It's Grilling Time! The Official Stangnet Grill/Smoke Thread

Best places to get cast iron are your grandma and garage sales and sometimes, antique stores. Cheap cheap cheap.

Modern/New cast iron? The thicker the better.
My wife and I have found a few nice pans at local antique stores. Found a nice little one she’ll use to make breakfast for herself, and a nice medium-sized pan that I use when I want a couple of over easy eggs.
 
I've got my eyes on a Matfer carbon steel pan. Lighter than cast iron with very similar cooking characteristics.

It's on the back burner for now (pun intended) because we got a Blackstone griddle for Christmas and I've still got about a hundred things to cook on it before I move on.
 
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Ok, I bought some bacon, cut it in half and cooked it tonight. This was a tasty first experience with cast iron cooking.

It cooked nicely in the skillets with just a little sticking.
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I used about one to two ounces of hot water and a wooden spatula and the little chunks came right off.

After wiping out the debris I put a small amount of avocado oil and wiped the pans down while they were still hot.

As you can see, the color is getting a little darker each time.
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I‘ll cook the potatoes and onions tomorrow night. I want the big pan to be ready for doing smash burgers this weekend.

Alright guys, let me here your critiques of how i did. I’m new to the cast iron world.

Bacon was really good, btw. No weird flavors.
 
I got two russet potatoes and one half of a red onion sliced and shredded to cook my first hash browns in the big pan this morning.
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Help me to understand the starch/seasoning thing @Noobz347 .

Ill be using the avocado oil to cook things up.

My big pan is warming up right now.
 
So cooking hash browns is a little more like frying, meaning use a little extra oil.

I kind of made patties out of the potatoes and fried them in my preheated skill.

They barely stuck again, thumbs up on the preseasoning so far:nice:. Easy to flip. The browning of the potatoes was really great, something I could never do with my non stick pans. The hash browns had a nice crunchy texture to them.
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I ate mine with some salsa, let me tell you, I really like the flavor of the avocado oil.
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I use my wooden spatula and maybe two ounces of hot water to clean the pan out. It cleaned very easy. Then a wipe with just a little bit of fresh oil and there it is.
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So now I’m off to get groceries, to include hamburger for today’s smash burgers. All this weeks work has been for the burgers.

I‘ll be cooking them between today’s playoff games.

BTW, thanks for y’all’s help in making these pans work. I surely would have screwed them up on my own, lol.
 
Ok, it’s payoff saturday after all the work seasoning the skillet.

This will take two separate post to show the finale’ of making smash burgers. Too many pictures.

Sooooo, where to start. I started by weighing out six loosely packed 2.5 ounce balls of butcher hamburger, thinly slicing the leftover onion from this morning and unwrapping six slices of kraft american cheese.
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I got the charcoal heated up to hell fire level and put the pan over it for it’s preheat. I added two tablespoons of duck fat to cook the burgers in.
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Then came the smashing flat of those burger balls, a little lowery’s seasoning and adding a small handful of the onions to one patty.
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Then I flipped them, you can see that sweat crust developing on the patties.
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Then cheese!
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Then, next post...
 
All cooked and stacked up.
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I used my favorite brioche buns for this burger.
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On bun with a little ketchup and a few pickles.
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This burger is stunningly good. It makes the meat taste well above what it is. I will have to try this with wagyu.

The pan did fantastic again. Couple ounces of hot water and my wooden spatula and all crusty’s were gone. Another small amount of avocado oil wiped in it. I freaking love this pan. I want to try eggs cooked over easy next. Maybe tomorrow.
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My son’s bought me a nice wagyu ribeye for Christmas. I’ll cook this tomorrow before the Chiefs game. I’ll brine it starting tonight.
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The pan did fantastic again. Couple ounces of hot water and my wooden spatula and all crusty’s were gone. Another small amount of avocado oil wiped in it. I freaking love this pan. I want to try eggs cooked over easy next. Maybe tomorrow.

You will probably want to make it a habit of heating the pan back up after you oil it and let it cool normally on top of the stove. I usually heat it back up just until it starts smoking.
 
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I just got a Matfer Bourgeat black steel pan for my birthday and their seasoning instructions are very clear to use potato skins.


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