How to Restore and Season a Cast-Iron Dutch Oven
Shameful. That’s the word.
This is my beloved Dutch oven—final resting place of many a piece of venison, ducks, and Mexican casseroles cooked on many a campfire. But after frying up three squirrels a few weeks ago, I took up blasphemous behavior. I let this cast-iron pot sit too long before cleaning, then I cleaned it poorly, and then I ignored my baby. It wound up with a rusted patina in place of the well-seasoned, non-stick sheen I’d worked years to foster.
This pot should be taken from me—physically removed and placed in a foster home for abused cast-iron cookware awaiting an environment in which love and care are ever present.
Instead, I am going to restore it, and therewith, restore a bit of my own blackened soul.
Clean-Up
The first order of business is to clean off loose bits of old seasoning, burned-on food scraps, and the despicable rust and general funk. I turned the oven on to 300 degrees. Then I gave the black pot a good scrubbing with soap and water. All the while, I reminded myself that soapy water should never again touch this pot.
Rinse and Dry
Next, I gave it a good rinse, then placed in the oven for a 10-minute drying session.
Oil and Salt
Time to get serious. I removed the pot from the oven and cranked up the heat to 450 degrees. I poured a quarter-cup of liquid oil (I used Canola, which is what I had, but olive, vegetable, peanut, or others will work) and a cup of coarse kosher salt into the middle of the pan. Using a clean cotton rag, I worked the Dutch oven over, adding more oil and salt as needed. I scrubbed inside and outside, and was meticulous around the known rusty spots. I may have cooed quiet apologies during this time, much as a mother would to a child who’d fallen off a tricycle.
Rinse, Scrub, and More Heat
I rinsed off the pot and give it a stage-two scrubbing, this one using a solution of a cup of white vinegar to a quart of water. Rust, crud, and loose seasoning is gone, showing bare metal where the new seasoning will be applied. Another rinse, then I placed it in the 450-degree oven for 10 minutes to dry thoroughly.
Refinishing
Next I took the pot out of the oven and let it cool enough to handle. I turned the oven down to 300 degrees. While it was cooling somewhat, I worked a thin layer of Crisco all over the oven, inside and out, lids, handles, everything. Back in the oven it went, upside down, for an hour, during which it smelled like I was running a blast furnace in the house. This is a small price to pay for the alchemy taking place.
Cool and Repeat
I removed the pot and let it cool. Look! So much better already. I wiped away excess grease that pooled in the bottom—then gave it another round: More Crisco and another hour-long spa treatment in the oven.
The Finish
Almost done. I removed the Dutch oven from the modern oven, and lookee there. Good as new—or even better, good as old. This method creates a fine seasoning base to work with, and work it you must. The more you use a freshly seasoned black pot, the longer the seasoning will last, and the better it will perform. To get started, I fried a pound of bacon in the black pot.
I felt better already.
The Meal
I reintroduced my Dutch oven to polite society with a whopper pot of venison carbonnade, made from the haunch of my son’s first deer. I used Jonathon Miles’s recipe from the Wild Chef, to which I added a green pepper and diced parsnips. Why? Because it just felt like a special day.
Fear of purchase limits sends bullets flying — off the shelves
The caller wanted to know whether Lloyd Cook had any 9 mm ammunition in stock.
“I asked him how much did he want,” said Cook, owner of an Independence gun range, “and he said, ‘All of it.’”
Across the country, bullets are flying off store shelves as people stockpile ammunition.
The big question: Why?
“There is no good answer for this,” said Kevin Jamison, a Gladstone lawyer and spokesman for the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance. “Panic buying seems to account for some of the shortage, but I don’t believe it can be all of it.”
Some point to concerns that the government might limit ammo purchases in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. Others blame the Department of Homeland Security, which has a big purchase in the works.
The rush to buy isn’t rational, said Larry Swickard, a member of the Western Missouri alliance.
“But it seems to be having a ripple effect in that when people see a significant number of people buying up all the ammo they can find, they follow suit for fear of being left out with none for themselves,” Swickard said.
“Maybe we are just doing this to ourselves.”
And, as always happens when demand shoots up and supply bottoms out, buyers are paying a dear price.
Before Christmas, Cook said, you could buy a brick of .22s — 500 rounds — for $18. “Now I’m hearing people paying $60 or $70 for one,” he said.
Retailers still can’t keep those small-caliber bullets in stock.
“We haven’t got any .22 calibers — we’re out,” Cook said. “I don’t know who has any. Anytime anyone gets some, customers buy ’em up within a day.”
Wal-Mart stores are limiting sales to three boxes per customer per day. The amount of ammunition in each box varies by caliber, a Wal-Mart spokesman said, such as a 25-count box for 9 mm bullets and a 50-round box of .45s.
At Blue Steel Guns & Ammunition in Raytown, the ammo truck rolls into the parking lot on Fridays. Last week, a crowd of customers was waiting for the shipment, and all 60 boxes of .22-caliber and 9 mm ammunition — thousands of rounds — were gone in 18 minutes.
“They never even made it to the shelves,” said owner Steve Brackeen. “We just had enough time to slap a price on them and sell. And we ran out before everybody in line got some.”
Brackeen isn’t complaining. Business, he said, is good. While customers wait around for the ammo to arrive, “they are buying up everything.”
A year ago he had no trouble keeping his display cases and gun racks full. Now, the cases are sparser and “quite a few” racks are empty.
Gun sales and concealed-carry permits have jumped since Barack Obama was elected — and re-elected — president. After Sandy Hook, Obama unveiled a gun control proposal that includes universal background checks, bans on assault weapons and elimination of armor-piercing bullets.
But Jamison said he knew of no active proposals for federal legislation that would limit the amount of any other type of ammunition a person can buy at one time.
And then there’s Homeland Security’s plan to buy more than a billion rounds of ammunition.
“My understanding is these are standing, not necessarily take-delivery, orders,” Swickard said. “But the fact that Homeland Security, and the government in general, has offered no reasonable explanation for such huge purchases would be more than enough to fuel the fears of those inclined to see conspiracies behind every change in a routine.”
Homeland Security officials have said the ammunition contract is nothing more than routine business. The bullets, ordered in bulk over five years, are used in the training of about 70,000 agents and officers employed by the 90 agencies included within the department.
Some police departments have expressed doubts that they’ll have enough ammo to allow officers to keep up with their annual range qualifications.
For its part, the Kansas City Police Department is pretty well stocked, Sgt. Marisa Barnes said.
“Our range staff anticipated this and did some creative ordering.”
The supply side isn’t likely to catch up with demand anytime soon.
“We are sold out for 2013,” said David Shaw, marketing director for Fiocchi, an international ammunition manufacturer with a plant in Ozark, Mo.
Fiocchi added an extra shift to increase production, but Shaw said the plant can’t get in front of the demand.
This isn’t the first time Shaw has seen a spike in demand.
“But it has never happened to this degree,” he said. “Industrywide, we are not able to keep up.”
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