Dutch Ovens - worth buying a carry bag?

[MartinK9]

Just use vegetable oil to season, not worth the hassle of running around the camp fire stabbing people with their EPI-Pens after one of your meals.

 

[santaman2000]

Slightly off-topic now but do people allergic to nuts generally react to peanuts too, given than peanuts are not "real" nuts (are they more like peas?)

I can't imagine much of the active "nutty" compounds are left after a good heating at 250C in any case?

Peanut allergies are extremly prevelent over here. Particularly troublesome since peanut butter is a favorite food, and peanut oil a favorite frying oil in commecial applications. As to your question about how it relates to allergies to other nuts, I really don't know.

 

[Wallenstein]

First pass seasoning done! Not as much smoke as I feared and there is a lovely black sheen on the dutch oven now.

I went with sunflower oil in the end - what I thought was rapeseed oil was actually grapeseed oil, which has a much lower smoke point than sunflower (216C vs 232C).

I reckon another two seasoning cycles and we should be good to go: the Ronnie Sunshine ovens do seem to be fairly roughly finished (although I know some people argue that's useful for giving the seasoning something to stick to). Either way it's noticeably smoothed out after the first seasoning but a couple more (plus regular meals of bacon!) look like they're needed.

First time I've used cast iron and it's remarkable how much heat they retain... they've been out of the oven for a good 25 mins and they are still far too hot to touch without gloves.

 

[bigroomboy]

This rough vs smooth thing is something I havent worked out yet. I've had my DO about 3 years but I wet sanded it by hand with wet and dry when I got it inside and in the lid. Now it works OK but the seasoning does seem to be a bit fagile and hard to build up. I recently got a new skillet from clas ohlson http://www.clasohlson.com/uk/Cast-Iron-Frying-Pan/Pr342333000 sand cast and worked by hand and is much rougher but seem to be much better at holding it seasoning and is much more non stick!

 

[Wallenstein]

Some pics added [here] showing progress so far!

 

[santaman2000]

This rough vs smooth thing is something I havent worked out yet. I've had my DO about 3 years but I wet sanded it by hand with wet and dry when I got it inside and in the lid. Now it works OK but the seasoning does seem to be a bit fagile and hard to build up. I recently got a new skillet from clas ohlson http://www.clasohlson.com/uk/Cast-Iron-Frying-Pan/Pr342333000 sand cast and worked by hand and is much rougher but seem to be much better at holding it seasoning and is much more non stick!

Given time (years) of use, the seasoning itself will make the finish smother (just like layers of paint) As a related matter, the initial seasoning you do is just that, initial. Frying oily or greasy foods (such as bacon) will enhance and built the layers of seasoning over the years (generations or better)