Seasoning Your Dutch Oven

Taking good care of your new Dutch oven or Cast-iron cookware will help it last for many years. The first thing that you will do when you get your Dutch oven is to break it in and season it. Cast Iron is very porous, kinda like a sponge. The idea of seasoning your Dutch oven is to fill all the fine holes with cooking oil and then convert the oil to carbon with heat. The carbon eventually fills up all the holes and creates a non-stick surface. In order to do this follow these steps:

• Remove the protective coating that is sprayed on to prevent rusting during shipment. To do this, scrub your Dutch oven with hot water and dishwashing soap. The is the one and only time you will ever use soap on your Dutch oven!! After cleaning, rinse well and dry with a towel. Let oven air dry to prepare for seasoning.
• Prepare your area for seasoning. Your Dutch oven can be seasoned at home in your kitchen oven (will smoke up and stink up your house), in an outdoor gas barbecue, or by setting it outside on about 8-10 charcoal briquets with the lid separately over the same number of briquets.
• Preheat your oven or grill to 375° F. Once your Dutch oven is dry, place it in the center rack with the lid ajar. Allowing the Dutch oven to preheat and warm slowly until it is just barely too hot to handle prepares your oven by driving out the rest of the moisture and opening up the pores.

• Using a paper towel, thoroughly coat the oven inside and outside with a solid type shortening. Since it is messy, do this over newspapers. Let them cool and wipe off the remaining shortening. As the oven cools, it sucks the shortening into the pores.

• Finally, lightly coat the oven inside and out with a good brand of vegetable oil and bring it up to about 350° F for about an hour. Let it cool and wipe out any excess oil with a paper towel and you are READY TO COOK!

• Cooking Tip: Avoid cooking anything that has a high acid content like tomatoes or anything high in sugar like cobblers for the first 2 to 3 times cooking after seasoning your oven. This may cause the protective covering to break down so use caution in the beginning.

Cleaning Your Dutch Oven

After seasoning your Dutch oven, the next important step that you must do is make sure you clean your Dutch oven properly after each use. Use these two important steps in cleaning:

First, Remove all the food from your Dutch oven without using soap. To do this you can place warm water in the oven and heat it up. Use a good scrubber or coarse sponge to gently break away remaining food.

Second, Maintain your protective coating. Apply a thin coat of oil to both the inside and outside of the oven and allow it to cool completely. You want to make sure you oil the outside and lid to keep the protective barrier and keep it from rusting.