for a minute or two to help get the grease out, then you rinse it out. A quick cleaning like that will not affect the seasoning.
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  11. First you need a time machine ...
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  12. Fallacy: They are not the same afficianados in each case.
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  13. Griswold is the best. Mine is smooth as glass on the inside.
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  14. You don’t know what is in the ceramic. How do you know they are non-toxic? All pans approved for sale in the USA or Canada are safe. Ceramic pans sold here are safe, but you shouldn’t buy one just because you think other pans are not. They are all safe. Use what works best for your particular purpose.
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  15. You can. Just don’t complain to the seller if it damages your cooktop.
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  16. A shame, because someone else could use the pan. Cast iron is easy if you ignore all the high priests of cast iron cookware. I’ll offer just two tips here for others who may be thinking of giving up, but haven’t yet. First, only use it for things it does well. Do not fry your eggs in cast iron. Use a small, aluminum pan with nonstick coating, use it for nothing else but eggs, and fry them in butter. Your cast iron will never be as nonstick as that. Second, food sticking to your cast iron pan is not a crisis. Don’t worry about it. Just let it soak in hot water for a while, then scrub it out with a nonabrasive pad. If it is seasoned, this will be easy. If there is grease in the pan from bacon or such, use a few drops of Dawn. After rinsing, dry with a paper towel and apply heat to dry the pan completely. Always store the pan clean and dry. It will get better with use.
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  17. That was weird. I cook a salmon fillet skin down only. When it is cooked, it separates from the skin easily.
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  18. All that stuff at the beginning is hogwash. The first thing you have to do with an iron pan is ignore all the people who make seasoning sound like a complicated process that has to be taught by the high priests of cooking technology. Believe me, your grandmother did not learn her cooking skills from America’s Test Kitchen. After listening to this all the way through, my opinion is that this is one of the experts to ignore, for a few reasons.
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  19. nonsense. Most restaurants have been cooking in plain aluminum pans for a long time. Everybody has been eating things cooked in aluminum even if they don’t go to restaurants, from other commercial sources. My mother cooked with just one plain aluminum skillet most of her life and lived to nearly 100.
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  20. My Teflon egg pan is at least 15 years old and is almost like new. The main reason nonstick pans don’t last is that people abuse them.
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  21. There is no one type of pan which is best for all things. I have a dozen skillets of various materials. There is no one which is best at everything, but I like my 11” Mauviel a lot.
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