Lodge Logic L8SK3 10-1/4-Inch Pre-Seasoned Skillet Review
Lodge Logic L8SK3 10-1/4-Inch Pre-Seasoned Skillet Review
Product Description
Seasoned, ready to use. This skillet is a kitchen's most essential item. The even heating of cast iron is necessary for golden, tender, perfectly pan-fried chicken. What other cookware can rival the heat retention, versatility, value and durability of cast iron.. 10-1/4 inch diameter.
Product Details Color: Black
Brand: Lodge
Model: L8SK3
Dimensions: 3.25" h x 10.50" w x 14.75" l, 5.00 pounds
Features 10-1/4-inch skillet perfectly cooks steaks, pancakes, chicken, and plenty more
Rugged cast-iron construction heats slowly and evenly
Pre-seasoned with Lodge?s vegetable oil formula and ready for immediate use
2 pouring lips and helper handle; loop in primary handle allows hanging
2 inches deep; wash with a stiff brush and hot water; lifetime warranty
You can buy Lodge Logic L8SK3 10-1/4-Inch Pre-Seasoned Skillet in best price at Cast Iron Skillets Store
Customer Reviews
My new favorite pan
After waiting a month to get the thing because it was back-ordered, I FINALLY got to try out my skillet. I love this thing! Most of my cookware is garden-variety non-stick and hardly suited to things like searing steaks or fajita meat.
You can run this pan as hot as you dare without hurting it - works great for steaks, and makes an awesome cheese steak. The pre-seasoned coating works as advertised, and the cast iron gives good heat transfer and VERY even heat across the entire pan. I think I'm going to be using this skillet A LOT.
A handy suggestion regarding cleaning that I stumbled across on another website... be SURE to use a hot pad while doing this! Immediately after cooking, fill the pan with HOT water (not cold; you could crack it!), put it on high heat, and bring the water to a rolling boil... this will lift debris off the pan bottom. Dump the water and immediately wipe dry with a paper towel, set on the (turned-off) burner briefly to dry completely, and wipe the cooking surfaces with oil.
Another note - want those steaks well-done but juicy? Buy the Lodge Logic 5-qt Dutch oven; the lid fits this skillet! Sear both sides of the steak on medium-high (about 3 min each), then flip, reduce the heat to medium, cover, and cook as desired, flipping the steak once along the way (about 5 minutes per side for a small, well-done filet mignon). Your cooking times may vary, but the combo of cast-iron skillet for searing and lid to keep things moist while cooking works exquisitely. Brown, not black, outside... and tender inside.
Excellent
I have 2 pieces of Lodge cast iron cookware. This one and the 12" un-preseasoned skillet which I conditioned myself. I have to add my voice to the chorus of cast iron admirers who don't know how they ever survived without their Lodges. I do about 80% of my cooking with one or the other. Steaks, burgers, any type of sauteed chicken recipe, stir-fry, fajitas, cornbread, bacon and eggs, pancakes, french toast, grilled cheese sandwiches, and on and on.
Cast iron's chief strength comes from its massiveness. It is basically a honkin' big hunk of iron formed into a cooking utensil. This large quantity of metal, once heated, will tend to evenly distribute its heat and stay hot no matter what you put into it. Futhermore, once properly conditioned (which Lodge has done for you here), they are almost as non-stick as teflon.
Unfortunately, cast iron is not without its faults. Its greatest strength may also be its greatest weakness in that it is significantly heavier than other types of cookware. This skillet weighs about 6 lbs. Imagine trying to pick that up, plus the weight of whatever you've cooked in it, with one oven-mitted hand so that you can use a spoon in the other hand to help maneuver your recipe into a serving dish or storage container! If you have weak hands or arthritis or any condition that limits your ability to pick up and manipulate heavy objects, it may not be a good choice for you.
Also, iron will rust if not maintained correctly. Lodge provides you with use and care instructions which are not complicated or difficult, but which you MUST follow to the letter. Read the instructions carefully when you get your pan. No dishwasher, no soap (just hot water and a stiff brush), dry quickly and coat with cooking oil.
I've read some reviews where folks are saying that you can't cook tomato-based or acidic products in cast iron. Though it may be true, I've never found an authoritative source to corroborate this and, in fact, Lodge's website (lodgemfg.com) offers recipes that contain tomatoes and acidic ingredients! I regularly put tomatoes, tomato sauce, wine, lemon juice, etc. in my cast iron and haven't seen any ill effects from doing so.
These pans are so inexpensive, it will cost you very little to give them a try. If you do, you'll be singing their praises with the rest of us!
Timeless classic for the modern kitchen
Sorry for the long review - for the short review, count the stars!
I'm a bit of a purist. I always season my cast iron - new, or used (hey, I don't know WHAT someone else used that old piece of cast iron for - maybe cleaning auto parts). I sand it down to bare metal, starting with about an 80 grit and finishing with 200.
Then I season. The end result is a glossy black mirror that puts Teflon to shame. There are two mistakes people make when seasoning - not hot enough, not long enough. These mistakes give the same result - a sticky brown coating that is definitely not non-stick, and the first time they bring any real heat to the pan, clouds of smoke that they neither expected or wanted. I see several complaints here that are completely due to not knowing this.
But there were a few pieces I needed (yes, needed, cast iron isn't about want, it's a need), and this was one of them, so I thought I'd give the Lodge pre-seasoning a try. Ordered last Friday, received this Friday - free shipping, yay!
The first thing I noticed was the bumpy coating. The inside is actually rougher than the outside, and my hand was itching for the sandpaper, but that would have defeated the experiment. This time, I was going to give the Lodge pre-seasoning a chance before I broke out the sandpaper. So I scrubbed the pan out with a plastic brush and a little soapy water, rinsed well, put it on a medium burner, and waited. Cast iron tip number one - give it a little time. Then give it a little more time. Cast iron conducts heat much more slowly than aluminum, so you have to have a little patience.
Then I threw in a pat of butter, and brought out the natural enemy of badly seasoned cast iron - the egg. And, sure enough, it stuck - but not badly, just in the middle. A bit of spatula work and I actually got a passable over-medium egg. Hmmm. But still not good enough. So I cleaned up the pan, and broke out the lard.
I have only one justification for using lard. I don't remember Grandma using refined hand-pressed organic flax oil, or purified extra-virgin olive oil made by real virgins. Nope, it was pretty much animal fat in her iron. A scoop of bacon grease from the mason jar beside the stove and she was ready to cook anything. Grandaddy wouldn't eat a piece of meat that had less than a half-inch of fat around it. "Tastes like a dry old shoe.", he'd declare if it was too lean. In the end, I'm sure their diet killed them, but they ate well in the meantime. Grandaddy was cut down at the tender age of 96, and Grandma lasted till 98. Eat what you want folks - in the end, it's pretty much up to your genetics.
So I warmed up my new pieces, and smeared a very thin layer of lard all over them - use your fingers. Towels, especially paper towels, will shed lint, and lint in your seasoning coat doesn't help things at all. Besides, it's kinda fun.
Here's cast iron tip number two - season at the highest temp you think you'll ever cook at - or higher. If you don't, you won't get the full non-stick thing, and the first time you bring it up to that temp you'll get clouds of smoke from the unfinished seasoning. I put my pieces in a cold oven, and set the temp for an hour at 500 degrees (F, not C). Yeah, I know, Lodge says 350. Lodge doesn't want panicked support calls from people whose house is full of smoke. Crank the heat up.
You have two choices here. You can put a fan in the kitchen window and blow smoke out of your house like the battleship Bismarck under attack by the Royal Navy, or invest in an oxygen mask. You will get smoke. You will get lots of smoke, especially if you're doing several pieces at once, like I just did. This is a good thing - that's smoke that won't be jumping out to surprise you the first time you try to cook with any real heat. The goal is to heat until you don't get smoke, and in my experience, 500 degrees for an hour does that pretty well.
Let the pieces cool in the closed oven. Then re-grease and repeat. And repeat again. And don't glop the fat on. Just enough to coat. More thin layers are better than fewer gloppy layers. I managed four layers last night without my neighbors calling the fire department.
Seems like a lot of work? Look at it this way. It's a lifetime commitment. Treat your iron well, and it will love you right back like you've never been loved before. And this is pretty much a one-time deal, unless you do something silly.
The end result of my all-night smoking up the kitchen exercise? Dry, absolutely no stickiness, black as a coal mine at midnight and shiny - but still bumpy - could it possibly work with that rough surface?
I put the skillet back on a medium burner, put a pat of butter on and tossed in a couple of eggs. After the whites had set a little, I nudged them with a spatula, and they scooted across the pan. I'll be... it works. My wife came back from the store and wanted scrambled eggs. If there's anything that cast iron likes less than fried eggs, it's scrambled. But it was the same thing all over again. No stick. No cleanup. Just a quick hot water rinse with a brush in case something got left on the pan (I couldn't see anything, but hey), then I put it on a med-hi burner till dry, put a thin coat of lard on the pan and waited until I saw smoke for a minute. Let cool and hang up. Done.
So. do I like the bumpy texture of the Lodge pre-season? Nope. Does it work? Yes, and contrary to my misgivings, it works very well. My wife pointed out that even some Teflon cookware has textured patterns in it. The Lodge pre-season isn't a perfect surface out of the box - but it does give you a big head-start. After a night's work, my iron is ready to face anything, and you just can't beat that.
Lodge makes a great product. For the quality, durability, and versatility, you can't beat Lodge cast iron. Plus, it's made in America. I like that. If you've never experienced cast iron cooking, you've just been cheating yourself. Plus, the price, for a piece of lifetime cookware, is insanely cheap.
And my sandpaper is still on the tool shelf.
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