First Impressions Lodge Carbon Steel Skillet


 
Rich Dahl

Rich Dahl

TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
Barb and I have a fairly large collection of cast iron skillets and Dutch ovens about 20 total. Most are very old and now back in service after extensive work to get them seasoned again over the years.
We use them daily and really enjoy the cooking qualities that they produce.
But as you know if you’re older that gravity has been increasing each year and things are now much heavier now than before. Also my arthritic wrists are complaining about the increased weight of the cast iron skillets.
So we decided to look into carbon steel skillets.

Cooks Illustrated had a good write up on them as did others, like anything opinions are like…well you know what and everybody has one. So we went in the middle of the road as far as price went and decided to go with made in the USA 12” Lodge.

We did a comparison with our daily driver a 12” Griswold.
The first thing I noticed is that the Lodge wasn’t that much lighter than the Griswold.

Griswold 5.4 Lbs.

Lodge 3.5 Lbs.

Second thing was the finish on the Lodge, it is preseason at the factory and typical of our other lodge products the finish is on the rough side.
Although that doesn’t seem to make it performance wise any better or worse than a smooth finish.

Third the Lodge had angled sides vs. the straight sides on the Griswold and it wasn’t as deep.

Forth good grief I have fishing poles that aren’t as long as the handle on the Lodge. I understand for fireside cooking that’s a plus but it’s a pain to store it with the other pans due to the long handle. Also the handle is not very comfortable to grip, again you would be using a mitt or cozy on it.

Cooking observation
After a wash of a small amount of Dove and hot water and a light coating of oil per the instructions.
It heats up faster than the Griswold and seems very uniform with even heat over the surface.
Barb cooked up some homemade breakfast sausage.
The Lodge was almost totally stick free on the first go around which was impressive and Barb liked the lower slanted sides as it made the spatula easier to get at the patties.
Next up was some bacon and the same result almost totally stick free.
No difference in the flavor of the bacon.
Clean up the same as the CI.



Our thoughts
Barb liked it and will be using it for daily cooking work the slanted sides and shallower pan is a plus to her.
I like it also, I just would like a little lighter. But it is an improvement over the Griswold.

Here’s some pictures of the two for a comparison.

101_5691.JPG

101_5692.JPG

101_5703.JPG

101_5704.JPG
 
I like that. The angled sides makes that a good option for an omelette pan. Easier to slide around, flip and slide out.
 
I just discovered carbon steel when I bought my new griddle. Unfortunately it was not preseasoned so I've been going through the steps to create the seasoning. But, I'm certainly happy with the cooking performance and will probably get a Lodge skillet. Thanks for the review.
 
I have a carbon steel handmade wok that I love. Its seasons up just like cast iron. I really like the looks of that Lodge but wow that handle. To bad they didn't offer a short option.
 
...I have fishing poles that aren’t as long as the handle on the Lodge.
Click to expand...
have you given thought to cutting the handle to a suitable length? It's easier than you may think.
 
I have the same 12” Lodge carbon skillet. Still haven’t decided what I thinK about it, but I probably screwed up trying flax seed oil on it.

(Flax seed oil was all the rage for seasoning for a bit, but I’m not a fan)

I also have an old 11” Borgeat (sp?) that is heavyweight carbon steel and it is an omelette making machine. Superb kitchen tool.
 
Greg in Utah said:
I have the same 12” Lodge carbon skillet. Still haven’t decided what I thinK about it, but I probably screwed up trying flax seed oil on it.

(Flax seed oil was all the rage for seasoning for a bit, but I’m not a fan)

I also have an old 11” Borgeat (sp?) that is heavyweight carbon steel and it is an omelette making machine. Superb kitchen tool.
Click to expand...

Best part about carbon steel is you can "nuke" the seasoning and start over. Scrub it with a steel wool type scrubber and dish soap to get it back to original as possible and then reseason it with a high temp oil. I have been using avocado oil which has a smoke point above 500 degrees.

Add some oil and spread it all around, then wipe the excess off with a paper towel leaving just a very very thin layer of oil. Put it in the oven at 400 degrees for an hour then turn off the heat and let it sit in the oven for several hours to cool back down and essentially bake on that very thin sheen of oil. Then repeat the process as many times as it takes to get a nice non stick seasoning on it.
 
Most, if not all carbon steel fry pans have that long handle. It's a design that cooks use for easier flipping or moving it around on a burner.
 
The handle gets hot pretty quick.

A long handle is a bit cooler at the end, you can handle it without handle cover/towel/pot holder/mitt. It's still hot, make sure you actually can :).
 
I have that pan and two other smaller ones from Lodge. I have several cast iron, but when we moved to the new house with a glass top induction cooktop, I got a little paranoid about dropping those heavy suckers on the glass and decided to try the carbon steel. They are lighter than the cast iron, but I was kind of expecting them to be lighter than they are. But that's about the only thing I'm disappointed with. They've been great to cook with and I like them a lot. Now the cast iron is mostly reserved for outdoor cooking.
 
Rich - really nice write up on the steel pan. I have a love/hate relationship with my cast iron pans. I struggle to get the seasoning right, but I still cook with them about once a week or so. I keep them around so I can use them outside on my grills for fajita night, and all around versatility. Now that we're heading into Colder weather, I may do some cornbread a few times this winter to go along with chili night. Maybe someday I'll nail the seasoning.....
 
ive been preaching carbon steel to all of my cast iron loving brethren , I love my de buyer omelet pan....mine is really well seasoned and it's an egg cooking machine.. I like the fact it reacts faster to temp changes compared to cast iron
 
How's the CS skillet doing Rich?
I got the 8" Lodge carbon steel skillet about 2 months ago, I wanted to stop using the the nonstick type.
Plans were for it to be my egg cooker, but try as I might the rough pre-seasoning makes them stick like crazy. I suspect, as a frying skillet with plenty of oil, this wouldn't be a problem.
I add a good amount of butter, doesn't help. I've started cleaning it with a stainless steel scrubber hoping to knock down some of the roughness, it has some, but still sticks like crazy. At times I get a tin can taste to my eggs.
I've also heated oil in in a few times with no cooking involved. As a user it's time may be running out.
 
After hearing about using higher temp oils for seasoning, I was cruising Trader Joe’s and saw some spray avocado oil so, after roasting some little potatoes, I cleaned the pan and gave it a spray, we shall see how that works.
 
I find that my lodge carbon steel pans are great for just about everything except eggs. Sometimes it works great, other times they end up scrambled regardless of how they started. One thing I've noticed is that the first eggs to go in tend to do better. If I try to cook more in the same pan during the cook, they almost always stick. I ended up buying a couple different sizes of non-stick just for eggs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top