Need a new Dutch Oven

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Thanks for the link, but their campfire warning confuses me. Didn't Lodge get its start over campfires? I can't imagine why they would consider that harsh useage. But I thought we were talking about burying the pot in embers and covering it like a clambake for an all-day slow-cook. That is harsh treatment, but it was also invented by American pioneers headed west, using Lodge cookware. The one time I tried it (on a magical schooner trip around the Maine islands), it worked really well.


The warning is for enameled cast iron, not plain cast iron. Plain cast iron should have no problem in or over campfires.
 
Hi erehweslefox, sounds like your best bet is to start checking Craig's List. ;)
I've never heard of the Chincoteague Islands, so had to look it up. Looks like a beautiful area! Have a great time - hope to see pics when you return. :)

YOU'VE NEVER READ "MISTY OF CHINCOTEAGUE"???? OMG, Cheryl. You absolutely must. Or see the movie. btw, Chincoteague is one island.

515VKMKQFPL._SX333_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
 
Last edited:
Thanks GG - I did read it back when I was a very young girl - I KNEW that name sounded familiar way in the back of my mind!
 
No!

You never want to put ceramic coated cast iron in a campfire.

Ditto to what Jennyma said.

Lodge knows what they are talking about since it is their product. You can bet that they put their products through every test possible. Including using it over or even in a campfire.

When in doubt, always go to the site of the maker. :angel:
 
erehweslefox (we have to find you a short nickname...), you might want to consider this beauty I found at the Lodge website. The main downside is if you will be using this for backpack hiking the weight could really slow you down. However, the lid to the pot will double as a skillet, as long as you have something you can use to grab the ear handles out of the fire.
https://www.lodgemfg.com/dutch-ovens/5-quart-cast-iron-double-dutch-oven.asp

On the other hand, the camp oven does have the lid that allows you to heap hot coals on top of the lid to give yourself surround heat.
https://www.lodgemfg.com/prodcat/camp-ovens-and-grills.asp

You could always go with both of them - His and Hers models. :ermm: runs away...
 
Ditto to what Jennyma said.

Lodge knows what they are talking about since it is their product. You can bet that they put their products through every test possible. Including using it over or even in a campfire.

When in doubt, always go to the site of the maker. :angel:

Well, yes ... but after several cookups on a camp fire, a couple of bouts buried in fire embers all day, and about 20 years of other use, my cheap Chinese Dutch oven is still going strong, sporting only a couple of discoloured spots.

The main problem I find with the Chinese ones are slightly poor fit of the lid, and the rim exposes raw metal, whereas Lodge and Le Creuset coat it with black ceramic.
 
erehweslefox (we have to find you a short nickname...), you might want to consider this beauty I found at the Lodge website. The main downside is if you will be using this for backpack hiking the weight could really slow you down. However, the lid to the pot will double as a skillet, as long as you have something you can use to grab the ear handles out of the fire.
https://www.lodgemfg.com/dutch-ovens/5-quart-cast-iron-double-dutch-oven.asp

On the other hand, the camp oven does have the lid that allows you to heap hot coals on top of the lid to give yourself surround heat.
https://www.lodgemfg.com/prodcat/camp-ovens-and-grills.asp

You could always go with both of them - His and Hers models. :ermm: runs away...

Fox works fine, CG. They say erehwesle is just elsewhere backwards. My given name is Todd, which is Latin for, well, Fox.

Yeah I'm thinking just getting a Lodge. It is a bit more outlay than is in the budget, but I am at a stage in my life where I'm not losing camping gear any more, whether through loaning it out to Irresponsible People and not getting it back, or Sudden Inexplicable Moves to random parts of the country, I'm married, and all now, and I think those days are behind me, so I might as well go for quality, right?

Beloved Wife got me a Lodge skillet for Xmas one year past, and that thing is excellent. I've got it seasoned now to a fare-thee-well and some. I can even cook tomatoes in it, and it just laughs at me and cooks them. HA it says, you were told not to cook acidic foods in cast iron? You are quite silly. If a nuclear bomb ever detonates, I am hiding behind the Lodge skillet. And probably pan frying some peppers immediately thereafter.

And this dutch oven is for car camping, not backpacking. I've heard tell there are aluminum models for such, but I don't hold with it. A dutch oven should be cast iron. When we go out in the woods with backpacks, I totally have this thing where I use a propane stove to heat up a flat rock, trust me it rocks (that is my one pun for the day)

Cheers,

TBS
 
Last edited:
Then you can't go wrong with Lodge. Our daughter is a co-leader for a Girl Scout troop. They are still shoving the same Dutch oven and sskillets into the fire now that their troop leader bought used when she started her troop in 1985.
 
Our daughter is a co-leader for a Girl Scout troop.

Cheers to your daughter! I have a lot of respect for the Scouts, particularly anyone that leads a troop, Eagle Scout myself. If she has a Girl Scout troop that is doing outdoor cooking, with a Lodge oven, they have my respect. We are working to get to a place where we can have kids. I hope they will be involved in scouting. Well, I can do that, by getting involved myself right?

If your daughter wants the troop 24 backpacking cookbook, I think I have it as a PDF.

I love cooking, but I learned it as a boy scout camping. It turns out that Beloved Wife, well, can't be trusted in the kitchen to boil water. Most of my recipes are Scout recipes, In that I could do them on a campfire.

I've branched off from that, and gotten good at some things like baking, but I am in my soul a campfire cook, making something edible to fuel us up so we can go back out into the world...

Cheers,
TBS
 
Back
Top Bottom