Which is the best brand of cast iron cookware and what makes it so?

Question

Audrey · Answer

There are a number of good brands. Lodge, Le Crueset, and Calaphon are highly rated. There are others as well. I really like Lodge myself but that’s because it’s what I started out with and didn’t even know about others until I started looking around online.

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Claire · Answer

Any American made cast iron is better than the Chinese ones. The reader being the finish tends to smoother. This helps in food not sticking.
However, any cast iron cookware will perform great if seasoned properly.
The first mistake people make is trying to season the pan in an oven. It just won’t get hot enough. You need really hot temperatures to turn oil into carbon, which is what the seasoning is made of. A layer of carbon bonded to the metal.
The perfect device to use is a turkey fryer burner. It’s flat, stable, and can get as hot as 800–900°F. Plus you can put multiple layers of seasoning on in less than an hour. If you don’t have one, a really hot charcoal grill can substitute, but takes more work.
Once your pan is seasoned like this, you can scrub and clean it …

Emery · Answer

While Weber is purported to be a good one, I urge you to try Goodwill, a Habitat for Humanity Re-store, or any other place where folks donate “stuff”. If you are not lucky enough to have inherited great old cast iron, you can score something wonderful fro your imaginary great grands and so something good for a local charity at the same time. I know —- it’s old, it’s used, and it will take some TLC. But that’s the point —- cast iron ages wonderfully so old is good, all that use is just its history, and the tender loving care of seasoning it properly and nurturing it until its perfect (waaaay better than modern non-stick) is necessary even if you buy one brand new and have to age it for a while before it turns into a great pan. The “romance of cast iron “ —- you can start out anew and put in the time or you can buy one that needs a good home, and it will deliver all the love and good that a rescue puppy does. Really!

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Xime97 · Answer

Le Creuset makes enameled cast iron that is well-balanced as to weight and heat retention, easy care due to the enameled finish, and comes in a beautiful array of colors to complement any kitchen.

For bare cast iron, go with Lodge, which makes both the heavy kind and a newer line of lightweight cast iron skillets that are easier to heat and handle.

Either way, cast iron is the best way to cook food. It provides that steady, intense heat which draws the flavor and nutrition from the food and makes it more delicious, more nourishing and definitely more special.

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Camila · Answer

Let me add this:
If you can’t find a 100 year old skillet at your local flea market or garage sales, go ahead and buy a new one. Get US made rather than Chinese. And forget the “preseasoned” crap, it isn’t true and wouldn’t be worth it if it was.
Take that brand new skillet out to the garage and get some sandpaper— 3M WetorDry, or any other silicon carbide abrasive sheet, is better than garnet paper for wood, but use what you have; garnet takes longer but it still works. Start sanding the inside of that pan, both the floor and the sides, using progressively finer grades of paper, until it is glass smooth. You can finish it with a whetstone if your patience will hold out. If you happen to work solid surface countertops for a living, or something, and have a set of rotary polishing stones in various grades handy, by all means use them. I just wouldn’t buy them for this purpose specifically.
Yes, you’re going to scrape out the preseasoning doing this. No, it doesn’t matter.
The key to that is making it smooth. In your G’Grandma’s day, cast iron pan companies polished the inside of their pans before selling them. Nowadays, to save the cost, they just leave the mold marks in them. So get them out before you try to cook. All those little bumps will make the naturally non-stick properties of cast iron less effective. Smooth as a baby’s behind is where you want to be.
Then season the pan. First wash it in hot soapy water to get all the sanding dust and manufacturing oils off of it. Traditionally, that would be the only time a pan would be washed in hot water, but it’s actually possible to wash it occasionally if you re-season afterwards and coat with oil to prevent rust. Dry the pan thoroughly. Hit it with the paper towels and finish up with a blow dryer. Very dry is what you want.
Then give the pan a light coating of vegetable oil; anything from olive to canola will work, just whatever you have handy and like to cook with. Coat it everywhere, in and out, and don’t forget the handle. DO NOT leave any water under or miscible in the oil, it will turn to steam and pop. Place the oil coated pan in an oven preheated to 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Then turn off the oven, leaving the pan in it, until it cools to room temp. Remove the pan, wipe off any excess oil, then re-coat with fresh oil and repeat the seasoning three times.
You will then have a kinda-sorta, more-or-less seasoned cast iron skillet. (For full seasoning, fry eight pieces of chicken in the pan for dinner, 7 nights a week, for 35 years or so; that’ll do it.) From there, your pan seasoning will get harder and deeper the more you use it with any kind of oil. If a piece of food does stick, it’s OK to use a plastic scraper to get it out (Lodge and others make one specifically for cast iron pans), but the traditional method is to put a pinch of salt on the food bit and rub it out with your finger. Once it is removed, remember to coat the abraded part with oil to prevent rust.
It really isn’t necessary to wash the pan after using it. If you’re doing it right, the next time you use that pan it will already be far hotter than anything bacteria can survive before food goes anywhere near it. Which leads me to my next point. Don’t put food in a cold pan. Heat the pan to cooking temp before you do. Cast iron is not particularly good at even heating, or heating fast, or any of the stuff modern pans are famous for. What it does, better than any other pan material, is hold the heat it has. This was hugely useful when cooking over a wood stove because temps in them will vary. They also provide a flavor and finish you just can’t get in any other material; that’s why people still use the nasty, heavy things even if we have precisely heat controllable stoves to use them on now.
If you have to wash the pan after you use it— don’t let grandma see you abuse it like that— because you are a child of modern times and you just can’t stand looking at it like that, it’s actually OK. Well, it isn’t optimal, but it can be made to work, if you don’t mind frying chicken every night for 70 years to season it, instead of 35. Do still be careful about scraping the pan to clean it; never use a metal abrasive scouring pad. Nylon net or a plastic scraper works and— I think— the pinch-of-salt method is still best of all. Then wash it as normal. Hit it a lick with a towel to get most of the water off of it, and put it back on the stove. Heat the pan until it is dry, then melt a tablespoon of shortening in it, or pour a couple of ounces of vegetable oil in it. Spread the oil around with a paper towel— careful, it’s hot— and coat the pan everywhere except the bottom over the heat. Don’t forget the handle or it will rust. Continue until the oil in the pan is smoking like a house on fire. Then turn the heat off and let it sit. When cool, wipe off the excess oil and you’re ready to go next time.
Good luck, and happy cooking.
PS, FWIW, I just bought my woman an 8×12 baking pan in cast she wanted and I couldn’t find used for the life of me. So excuse me, I have some sanding to do.

Gianna · Answer

There aren’t a lot of brands, and the best known is Lodge. Lodge has a good reputation for quality. E.G. Moye mentioned Le Creuset, but to the best of my knowledge they only make porcelain enameled cast iron. If that’s what you want, Le Creuset is well respected but terribly expensive. Lodge also makes enameled cast iron for a lot less money.
There are other brands and I don’t know if they are good or not. I bought a set of cast iron a couple decades ago on sale at macy’s and I don’t know the brand name, but they certainly work well and have held up to a lot of cooking.

Camila · Answer

I don’t know from brands but in the early ‘70s the family and I were moving into a rental house in Lubbock TX. Above the small separate garage there were lots of old family things stored. In that storage mess from the past owners (The husband had worked for the Railroad and was deceased, the wife and still owner of the house was in an assisted living Nursing home). I went to see her to inquire about the stored stuff which was sort of an archeological find of early Texas and from someone still living. I won’t bother with the other things found in storage but she gave us the green flag to take and use whatever we found useful.
There were RR pocket watches and bags of oil company stocks that were mostly defunct and amongst all of their treasures were 2 cast iron cooking utensils. One, a fry pan about 4” deep and 14” in diameter complete with lid large and heavy enough to protect yourself from raiding Comanches. All I could think about was the many times this pan must have been used to fry chicken after church on Sundays in West Texas and I wanted it so bad I even returned a 2nd time to ask about it specifically! The second cast iron piece was what is commonly called a Dutch oven w/lid and a heavy duty wire handle for lifting it on and off the wood stove or even into the fireplace.
I still have both pieces and the fry pan is still used frequently even to make my Osso Bucco as well as the BEST Buttermilk fried chicken and whenever I’m cooking for more than two. The Dutch oven is not used nearly as much but I keep it seasoned and ready!
For someone with a culinary bent it was like finding hidden Confederate gold! Well…almost!

Kinsley · Answer

Howabout I answer the question, so there’s at least one real answer here…
I own several Skeppshult pots and pans, and can’t really complain. They are new, but oldschool.
No added metals, no aluminum core… Nothing. They are heavy as all hell, but I finished a 2000 gram, post sous vide, T-bone on it within seconds. The pan screams when you put the meat down, and still has enough heat to keep going as you turn the steak.
I didn’t have to sand it, or do any other special thing to it as so many other answers seem to suggest. First few foods will stick no matter what. Just don’t make eggs on it until well down the line and you’ll be fine.
You can use soap, you can put it in a dishwasher… The only thing that will get to it is long periods of soaking.
Yes, it has bumps. No, it doesn’t matter. It actually provides more surface contact and better crust than a smooth cast iron, I found.

But, before you run off and buy one of those pans, I’ll make a suggestion. Most people just think they need a cast iron pan. It’s impractical for day-to-day cooking, and most home “cooks” have no idea how to cook properly, being used to teflon and all that.
If you want to get something better thanthe basic pan, just go for steel. It can double for your basic pans, and has enough heat capacity to do steaks. Not to mention better heat conductivity than cast iron. Cast iron is abysmal in conducting heat.
A cast iron, and an aliminum pan dusted with flour, and put on the heat. You can see the way the heat spreads. Not.

A nice deBuyer steel pan will do nicely, cost half as much as Skeppshult, and you won’t get carpal tunnel by using it every day.

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Reese · Answer

I am a fan of Lodge, but as many others said, buy American because of the quality.
There are comments about enameled pans. My dutch oven is enameled cast iron (Cuisinart brand, no need to pay for Le Creuset). But all of my skillets and the griddle are uncoated.
As for seasoning, search for “season cast iron with flax oil” I’ve now stripped seasoning from all of my pans (just put it in the oven on self clean) and redone them that way.
By the way, you can sometimes find old cast iron (often rusted) in tag sales and such. Don’t hesitate to buy them. There are several YT videos on cleaning off the rust.
(And speaking of rust, make sure to wash with some plain soap and dry carefully. I usually dry with a towel and then put on the stove to heat up a bit, or in the oven if warm from recent use)
One more thing. Cast iron retains its heat for a long time (one of its benefits). Be careful about the handle when in use, especially if coming out of the oven. Wear two gloves.

Kylie · Answer

It completely depends on the need and budget of the individual. Like I wanted a cast iron non enamelled pot for cooking outside while camping for a group of 4–5 people and post my search, I found Lodge to be a good brand for the same. If you need an enamelled one which requires less maintenance with high premium quality, you can opt for brands like Le Creuset or Staub but would cost you quite a high amount, worth for the quality. There is another similar option hitting the market next month. I have registered for the early bird, you can too!

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Faith · Answer

There are several great brands. You can spend a lot of money on products from Finex, Staub, or Le Creuset. All great products. You can also save quite a bit of money and buy products by Lodge, Bruntmor, or Tramontina which also are excellent brands. Stay away from off brands as you can end up with poorly made cast iron with inconsistent thicknesses in the walls and bottoms which will cause uneven cooking. Also you can end up with chipping enamel if you choose enameled cast iron from a less than well known brand.
I’d recommend Lodge as the best reasonably priced cast iron brand on the market today. If you’d like to learn more about cast iron here are some articles from CastIronConnection.com .

Emma · Answer

Probably the oldest and best Lodge Cast Iron. Located on Cumberland Plateau of the Appalachian Mountains is the town of South Pittsburg, Tennessee (population 3,300). It was here that Joseph Lodge and his wife settled and, in 1896 opened his first foundry. It’s still there today, and expanding.

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Valentina · Answer

My personally preferred brand of cast iron cookware is Bergner. Reason being I have used to now for more then 12+ years and have had no complaints till now.
Not Just Cast Iron their are many other goods products given by them I suggest you to check them out.

admin1997 · Answer

One of my prize possessions is an antique Griswold 10″ that belonged to my mother. You might find them at flea markets for a song if you’re lucky. I also have an 8″ Wagner that’s at least 50 years old and very good.
The interior surface should be smooth. If it has grooves and marks that make it look like it was ground out by a circular sander, it’s garbage.
Some people swear by the French brand that’s enamel-coated. Probably great, but I’ve never needed it.

Daisy · Answer

I’m terribly sorry to say it, but Lodge cast iron is garbage. It is preseasoned, supposedly to make it easier for you, but seasoning a pan takes like 10 minutes. When I season cast iron I heat it at high heat and then apply a thin coat of butter and its done. I wipe the pan down with butter every time I use it and nothing sticks it’s surface is like ice. Preseasoned cast iron they put some kind of nubbly coating on the pan which everything you cook will stick to it, so go figure. I hate Lodge cast iron, go with a vintage Griswold or Warner and learn what a great pan is about. Le Creuset is great cookware but it is not really considered cast iron because you are actually cooking on the enamel surface not the cast iron one.

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Beatrix · Answer

As long as it is heavy it should be good. I have a chinese made one and one made in the USA. They both perform equally well. You don’t have to spend a lot. You can season them in the oven as they will hold a lot of heat. Some come pre seasoned but I always preheat and oil and let it cool on it’s own Keep it clean and dry and keep it oiled. There are some good U Tube videos.

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Peyton · Answer

Cast iron is the most steady and versatile material so far available in the market today and passes down through many generations. You may probably found one in your grandmother’s kitchen. Cast iron enables you to relive the memories of old traditional cooking taste and aromas.
When you are choosing a particular brand I personally advise you to go with Lodge. Lodge company manufacture exceptionally produce a high-quality product and with proper care, it will serve you for a generation. The hard part of a traditional cast iron pan is that they need to be seasoned before cooking, so you can get the smooth reliable nonstick coating. However, this going to be frustrating for a newbie.
To help beginners cook who want to start their cooking journey, Lodge is a unique choice as is it comes pre-season so you don’t have to worry about seasoning. You get a complete review of the best Lodge cast iron cookware on homeandkeychen.com

Sarah · Answer

Lagostina, Lodge, and Le Crueset are all pretty good. Lodge is still the standard, Lagostina is smoother inside, Le Crueset is usually enameled and it is usually more expensive.
I actually prefer to buy cast iron used and the stuff with a G inside a diamond is very good.

Which is the best brand of cast iron cookware and what makes it so?

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