Can Stains Be Removed From Enameled Cast Iron?

I've acquired two pieces of Griswold enameled cast iron that is stained. One piece seems to have a burned on stain and the other maybe just stained. Doing a search online for how to clean these two pieces I came across seven different methods for getting rid of stains on enameled cast iron. Wanting to clean the two pieces for sale, I don't need these two pieces for my own kitchen and don't see a reason to add them to my "collection".

I thought this might be interesting to see if any of these cleaning methods work. The experiment could be cut short if one of the methods actually work. I'm a bit dubious that any of the cleaning methods that I have found so far will actually work. So here goes, starting with what I thought would be the best way to clean my enameled Griswold.

Denture cleanser made a lot of sense to me as the best method of cleaning enameled cookware. It would seem that dentures and enameled cookware are made from very similar material so why wouldn't it work? Shopping for denture cleanser, a product I've never bought and know nothing about, took much more time then I had anticipated. The different brands, different ingredients, different cleaning times and the obvious different prices.

I decided to go with the store brand denture cleanser, price being the major factor because any of the remaining product will probably never be used. Most of the store brands I have ever purchased have been of high quality, some in fact I prefer to the name brand. I bought the one with baking soda and a 15 minute cleaning time.

The cleaning was done using the directions on the box. The two pots were nested one inside the other, the large pot being about two quarts and the smaller being about 1 1/2 cups, so the small pot easily fit inside the larger. Figuring that my two pots are a little larger than a set of dentures, I used four tablets leaving the pots to clean for the 15 minutes or a little longer.

The result of the cleaning was nothing that I could see. So I tried another cleaning, doubling up the amount of tablets used to 8. In addition to using double the amount of cleanser, I increased the cleaning time to several hours. There was no difference, no cleaning took place that I can see. Would there have been a difference had I used the name brand, doubt it but I'll most likely never know because can't see myself using this method again.

Upon reflection there would seem to be one big obvious difference between enameled cast iron and dentures. Dentures are hardly ever heated to burn food onto them! Six cleaning methods to go unless one happens to work.

Easy to Stop & Hard to Start Again

Wow it has been a long time! What a messed up year I've had for this blog! Almost totally abandoning this thing, but not quite. I've been thinking about this a whole lot and trying to get back to it. Well here I am, back at last? At least I hope I'm back.

I've been working hard the last couple of weeks trying to stock my stores on eCrater, Etsy and Facebook. The stores have run extremely low without me having much chance to get new items listed. Like I said it has been a messed-up year.

We got kicked out of the house we were renting. In April we were notified that we had 90 days to get out. Well, the landlord first raised the rent for June by phone call and then sent us a letter verifying the rent raise. The letter also said, Oh by the way I want you out by July 15. So we went out looking to buy a house even though we had right of first refusal on the house we were renting. The landlord refused to give us a price he wanted to sell the house for.

Well within a week in April we found a house and put in an offer. The homeowners didn't want to move until July 15th. We got them to move their date to July 8th giving us a week to move. We started looking for storage units but none were available until about the 3rd week in May. We filled the first 10 x 15 unit within a week and tried to get another unit.

We had to wait until mid June for the second 10 x 15 unit and we pretty much filled that one in about another week. We tried to get another unit any size but none were available. We finally got a 10 x 15 unit in an air conditioned building toward the end of June, filling that unit by July 5th. All during this time our landlord kept contacting us and telling us we had to be out sooner!

The landlord's sister a real estate agent called yelling at us that her brother was being too nice to us and didn't have to give us that much time to get out. So the landlord tells us he wants to paint while we are still in the house, he would be there on the 6th of July to start painting, so we told him we would be out on the 1st of July. Because of all the problems with getting storage units we didn't quite make it.

Our landlord shows up on July 4th while we were still finishing up and wanted to know why we weren't out. We finished the next day on the 5th of July. We had moved out and into a cabin with a bunch of our stuff, our 2 cats and our houseplants on the 1st of July. By July 5th when we finished our 2 cars were full of odds and ends and things we couldn't get into our 3 storage units.

Part of the move very obviously involved moving my cast iron, cleaned, not cleaned, items for sale, parts of my collection, all kinds of stuff. I don't know how many pieces, but a lot, way too much, way more than I wanted to move. The cast iron probably easily weighed over half-a-ton.

I never shut down my stores and kept selling things all during the move and when we lived in the cabin. There was only one item that I had a lot of trouble finding that I had sold. We ended up living in the cabin for 15 days and not one of them was any fun. We were cramped for space surrounded by piles of our stuff in a one bedroom cabin with 2 adults, 2 kids and 2 cats. A friend or ours took care of our rabbit so we didn't have to worry about him and his cage taking up a lot of room.

We were supposed to close on the house on the 8th and of course that didn't happen. At the last minute our bank brought up issues that weren't issues. Our loan officer was out with 2 ulcers that needed surgery. The loan officer's backup took the day off for personal issues. We were left just hanging in the dark.

We ended up closing on the 15th of July after missing another date of the 13th. The actual owners of the house were traveling back and forth from NY to ME for the closing. The actual owners wanted to cancel the sale on us, blaming us for the delays after we waited for them for over 3 months because they wanted to throw a farewell party in the house. When we finally signed all the papers the owners refused to turn over the keys to us because they didn't want to be held liable if anything happened!

This turned into a nice little row in the lawyers office. There was me and my wife and our real estate agent, their real estate agent who was on our side even though she was friends with the sellers. They were an elderly couple and their daughter and daughter-in-law (who was living in the house). And stuck in the middle was the poor closer, the lawyer was gone for the weekend and couldn't be reached.

The elderly woman wanted her money right then and there or she wouldn't turn over the keys. Our real estate agent came up with drawing up an agreement that absolved the sellers of all responsibility which we signed so we could get the keys. The real estate agents all said it was the absolute worst closing they had ever been involved with.

Now I had to start moving all of our stuff out of storage and into the house! Week and weeks and weeks of moving stuff. I haven't finished yet we have a lot of stuff still in one storage unit and a lot of boxes here at the house yet to unpack. We are trying to decide were to put things in our new home.

Our old landlord kept our security deposit accusing of of all kinds of stuff. It was unbelievable the things he accused us of. He complained because he had to top off the oil tank because it was $17 below full, what is that 5 gallons of oil from a 275 gallon tank! He hasn't sold the house yet and is renting it again after holding out for five months trying to sell!

Then to top it all off, I had a little spot of basal cell carcinoma. The doctor proceeded to cut out a 4 inch strip from my back with 15 stitches, telling me to do nothing for 4 weeks. The doctor's husband is her partner and he removed the stitches, I thought I was all set at that point but my wife asked the doctor if I needed more time and he said to go another 2 weeks without doing anything.

That is about the point the depression really started to set in, 6 weeks with doing nothing! But now I'm finally back at it! I have a lot of ideas for blogs and a lot of things I promised in the past to write about. So there are many, many things to do. I've added a couple of things to my collection that I can write about. More book reviews, more auction reviews are to come! A blog about Griswold in general, maybe some amusing items about buying cast iron.

Our "Quirky Little "L" Shaped Home" my name for it anyway. I have started calling the "L" "The North Wing" to make it sound like we are living in a mansion. Ha, Ha! My store is eventually going to be in the"L" at the white door you can see.

Great Gloves!

I was using Playtex HandSaver gloves to clean my cast iron. I bought them at Wal-Mart (XL size I think). The gloves worked in that they protected my hands from the lye used to clean the cast iron but that is all they were good for. Playtex gloves are not good for protecting hands from hot water and they don't allow for very good grip very slippery. They fit quite tight are are difficult to put on and take off. The one positive is that they are fairly cheap. 

I would probably still be using the Playtex gloves had they not changed the size.  The gloves were made smaller so I could no longer get them on at all. So I cleaned my cast iron for a little while without gloves making my hands extremely sore and raw from the lye. Then I discovered these great gloves made by Towa online.

The GO GREENS™ LP (Liquid Proof) - ActivGrip™ Nitrile Coated 12" Utility Gloves with MicroFinish™ Grip by TOWA Glove are perfect in my opinion. Again I use the XL size and they are easy to put on and take off. These gloves are lined so I can use the hottest water out of my tap and my hands are protected, no more burning. They have a grip surface so they are not slippery at all. Besides these great features, the gloves protect me from the lye and are said to last five times longer than regular rubber gloves.

I have been using the Towa Nitrile gloves for quite a while now and they do seem to last a lot longer than the Playtex gloves. I probably would have gone through 2 or 3 pairs of Playtex gloves by now and the Towa's are still going strong. If there is such a thing as love for a pair of gloves then I think I'm in love. As you can see these have been well used! Here is a link to the gloves on Go Gloves Online where you can get great deals buying multiple pairs. http://www.gloves-online.com/proddetail.php?prod=LCR-566

Griswold #8 Slant Erie Logo Skillet With Wooden Handle

Another magnificent find! A Griswold #8 slant ERIE logo with a wooden handle! This pan was manufactured between 1906 and 1912. It is in great shape with a bit of marking on the inside cooking surface, but that is to be expected with a 100 year old pan. The bottom is marked "8 GRISWOLD ERIE 726 A".

I have this in my collection. But I'm not really a "collector" so I also have it for sale. If someone wants to buy it for the price I have listed in my stores they are welcome to it. I now have four stores, Etsy, eCrater, InstantFinder and Junkables. The price is $249.95 plus $15.95 shipping which includes insurance and tracking.

Quesadilla in Cast Iron Skillet

This technically wouldn't be a quesadilla because I don't fold over the tortilla - I use two tortillas. This is a little spicy version, just like I like it.

Spicy Quesadilla

Heat your #9 cast iron skillet slightly above medium on about a 5 1/2 or 6.

Butter one side of 2 soft taco size tortillas - I generally don't use real butter I use Olivio Light.

Grate about half a cup of cheddar cheese.

When skillet is properly heated place first tortilla in skillet butter side down, sprinkle cheese evenly around the tortilla.

Sprinkle a half a teaspoon each around on top of the cheese of refrigerated crushed red peppers and crushed garlic.

Place the second tortilla on top the cheese, red peppers and garlic with the buttered side up.

When the bottom tortilla is sufficiently browned turn the whole thing over with a spatula so that the top tortilla is now on the bottom.

When the new bottom tortilla is browned to the desired color, place it on a plate and cut into serving size pieces.

Eat and Enjoy!

Updates About a Variety of Stuff

I promised pictures of the Griswold pan I found in the charity shop once cleaned as I subjected you to the dirty pictures in "The Competition Can be Fierce" post. Well the pan turned out to not be worth the time. It is pitted on the bottom and then it turned out to be cracked. I didn't think it was cracked to begin with so maybe I cracked it somehow but I don't think so. I haven't had very good luck with the fully marked Victor pans. This one ended up pitted on the bottom and then cracked while an earlier one which can be seen in post "Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! It's Broken!" came in the mail with the handle broken and it was cracked.

In the post "Seasoning Cast Iron - My Way UPDATE" you can read that I've been doing a bit of experimenting with my seasoning techniques to see if there is a better method. I just want to update about the temperature that I use for seasoning 500 degrees. I have now gotten to as low as 425 degrees but don't care for the results. Even at 475 degrees the cast iron looks wet and greasy, not what I'm looking for so I am working back toward 500 degrees. The lower the temperature the wetter and greasier the cast iron looks. The last batch I did was at 480 degrees and it seemed to be what I'm looking for, so I guess that is the lowest I should go with the temperature.

In my post "Molasses as a Rust Remover" I said molasses works as a rust remover and it does. It does a fantastic job if you have a lot of time. You don't necessarily have to dilute the molasses with water as the post states and I found somewhere online. I took molasses straight out of the bottle and coated my very heavily rusted Favorite Piqua griddle and hung it up down in the basement (cellar) for a couple of months, the molasses was starting to get moldy. I then put the pan into my lye bath because I didn't want to scrub all that molasses off, I took the pan out after a couple of days and washed it good and all of the heavy rust was gone.

Update on the Favorite Piqua griddle that I used for the post "Molasses as a Rust Remover". Where the pan had the heaviest rust it was pitted beyond use. Sad to say but I should have put it back on the shelf where I found it but it has been fun using this pan for experiments and worth the conversation. The surface of the griddle is so ugly that I don't see wasting the time on posting pictures of it.

In my very first post "Wow these were snatched up fast!" I had a couple of Griswold pans that were purchased from my store in what I thought was a very fast amount of time. Well those were kind of slow moving as I posted a Griswold slant logo griddle that I thought was kind of ugly because the nickel coating had worn mostly off. I had this griddle sitting out in the garage for over a year until I decided to clean and season it because I was running out of things to clean and season and I didn't have a griddle in my store because I had sold the one I had. The handle design is rare for Griswold. This griddle didn't last an entire day before it was sold! In my stores I've started using a sold lightning bolt for any sale that is less than a week after posting all others I'm using a sold blue ribbon.

Somewhere I mentioned electrolysis as a rust remover. My first attempt at setting up a tank was a miserable failure. I went with all the advice online for setting up the perfect tank and read and researched and whatnot. Well I fiddled and messed with my setup and couldn't get it to work. The problem turned out to be that there was a short in the battery charger and it didn't work. I returned the charger and there weren't any more on the shelf so I got my money back. In the mean time I've spent the money I had for a charger so I have to save up all over again to attempt getting a tank running.

I think that is all the updates. Hope you enjoy them.

Adventures in Cast Iron

Went to an auction (review later) today that was advertising Griswold and Wagner skillets. They had one of each and four other junk skillets! The Griswold was a small logo #8 late handle and the Wagner was a #10 from the 1960's to 1980's with the size in inches and made in USA on it, nothing special. I was very disappointed having driven for an hour to get there. Deceptive advertising? The one positive for the day was I got to spend time with my youngest daughter (she's 5), we get to go out without mom and big sis and we can act as goofy as we want too.

We left the auction because we didn't like the cast iron and headed back to what we thought was a big yard sale or flea market. All these cars turned down this street and looking down the street we noticed that there were cars parked everywhere along the street. I asked my daughter if she wanted to go to the sale if we had time after the auction and she said she did.

We got to the street and the traffic was horrific. We also noticed it was a church, in fact it was a United Methodist Church. So we were like hey it must be a big church sale going on. We found a parking spot and we headed for the door. We could hear organ music and we thought that was kind of strange for a sale even for a church.

We got to the door and a couple of women came out giving us a strange look. We looked in seeing the minister wearing his long white robe standing by the interior door shaking hands. I said to my daughter this isn't a sale it's a church service, odd for Methodists to have a church service on Saturday. Turning around to leave I saw the hearse and flower vehicle.

We had basically walked right by the hearse to go up to the church door, not noticing it on the way there. I said to my daughter, oh my god lets get out of here this is a funeral. We were both saying hurry up lets get out of here.

When we got back to the parking lot we noticed the two women that had come out of the church giving us the stink eye, they were walking their dog. I'm sure they were giving us the evil eye because of the way I was dressed with my baseball cap, jeans and with my shirt untucked. Who are they to give us a look when they brought their dog to a funeral? I ask you who brings a dog to a funeral? We got out of there as fast as we could blaming each other for ending up at a funeral looking for cast iron.

We ended up at Dunkin' Donuts. On the way home we saw a bald eagle fishing! Bad day for cast iron but fun just the same.

Review of "300 YEARS OF Kitchen Collectibles"

300 Years of Kitchen Collectibles by Linda Campbell Franklin is an extremely handy book to have if you are into collecting cast iron kitchenware or any other item for the kitchen. I refer to this book as the encyclopedia. At 896 pages long, 300 Years would seem to cover everything!

There are not enough pictures in 300 Years, very few in fact. Mostly what you get is a brief description for most items and maybe a drawing here and there with a few photographs thrown in. While this doesn't seem like much it in fact is quite comprehensive and requires a lot of reading to match things. A tremendous amount of research went into the compilation of this material I'm sure!

This book contains a very nice section on cast iron muffin pans with pictures of most of them. The muffin pan section goes way beyond just Griswold and Wagner pans, which I find extremely helpful! You may run across an odd piece of unmarked cast iron, as I have, when I bought a muffin pan for my wife and then found it was actually worth about $45 and is collectible. The photographs that are included are excellent.

300 Years also includes lots of fraud or reproduction alerts to help the novice collector keep from being taken advantage of. There are also old recipes included along with old advertising stuff, measuring conversions, history, definitions, and a whole host of other things. The bibliography is extremely impressive and can lead you to a lot of other collecting books that might be more in line with your specialty of collecting.

If you are interested in collecting items for the kitchen, then this book is indispensable! If you are a cast iron collector, then you probably will be disappointed in this book, although I use it all the time because it goes beyond the basic Griswold and Wagner collecting. I like this book and recommend it highly.

New Cleaning Tool for Cast Iron

I have found a great new tool for cleaning my cast iron. A brush! Not just any brush but a Lysol Flexi Brush. I found this brush at Wal-Mart for around $3 in the cleaning supplies section. The brush is meant for the bathroom but who cares, if it works for other applications why not use it. This simple brush has gotten my #10 Lodge skillet from my posts "Why Cast Iron Cookware?" and "Why Older Cast Iron Cookware?" the cleanest it has been in quite some time without hurting the seasoning, the grease and cooked on stuff is gone.

This brush is far superior to the Lodge or Williams-Sonoma brush for cast iron. First of all the Lysol brush is made of plastic not wood like the other brushes so when I want to clean it I can just pop it into the dish washer. The Lysol brush has much stiffer bristles then the Lodge or Williams-Sonoma brushes and will even work on rust. The Lysol brush doesn't have a wooden handle that will break off.

The Lysol Flexi Brush is plastic without a handle, you grip it around the brush. There are slots in the sides of the brush that squeeze together when you grip it, hence the flexi. I have found this flexi system much easier and more comfortable to use than any other brush. I didn't get any hand cramping as I normally do with the other brushes.

I was going to add a link to the brush somewhere on the web but I can't find one. Go to your local Wal-Mart or other retailer that sells Lysol products and get yourself one of these brushes because you won't be disappointed.

Cracked Cast Iron Pans!

What to do with a cracked cast iron pot or pan? First of all don't use it to cook with! I've been told that a cracked pan can explode. Do I know that a cracked pan can explode, no I don't. I imagine though that it can. What I think would happen is that water or moisture would get into the crack and expand into steam when heated and break the pan apart.

Technically would the pan explode, probably not but if full of oil and whatever you are cooking you could end up with quite a mess. Just as likely to happen is that you would get burned by splattered hot food or oil. So please don't use that cracked pan for safety sake.

If it is an old pan that you adore or has been handed down to you from your grandmother or some other cherished relative and you just can't get rid of it. Hang it on the wall of your kitchen as artwork. Old cast iron is wonderful as a decoration and you can tell people that it is Americana art.

If the pan is not so old, or not so cherished or not even a family heirloom then by all means recycle it. Don't throw it out, it can be recycled and cast iron is the original recycled item dating back hundreds of years. Don't use that cracked pan for cooking but use it for artwork or recycle it.

What is Cast Iron Cookware Made Of?

There are four basic types of cast iron; white iron, gray iron, ductile iron and malleable iron.

White cast iron is characterized by the prevalence of carbides, impacting; high compressive strength, hardness and good resistance to wear.

Gray cast iron is characterized with graphite in the microstructure, giving; good machinability and good resistance to wear and galling.


Ductile cast iron is gray iron with small amounts of magnesium and cesium which nodulates the graphite,  resulting in; high strength and high ductility. Very similar to malleable cast iron but pieces can be cast larger. Ductile cast iron is the newest form of cast iron and is also called nodular cast iron.

Malleable cast iron is white cast iron heat-treated to improve ductility. Malleable cast iron is more like mild steel but is limited in the size that things can be cast because it starts with white cast iron.

Not being an expert in metals or metallurgy I will now try to describe some of these terms.

Ductility is the irons ability to withstand bending or twisting pressure without fracture, while malleability being very similar to ductility is the irons ability to deform when compressed and not fracture. Galling is the irons ability to not form a lumpy surface e.g. when welding. Nodulates refers to the graphite in the iron forming round balls instead of flakes which helps to prevent cracks because of greater distance between balls as opposed to flakes.

What does all this mean? I don't know. But cast iron cookware is made from gray cast iron according to everything I've read and it is fairly easy to obtain this information online. There is no such thing as black iron. But my cookware is black you say. Yes it is, from the carbon formed from the grease or oil used to season it.

The only way to tell what kind of iron is used to make something is to break it. Once the iron item is broken then you look at the break to see what color it is. If the break is white you have white cast iron, if the break is gray you have gray cast iron.  Another way I know that cast iron cookware is made of gray cast iron, I've received enough broken pieces to be able to look at enough cast iron cracks to tell you they really are gray.

Now all these so called experts who use the term black iron are just plain wrong. One of the experts who helped to form one of the largest cast iron collecting groups and has written the bible on cast iron collecting, references "Principles of Metal Casting" and "Casting and Forming Process in Manufacturing" in the bibliography of the bible, this guy calls it black iron within the bible. How can this be? I don't think he actually picked up either of the books he cited to make his work appear more impressive.

Another of these experts and co founder of the same large cast iron collectors group is supposedly an educated (he has a doctorate and works for a prestigious university) man, he calls it black iron. This guy even refers to himself as the Black Iron Dude. If he were a black man it might be O.K. to call yourself the Black Iron Dude, but he isn't a black man, he is referring again incorrectly to what cast iron cookware is made of.

Enough ranting on my part but I think you should at least try to get your terminology correct. Get the terminology correct especially if you are a noted national voice or so called expert in the field. If you are out there educating others you should be giving them the correct information.

Seasoning Cast Iron - My Way UPDATE

Seasoning Cast Iron - My Way UPDATE

In my studies of seasoning and cleaning cast iron I have some new information to impart here about what I've learned with a little closer scrutiny of my techniques.

1. I said in my earlier post that you could probably use less time for seasoning than I was using and the answer is yes indeed you can use less time as I'm now down to one hour and getting the same results.

2. If you leave the Crisco on the stove top to melt for too long then you will get a sticky seasoning when you are done and this is not the desirable results at all. So keep the melting temperature of the Crisco low and take it off the burner as soon as it is melted.

3. Do not leave the cast iron for more than 5 minutes before wiping off the excess Crisco as this will cause streaking and again this is not an ideal look for the finished product.

Hope these new suggestions improve your finished showpiece cast iron cookware.

#10 MARIETTA PA Skillet

My personal collection; those pans I intend to hold onto, while very small so far is also getting quite diverse. I find great beauty in all kinds of cast iron cookware and I don't limit myself to just Griswold. Although Griswold is considered the best(more on that in a later blog), I find it rather snobbish to collect only Griswold but to each his or her own.

Wine drinkers(another snobbish group & I used to be one of them) don't usually limited themselves to just one kind of wine, they try different vineyards, different wineries, different vintages, different grape varieties and so forth. I can just hear the Griswold collector doing the same; why I have Erie pans, diamond logos, slant logos, block logos and even some small logos, I am still looking for a Selden and Griswold pan. But you haven't tried different vineyards or different wineries, you may have achieved different vintages and different grape varieties but you are still lacking.

I found this pan a #10 Marietta PA Skillet and I think it is quite lovely. It has a rather rough cast handle with a "10" on it. The casting of the cooking surface is surprisingly smooth when you consider how rough the handle looks and how rough the bottom is. The bottom reads "MARIETTA PA" at the top and "10 IN" at the bottom. I find this interesting that it is labeled 10 inch because it is nearly 13 inches at the top which is the general measuring place for a pan and it is over 11 1/2 inches at the bottom. The bottom has an inset heat ring, a large gate mark and two points on the bottom and another on the handle that are nice and round and stick out; probably risers for the casting process.

I hope you enjoy the pictures of this pan as much as I enjoy having it in my collection. It really needs to be cleaned, you know what they say the dentist has the worst teeth in town. Probably an old pan as I don't know a lot about Marietta Pa Cast Iron but another indication of age is the one pour spout which is for right handed people.

Tasty & Juicy Low Fat Hamburgers

There is always a problem with cooking low fat hamburgers; they come out dry and with very little taste! Well this recipe solves those problems, these burgers have plenty of taste and they come out juicy as well!

Tasty & Juicy Low Fat Hamburgers

1 1/4 pounds of 90% lean ground beef (that's right 90% lean)

4 ounces finely chopped fresh white button mushrooms (I suppose a 4 oz can of mushrooms can be used in a pinch)

1 teaspoon crushed garlic

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 Tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil (Much healthier fat! Not nearly as much fat as using 80% hamburger which is used for most hamburgers)

1 teaspoon refrigerated crushed red peppers   (optional but not for me)

Mix it all together will in a large bowl. Form into 5 large patties and grill in a stove top grill pan such as the one pictured from my etsy or ecrater store. I will be listing a larger grill  pan in the near future.

Serve with your favorite condiments on a multigrain or whole wheat bun.

Suggestions for toppings: cheese, sprouts, onions, lettuce, tomato, pickles, relish, muffuletta or anything else you can think of.

Griswold #26 Vienna Roll Pan - Pattern #958

This is a new addition to my collection a Griswold #26 Vienna Roll Pan Pattern #958. These pans were produced from the 1920's to the 1940's. This pan is variation 1 with a rarity of 4 on a scale of 1 to 10. There are only 2 variations of the #26 pan and they both have a book value of $175 to $225 but the #26 is the same as the #6 Vienna Roll Pan. The #6 Vienna Roll Pan has 6 variations with the values ranging from a low of $75 for variation 2 up to $300 for variation 6. The #6 pans were produced from the 1880's to the 1910's and it appears as if the number was changed from 6 to 26 so that it wouldn't be confused with the #6 Gem Pan. The #26 pan is considered somewhat common and rather easy to obtain. The size of the pan is 12 3/8 x 6 3/4 x 1 but it is fairly light at just under 3 pounds. Hope you enjoy looking at this great pan.

Why Older Cast Iron Cookware?

Why use older cast iron cookware? Why not use new cast iron cookware? Isn't newer cast iron better than the old stuff? Shouldn't the older cast iron cookware just be collected and used for decorations?

Older cast iron cookware is better than the new modern stuff. The older cast iron such as Griswold, Wagner Ware, Favorite Piqua, Wapak and many others was cast smoother than the newer cast iron. The smoother casting is a result of using a higher grade iron ore than is available today. The older pieces were cast by hand not machine which resulted in finer casting because a finer grain sand can be used in molds when hand casting versus machine casting.

The older cast iron cookware is actually lighter than the modern cast iron cookware which would seem to be counter intuitive. An example of the lighter older cast iron is a #10 Griswold slant logo skillet versus a #10 Lodge skillet both of which I have available to weigh. The Griswold weighs in at 4 1/4 pounds versus the Lodge weighing 7 1/2 pounds, quite a significant difference! The side wall is approximately 1/8 of an inch thick on the Griswold versus approximately 3/16 of an inch thick on the Lodge. I wish I could find my micrometer.

If you look at the two pans you can see that the Lodge is noticeably rougher. This roughness translates into the cast iron not being able to hold its seasoning as well and not being as nonstick as the much smoother Griswold. Lodge stopped finishing (making them smooth) their pans in the 90's in order to compete with foreign competitors.

As for collecting old cast iron and not using it, I'm for whatever you might want to do. If it is your personal preference not to use the older cast iron and just stick it up on your wall so be it. They make wonderful decorations but they were meant to be used and cooked with. I currently have one Griswold skillet that I use and one Wagner Ware which I will feature in another post.

Most of the cast iron I use everyday is actually Lodge (see earlier post Why Cast Iron Cookware?). I was given a Lodge loaf pan that I love and as a present I was given a Lodge long handled wok. Woks were not make by the other manufacturers and this wok and the loaf pan while not terribly old are much smoother than the current Lodge pans.

This is the Griswold Slant Logo and it is for sale in my store at Etsy. Although photographed smaller you can still see that it is nice and smooth!

This is the Lodge pan from 2002 and you can plainly see that it is much rougher than the Griswold pan.

Why are Lids - Covers - Toppers so expensive?

This is a #5 Wagner Ware skillet with matching lid. The underside looks the same as the underside of the Wagner Ware dutch oven below.

Why are lids so expensive? The answers are obvious if you think about it. Not all skillets came with lids. In fact most skillets didn't come with a lid. Over the years as the available lids have become broken; the handle on top of the lid is the weak spot if the lid is dropped, the price of the remaining lids have increased in value. Most times the lids are worth more than the skillet.

I have seen on ebay where sellers separate the lid from the skillet and list both separately. I feel that separating a lid from the skillet and selling them separately is a crime; not a crime that they should be arrested for but just a crime against sensibility. The reason they separate the lid from the skillet and sell them separately is that the lid is worth more by itself than when it is sold with the skillet. Does the lid being worth more by itself than with the skillet make sense; no not at all.

I am always on the lookout for lids. I have a few on my list to complete items that I own and would like to put up for sale. What I have fought doing but is done by a number of top sellers on ebay and elsewhere is sticking any old lid on a chicken fryer or dutch oven and selling it for enormous amounts of money! The temptation is great to sell skillets and dutch ovens with mismatched lids but my conscience wouldn't allow it.

The most common mismatched item is a dutch oven because a dutch oven isn't much good if it doesn't have a lid. Commonly what you see for sale on ebay by top sellers is a Griswold or Wagner dutch oven matched up with a Lodge lid. Why? Again Griswold and Wagner are worth much more money than the Lodge and Lodge lids are readily available (because they are still manufactured and Lodge doesn't put their name on their lids) where Griswold and Wagner lids are not readily available.

These sellers then turn a virtually worthless piece of old cast iron into a valuable piece of cast iron but not really. These unscrupulous sellers then sell to unknowledgeable or uneducated buyers. These poor uneducated buyers then think they have bought an original Griswold or Wagner when in fact they have been duped into buying something worth a lot less than they paid for it. To identify a Lodge lid look at the underside and see the drip points which are called nipples (see earlier post Why Cast Iron?) and much older Lodge or another manufacturer Birmingham Stove and Range (BSR) have inverted nipples.

Below see some items for sale in my store that have lids that actually match the skillet or dutch oven!

This is an unmarked Wagner Ware dutch oven with a Pyrex lid - this is the correct lid for this dutch oven.

This is a Wagner Ware dutch oven with matching lid and a view of the underside of the lid.

This is a Griswold Iron Mountain #8 skillet (deep skillet) with matching lid and a view of the underside of the lid.

Shopping Tips for Vintage/Antique Cast Iron Cookware

When out shopping for cast iron cookware there are certain things you want to look for. Your treasured find may be covered in grease, dirt and grime as well as rust so you may want to take along gloves or hand wipes. If you are at a big event such as a flea market you may want to take along something to carry your finds in such as a backpack or a wheeled cart. Make sure your back can take the strain or that the wheels on your cart are solid and won't break under the strain of the heavy cast iron.

Expect to pay full retail prices for items that are clean! Items not cleaned you should figure on the price being discounted 20% to 30% or even more from retail pricing. But be careful with pieces that are covered in grease as you never know what is under that grease. I have overpaid a number of times for items covered in grease that were not as perfect as they appeared to be. One nice #9 Griswold block logo skillet covered in grease turned out to be quite pitted on the bottom from use on a coal stove. I can't resell this pan as people look at it and make a inward sucking sound when they see it, so it has become an everyday user in my kitchen, it is a great pan probably the best pan I use.

Take any pan you are interested in and handle it, check it over thoroughly. Feel the pan, is it smooth or rough? Put the pan on a flat surface and grab the sides does it rock back and forth? Knock the pan does it have a nice ring or a thunk? You want the pan to be smooth, sit flat and ring. The ring means it has no cracks but don't be fooled, knock the pan all over with a metal object because knocking on the bottom only you might miss a crack, like I have on a beautiful #9 Erie pan. I knocked the bottom of the Erie pan and it rang like a bell but I later discovered it had a crack near the handle. So I knocked the Erie pan again and it rang like a bell on the bottom but as I knocked around the sides I discovered the thunk from the crack that I could now see because I had cleaned the pan.

One thing that is extremely important to remember is not to get overly excited about a find. Stay calm. Don't let your heart race away with your emotions. Look at any cast iron purchase as a business transaction. Easy words to say but extremely hard to do. I get carried away far too often and make mistakes overpaying or buying damaged goods. So do as I say not as I do because I have a growing pile of broken pieces of cast iron in my garage.

If this sounds like too much, you can always buy from my store! I have already taken the risk on dirty, grimy, greasy and rusty pans and cleaned them to a beautiful condition and offer them for sale at very reasonable prices in my store at Etsy.

The pan that causes the sucking sound from people who see it!

Why Cast Iron Cookware?

Why would anyone want to cook with cast iron? There is much newer technology in cookware. Cast iron is so hard to take care of. Cast iron cookware will scratch or break my glass top stove. On and on the questions and perceived problems of cast iron go.

Well let my say this about cast iron cookware; until I discovered cast iron I didn't know what I was missing. My family was a military family so we moved a lot when I was a kid, all of our cookware was aluminum because moves are based on weight. When I got married I had a set of Farberware and my wife had a set of Revere Ware, after we got married we starting buying All Clad. All Clad I must say far out performed both the Revere Ware and Farberware. The Farberware heats evenly but the handles fall off or break, the Revere Wares big weakness is that it warps and the copper bottoms need special care.

Then I discovered cast iron cookware by accident. On our 6th wedding anniversary the iron anniversary we didn't have much money (the story of our lives) and my wife was at a book signing event for her book "The Orphan Seal" at the Kittery Trading Post. I hadn't bought my wife a gift for our anniversary yet, so here we are at the trading post without much money and I saw this #10 Lodge skillet. Well that was it! And I really splurged and even got the lid to go along with it. You must agree I am quite the romantic!

I'd like to be able to tell you that it was an instant love affair between myself and cast iron but it wasn't. I seasoned the skillet and let it sit around. We moved that great big Lodge around our kitchen for years! We moved with it from Massachusetts to Maryland. My wife couldn't get rid of it you see because it was an anniversary present.

Finally after about 5 years and seasoning the stupid pan and lid at least 3 different times because it would start to rust, I broke down and used it. I can't remember what I made but I remember that it seemed to taste better than it ever had before. That was the start! So now we have quite a collection of pots and pans including a few odds and ends we have cast iron stuff (Lodge, Wagner Ware, Griswold and unmarked pieces that we use all the time), Revere Ware, Farberware and All Clad. We just can't get rid of any of our cookware.

Enough of my personal life, this is supposed to be about cast iron. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration considers iron to be a healthy food additive. Small amounts of iron come off the cookware into your food as it does from any other metal cookware, other types of cookware may not be as healthy for you as cast iron. I like the thought of my cookware helping to keep me healthy.

Now let me start answering the things I posed in the first paragraph. Things seem to taste better cooked in cast iron and they brown better. Cast iron cookware for the most part (some old cast iron cookware has wooden handles) can be taken from the stove top directly into the oven.

Yes there is much newer technology in cookware but not any better. Cast iron is tried and true and performs as well as any of the modern cookwares.  Cast iron cookware retains heat and cooks relatively evenly. Cast iron will last for generations if minimally cared for. Cast iron is easily recycled and is the first ever recycled material.

Cast iron cookware is relatively easy to care for (see my Cast Iron Care post). It is the original non-stick surface so minimal care is required. Keep using it and it won't disappoint you, the more use the better it becomes.

I have used cast iron cookware on 2 different glass stove tops and haven't scratched one yet. I pick up the pan and slide it on only a very small pan surface area as I must admit the Lodge pan is very heavy and difficult to pick up when hot and or full of food with one hand. Older cast iron is much lighter than the newer cast iron. As for breaking the glass store top with cast iron, I'm pretty sure if I drop one of my All Clad pans on the glass top it would break it too.

I hope I've convinced you. This is a picture of the pan and lid that got it all started. Visit my store on the Etsy button below for some great deals in vintage cast iron cookware.

My lid needs some work because it is hardly ever used!

G. F. Filley #10 Gem Pan

Here is the latest addition to my collection! Another pan I am in love with! This is a G. F. Filley #10 Gem Pan which was manufactured between 1865 and 1900. So if I can do the math correctly it is 110 to 145 years old! Wow just think about that for a moment. The pan is 12 1/4 x 8 3/8 x 3/4 and heavy. The bottom is quite ugly and rough but is part of its charm. If you look closely you can read No 10 and G. F. FILLEY on the bottom. These pans were to make individual sponge cakes with a hollow top for berries and cream. The book value is $150 on this one which I decided I like better than the #11 which books for about $225.