Thread: Cast Iron Dutch Oven Cooking

Some of you may know me from the Outdoor Smoker Thread. For those who need a briefing, I just recently purchased the Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker and have been enjoying smoked meats for about a month now. The WSM smoker is quite versatile and I've had several very enjoyable main courses, but I think it's about time to add to the outdoor cooking arsenal.....

My next venture is to try a cast-iron camp style dutch oven such as this one:



I envision making stews, soups, chilis, breads, cobblers, breakfast casseroles and more in them. All while enjoying the great outdoors!

I got the inspiration after watching an episode of "Good Eats" last night. The topic as you may have guessed was Dutch Oven Cooking. Alton Brown made a scrumptious looking dish by cooking in a dutch oven over charcoal briquettes. With a lot of outdoor dutch oven recipes, it also calls for charcoal briquettes to be placed on-top of the lid as well. This flat, flanged style lid design and legs on the bottom are made for this process in mind.

Do any of you have any experience with Dutch Oven Outdoor Cooking? I'm curious to hear your experiences. I already have a 12" Lodge skillet, but am wondering which size I should start off with for the dutch oven? What size dutch oven are most recipes based on using?

Try this out....this guy is a riot.


RFD-TV - Rural America's Most Important Network

I've mostly seen the 10 and 12" varieties in recipes. I get most of mine from the Boy Scout sites and they are generally for 8-12 boys and a couple of adults.

We have cooked most anything you can imagine being baked including the stews and pot roasts, but also things like paper bag poached salmon, enchiladas, lasagna, pineapple upside down cake, etc.

Yep, I watched Elton as well. Good show, but he barely scratched the surface. One good tip is that if you are doing cakes or something that needs definition, line the oven with aluminum foil. Not only does it make it a lot easier to clean, but the result just slides out of the pan instead of coming out in little chunks.

To get in the mood, I just re-seasoned my existing Cast Iron 12" skillet and cast iron roaster last night. Here's my current arsenal.....





To season, I simply slathered every bit of the pans in vegetable shortening, then put in the oven at 350°F for 1 hour. Once done and cooled, the pans had a nice glaze over them. Years of future cooking on these are supposed to season these to a point where they're 10x better than any non stick or Teflon coating.

I will be on the hunt for the 12" Camp Dutch Oven this weekend. Then I can start cooking over charcoal.

Walmart has one, but it isn't Lodge...


Walmart.com : Camp Chef 6-Quart Classic Dutch Oven : Camping

In order to cook out on my deck, I'm thinking of getting one of these.....



This cooking table with ultra convenient wind screen is from Cabela's

We used them in Boy Scouts. I think that we made a cobbler in them. You'd just dig a small pit, and put a much of camp fire embers in it, put in the dutch oven, and then cover it up with more embers. I was a kid back then and the adults did the cooking, so I don't remember the techniques though (nor what we actually cooked).

But I remember it was good.

The picture is somewhat misleading though. Best technique calls for significantly more coals on the top than on the bottom. I believe the best ration we found for a 350 degree cook was 9 on the bottom and 17 on the top. YMMV.

Originally Posted by jayn_j

The picture is somewhat misleading though. Best technique calls for significantly more coals on the top than on the bottom. I believe the best ration we found for a 350 degree cook was 9 on the bottom and 17 on the top. YMMV.

Yeah I've heard the same thing. The main reason I'm looking at this table is to have a solid fireproof surface that I can perform the dutch oven cook. Plus it's of the ground and easier on the back...