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The outside of my dutch oven is covered in black sut. For some reason my gas burner smokes real bad. I've tried to carefully wash the outside with soap to get it off but everytime I touch it my hand get covered. I'm afraid of ruining the pot if I wash it real good. Anybody got a suggestion?
When we make chowder in a large kettle, the kettle gets suited up like that, we just use dawn dish soap on the outside with a scotch bright pad and then we just oil it up again.
First off the burner that is burning yellow needs to have the air plate adjusted to make it burn blue or turn down the gas. Secondly, you can keep the exterior of the dutch oven clean by coated it lightly with dawn detergent. Let it dry. Now when you use it again the soot will collect on the soap layer and be rinsed off when you wash the oven. We use our dutch ovens when we camp out and we maintain the exterior with the soap. Hope this helps.
Check the inside of the burner tube for spider webs. They will cause the burner to burn yellow and soot.
thanks, i guess i should keep stuff a little cleaner around here. the tube was full of spider webs, and i'll adjust the air plate next time fire it up, thanks alot.
scrub the crap outta it and reseason
try scrubbing it with a very coarse salt and a damp(not wet) dishrag.
This is the way to do it...you don't need to take your seasoning off...just clean this way...Quote:
Originally Posted by duc hntr
I jus thro the sheets in the washn machine
I know this is an old post but here is an old boy scout trick.. first off.. never wash your dutch oven like you do other dishes!..always boil out any left over stuff in the dutch.. it will rust.. even if you add a bit of oil to the inside of it...for the suit on the outside you can coat the outside of it with a paper towl dipped in dawn.. it will burn off but will wipe clean easy...we had this issue with the camp coffee pot use over an open fire...the dawn works.
Coat it before you cook with it then after cleaning coat with oil
I wash my pans so it don't happen to mine. I inherited some that were very crusty on the outside - tossed them in the campfire and let it burn off then washed them and re- coated them.
If your pans rust after washing them they are not seasoned enough. My first coats of seasoning are always done with lard. It will burn into the pan and create a hard coat. I do about 5 layers of that before even thinking about veggie oil or anything else. But i would say I have at least 8 coats on my pans. Nothing sticks to them including scrambled eggs. The only thing I will not cook in them is tomatoes - tomato acid will eat your layers of coating little by little and you will know when its almost gone when everything you cook tastes like tin.
My process does not happen over night. I use a clean cotton cloth to lightly coat the pan. Extra grease is just a waste. Then I burn that coat on - it does get stinky and smokey so a nice day and open windows (I use my attic fan) then I allow the pan to cool and repeat the process over and over. It's worth the effort and time it takes.
Well My Dad who used to go to a lot of yard sales and stuff collected cast iron stuff and when he bought things that really needed cleaning from being rusty and gunked up would just put them in the oven and run it through a cleaning cycle and they would come out like new then he would re-season them . But only if it is all cast iron , I have seen some with the ceramic coatins too but it will not work for those.
Gary
I think I,ll try the dawn on mine