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Do’s & Don’ts for Dutch ovens and camp ironware…

Do get started today!
The heft and clangor of cast iron cookware takes us back to great grandma’s hearth. Rattling iron echoes our ancestors’ busy hands around stone fireplaces. Dutch oven lids clanging to closure, the ring of heavy utensils, and the aromas of hardwood coals and bubbling cobbler are simple pleasures, and much more.

Camp cooking with cast iron is enjoyable and convenient, all you need to get started is some very basic equipment and supplies, a few recipes, and a drive-up campsite or picnic area in the great outdoors, your back-forty or your backyard. These are the simple ingredients for great camp food and the simple pleasures of shade-tree cooking. You can be a shade tree chef.

Cast iron qualities are hard to beat. Cast iron is durable and easy to clean. It spreads and holds heat so you can control cooking temperatures and avoid hot spots. Cast iron is versatile; you can preheat, re-warm, heat-through, deep-fry, pan-fry, grill, and bake with simple ironware.

Cast iron cooking can be the low impact method for outdoor cooking, too. Using just the right amount of briquettes for the recipes you cook reduces your camp carbon footprint. You don’t need to go around gathering dead and down wood from the busy public campground woodland: you can leave the down wood to feed living soils. And, you don’t need lighter fluid if you use wadded paper in a chimney starter. You can eliminate or reduce campfire scars, too. Begin your cast iron conversion for front country outings, soon.

Do buy full thickness ironware for camp cooking.
You need to buy camp ironware only once. “Take care of your quality ironware and it will take care of you,” my grandfather might have said. The best cast iron pots and pans around have already been in your family for several generations. They are probably squirreled-away in your parents or grandparents attics or garages. If not, save and spend that little extra cash it takes to buy good heavy ironware, like Lodge Brand–be the first of several generations to use quality ironware. Another option: watch for deals for heavy-wall cast iron in flea markets–if it looks like it has been in another family for several generations, don’t pass it up. If it looks like it needs cleaned-up, you can make it look good and work great so long as rusting has not thinned the walls and there are no cracks, it’s iron after all.

Do buy a camp Dutch oven first.
Buy a camp-type Dutch oven, at least 12″ diameter and 5″ deep; the kind with three legs, a wire bail, and a lid with raised rim. The iron legs hold the bottom just above hardwood coals or charcoal briquettes. The raised-rim lid holds coals or briquettes on top, too. That’s the magic of a good camp Dutch oven; you can heat from below, you can heat from above, or you can control heat above and below. The heavy lid can flip over to double as a griddle. The wire bail is an important feature, good ones can hang to the side out of the way, or hold a vertical position so you can lift the oven without putting your mitt near the coals. There’s more: Once you get hooked on your camp Dutch oven, you’ll want another: They stack, with coals or briquettes in between–a Dutch oven cooking tower. You can cook enough beans and bake enough cornbread at the same time to feed the whole crowd gathering around the sweet aroma of your Dutch oven cooking.

Do buy a lid-lifter and lid stand or trivet.
You’re thinking, “I already have heavy duty hot pot mitts and holders (and you’ll need them). I don’t need a fancy lid lifter. And, what will I do with a lid-stand, anyway?” Well, you should make sure your oven mitt is fireproof because you’ll soon be grabbing hot coals along with the hot lid handle if you use clumsy mitts to check your cornbread. A lid-lifter hooks the lid handle without disturbing the cooking coals on top, and without burning your fingers. A lid-lifter is essential. A lid stand is convenient.

Do season your ironware and keep it well seasoned.
Well seasoned ironware is shiny-black and smooth on the inside from years of use. A uniform layer of carbon makes it stainless and non-stick. You can purchase ironware pre-seasoned, but even the best improves with age and use. It’s easy: Use a clean rag to wipe a uniform layer of fresh vegetable oil all over your new or used ironware, inside and out, then, heat it for an hour or more at about 350 degrees, until it stops smoking. Place it upside down so any excess oil can drip away while it’s heating. Wipe off pooling or dripping excess oil as it heats up (important). You can season your ironware in the kitchen oven but the smoke can be hard on the household and get you into the doghouse with your spouse. Use your propane grill on the patio. Medium setting is probably best. Preheat the grill full blast then cool it a bit. Tap the lid of the grill clean, first, to loosen and remove soot.You don’t want powdery black soot on your ironware, just seasoned iron darkened and sealed with carbonized vegetable oil. Quality ironware can be purchased pre-seasoned (by far, the best way to start out). Just follow the manufacturers instructions for first use, then, rub in a light layer of fresh vegetable oil after each use and a bit more after each outing. Light oiling is important, too much oil will pool and thicken and go rancid during long storage. Rancid smelling iron can be reconditioned buy thorough cleaning and re-seasoning.

Do heat your camp Dutch oven with quality charcoal briquettes.
Charcoal briquettes are easy, for greenhorn and guru alike. Hardwood coals work great, too, a little bit of cured hickory and a little experience will win you awesome success. To begin your cast iron experience, use charcoal briquettes. Briquettes offer cast iron chefs better control of cooking temperatures while gaining experience. Buy quality hardwood briquettes without a lot of filler; avoid the kind already saturated with starting fluid. A crumpled piece of paper under a briquette chimney starter will get you going in less than fifteen minutes. Using briquettes will free-up the camp stove and campfire for heating water and roasting marshmallows.

Do use a chimney starter to light your briquettes efficiently.
Inexpensive chimney lighters are available commercially for about $15.00 at most retailers selling charcoal grills. Not so long ago, their camp-craft predecessors were made from large tin cans perforated using a bottle-opener with a hole punch–the kind Mom used to use for punching holes in the tops of Hawaiian Punch cans. Both commercial models and camp-craft models work by holding briquettes in a can-chimney with open top and lots of holes in the bottom to suck in air to get them all lit quickly. Nice commercial models come equipped with a cool-touch handle, camp-craft models are as diverse as their craftsmen but generally are equipped with coat-hanger bails attached on either side at top and bottom and can be held together as handles to pour the red-hot briquettes right where you want them. Make your own chimney tower from a number ten tin can and an old clothes hanger wire.

Do preheat your Dutch oven and other ironware before cooking.
Preheating is prerequisite for non-stick baking and for many recipes. If you drop cold food into a cold Dutch oven and heat them together–you’ll have a poor meal and a much tougher chore ahead cleaning up the iron. Preheating gives you better control of cooking times and temperatures as well. Do avoid over-heating your iron, too: five minutes or so in contact with briquettes will preheat perfectly. Check the temperature, splash small droplets of water into the oven, they should bubble and evaporate quickly, but if they ball-up, bounce, and quickly sizzle away, your oven is too hot. Preheating for stews and most soup recipes is unnecessary.

Do rotate your oven and oven lid while cooking.
Rotating the lid and rotating the oven, separately, will even out oven temperatures by moving the positions of hot spots caused by clumps of briquettes or uneven size or quality of charcoal lumps.

Do use a small number of briquettes.
Most recipes call for heat above and below to bring the oven interior close to desired temperature. Estimates of heat output per briquette vary by briquette brand. Fifteen to twenty degrees per briquette is a good bet. It depends on the briquette contents. If you want 375 degrees, use six or seven briquettes underneath and fourteen or fifteen above, on the lid. Watch the cooking and adjust temperature by removing or adding briquettes.

Don’t set your steamy lid on the bare ground.
You just can’t resist: You have to take a look at that great smelling cobbler steaming through the crack around the oven lid. Maybe it’s done? You lift the lid, set it aside, and wave off the steam to see sweet cherry syrup bubbling up through cracks in the doughy cobbler. It’s almost ready! You put the lid back on to keep it cooking. Trouble is, you just picked up a lot of dirt from the ground where you set the lid. Dirt sticks to the sticky or steamy underside of the hot lid, until you put the lid back on the Dutch oven. You rattle the lid into place and the dirt and grit drops off into your cobbler. Set your lid on heavy duty aluminum foil weighted down at the corners, or folded under picnic table planks to keep it from lifting with the hot lid. A commercial lid stand is a good investment.

Don’t pour hot briquettes onto living soil.
Soil moisture pulls the heat from your briquettes. Later, when you leave the spot, you leave behind another dead spot in the campsite soil. Do burn briquettes in an existing fire ring to avoid cooking the life out of the living soil under your campsite. Use existing charcoal grills provided at many sites. Many are wide enough to serve as a stand for your Dutch oven. Rotate or flip the heavy iron grill out of the way. Pour a single layer of red-hot briquettes from your chimney starter onto the bottom of the grill and set the oven on top of the briquettes. Often, the built-in grill you flipped out of the way can be used as a lid stand to keep the underside of your lid clean.

Don’t use soap to clean your ironware.
Don’t use soap for routine washing. Iron is porous, that’s why it seasons so well. The surface pores draw in whatever touches the surface. You want only cooking-grade oils soaking into your iron. Soap contains surfactants; it easily creeps into every pore in the iron and pushes out the oil, leaving behind a soapy taste. The oils and foods cooked in ironware leave behind carbonized films–your natural non-stick stainless cooking surface, it coats the pores and surfaces of your ironware. New unseasoned ironware comes coated with machine-oil and is cleaned using soap the first time only (follow manufacturer’s instructions). Grimy-rusty old ironware can be fully reconditioned by washing once with soap after scrubbing lightly with a wire brush to remove all rust. Just re-season with several applications of fresh vegetable oil cooked into the iron.

Don’t line your Dutch oven with foil to avoid cleanup.
Lining your Dutch oven with foil is a waste of foil and it’s not best for your ironware or your recipe. Cook food in contact with iron. The best tasting servings of many recipes are scrapings from the bottom of your iron oven. Sensitive diners and newbies prefer neat-looking geometric food servings that are not well done on the bottom. A few delicate recipes are best cooked in liners, too. Introduce newbies to iron oven recipes by cooking in parchment paper oven liners, at first. Lift out the liner full of gently cooked food and peel the parchment away so you can cut nice-looking servings. Most shade tree chefs using oven liners do so because they use too much heat at the oven bottom, burn a deep layer, and do not know how to clean burnt-on food from iron ovens, conveniently. Cleaning properly seasoned iron is easy, just let water do the work, fill the warm oven and let it stand to soften sticky foods. Put it back on the fire to re-warm gently to remove burnt-on food. Remember, preheat before adding your recipe unless the recipe calls for a cold oven start (stews and the like)!

Don’t use metal-fiber scouring pads or crumpled aluminum foil balls when scrubbing your ironware.
Use plastic scrubbers and scrapers to clean your ironware. There’s nothing plastic can’t remove from properly seasoned ironware if you let the water soak do the work. Just pour water into your warm ironware (not hot) and pre-soak stubborn clinging food until it wipes away easily with a plastic scrubber. Aluminum foil, brass, copper, even steel wool are soft metals, these scrubbers leave streaks of foul-tasting metal particles on your iron cooking surfaces, tainting your favorite recipes. Even so, these metals are plenty hard enough to scratch away that hard-won well seasoned cooking surface inside your ironware. I don’t know about you, but I can always taste the aluminum from ironware scraped with foil!

Do clean-up thoroughly and dispose of your trash properly.
That old boy scout rule-of-thumb applies: Leave it better than you found it. Gone are the days of well staffed park systems with large custodial staffs just waiting to clean up after us. Nowadays, park system funding is critically low while park usage is way up. Many park systems are removing trash containers altogether to reduce impacts on wildlife and to reduce custodial costs. Regardless, it’s our duty to remove all trash, food crumbs and greasy drippings, and dispose of it all properly. If a dumpster or heavy can with lid is provided, carry all trash to the nearest container with room for lid closure using a well-fitted lid to cover the trash securely before you leave. Better yet, bag it and take it home. Whatever you do, don’t leave food scraps laying around–easy pickin’s habituates wildlife to handouts. Remember: Fed wildlife is soon dead wildlife.

Do dispose of your ashes and remainder coals properly.
Check parkland rules posted at the nearby kiosk for instructions about approved ash disposal. Many parks require disposal of ash and coals in dedicated bins. Absent park system guidance, do the following: Wait for the fire to burn out cold to the touch through and through, scoop up the cold ash and remainder coals and bag for the trash can. Never pour cold water onto very hot ironware or onto hot park grills!

Do store and transport your ironware in fitted carriers.
Commercial Dutch oven soft-side cases are great. I prefer wooden oven boxes home-made for stacking like ovens in use, a storage tower. Well-used Dutch ovens collect harmless ash and soot and smudgy oil on the outside. Wipe the outside surfaces with a rag lightly dampened with cooking oil, then put your clean oven away in a fitted case. Oven cases or boxes keep campfire soot and oil smudges off of your vehicle and gear on the way home and while in storage.

Do store your ironware wiped-clean and oiled.
Do wipe-out and wipe-off your ironware with a clean oiled cloth or paper towels after each use. Tackle sticky food remainders inside by soaking with water if necessary and scraping it off with a plastic scrubber or spatula, dry with towels, then rub on a light coating of fresh vegetable oil inside and out before storing your iron between uses.

Don’t store ironware wet or locate long-term storage in damp places.
Don’t put away wet ironware. Choose a home storage location where your ironware stays high and dry. The garage, away from rain-spray and vehicle drippings will do just fine if you keep your iron off the cement. If you find your ironware lightly rusty, just rub off the rust with an oily rag.

Cast iron camp Dutch oven w/ lid, $100.00
Iron lid-lifter $15.00
Briquette chimney starter $15.00
Briquette tongs $5.00
Charcoal briquettes $4.00
Butane lighter $1.00
Dutch oven cobbler for life, PRICELESS!

Tom Bain, Outdoor Readiness