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I learned how to care for cast iron cookware like dutch ovens from some old timers. Their methods are compatible with standard Boy Scout principles and more modern methods. Some of this may be considered “heretical” by the “authentic” dutch oven cooking folks. You’ll have to decide for yourself.
Here’s some hints that have served me well:
- Use plenty of oil. Use oil even when browning meat, even ground chuck. Maybe not so much with ground beef.
- Lining the oven with foil is not necessary.
- Do not try to rush the cooking: use the suggested number of coals (here’s a rough guide to how many to use).
Here’s my cleaning regimen:
- When the meal is over remove all the food from the dutch oven, wipe it out with a paper towel, and rinse it with water.
- Fill the dutch oven about half way with water and place it on the fire to heat the water.
- When the water is hot take the dutch oven off of the fire, add a small amount of detergent and wash your forks, spoons plates and cups. Rinse the dishes with clean warm water.
- If food is stuck to the dutch oven we use the plastic scrubby pads. They are aggressive enough and have an open mesh that cleans easily.
- Pour out the dish water and rinse the dutch oven with fresh water.
- As soon as it’s rinsed out place the dutch oven back on the coals to dry.
- Watch the dutch oven carefully as it dries. As soon as the last drop evaporates in the bottom, remove it from the fire.
- Pour a large drop (probably a couple of tablespoons?) of oil in the bottom. We generally use Wesson Oil. Take a paper towel and thoroughly coat the entire inside of the dutch oven and the lid with the oil.
- Once the lid and oven are thoroughly coated, place the lid back on and store the DO.
I follow the same regime with my cast iron frying pan after breakfast. The pan is over 80 years old. I got it from my mom. I cook pancakes and french toast in it regularly with no sticking.
Check out this post for sources of dutch oven gear. My kit includes:
- Dutch oven and Lid
- Lid lifter (almost required!)
- Heavy gloves (nice to have)
- Bottle of Wesson oil (We have experimented with different oils. While we often cook with olive and other oils vegetable oil seems to work best for coating the inside of the oven. Olive oil doesn’t coat the inside as well or last as long. Wesson oil is our favorite; it’s inexpensive and readily available.)
- Scrubby Pads
- Paper Towels
- Kingsford Charcoal (get “better” charcoal, not the cheapest)
- Large Plastic Stirring/Serving Spoon
- Ladle
- Three large pebbles and an aluminum baking pan (for baking place the pebbles in th bottom of the oven and the pan on top of the pebbles)
We do not thoroughly clean the outside of our dutch ovens. If you don’t want to put that dirty old thing in the back of your wife’s mini-van after a camp out use a heavy-duty storage container a dutch oven bag or dutch oven box. Mine’s in a surplus Army/Navy surplus store canvas bag. My frying pan is in my kitchen box in the bottom of the box with the dirty side down.
Some of the “authentic” dutch oven folks may and complain and moan about this advice, especially the detergent. That’s ok, I know lots of folks that have done it this way for decades, have yummy food, and healthy Scouts. I think that it’s a good method especially when the dutch oven is troop equipment. Once a Scout goes out and buys his own oven he can do it any way he pleases 
One of the best recipes for Scouts to start with is beef stew. Get a beef stew seasoning packet (McCormick, etc) at the grocery store and follow the recipe on the back . Brown the stew meat in the dutch oven, chop and add the veggies, the water and packet contents and then let it cook. You don’t even need coals on top for this. From there they can work up to other stuff.
Our favorite is lasagna. We have a no-boil-noodle recipe. It’s a little messy to prepare the ingredients and layer them into the oven but it sure is good. We also like to bake biscuits as we have a guy who makes some really, really good sausage gravy for breakfast. Cobblers are also very popular.
Yum. I’m gettng hungry now!
One more thing, touching on what Nandi said, it’s a good idea to store the DO without the lid sealed tightly. I like to lay a triple thickness of paper towels over the lip before putting the lid on. That gives it a little air gap, as well as wicking up the moisture. When I’ve forgotten and left the lid sealed tightly for an extended perios (a couple of weeks or more), I’ve noticed a slight rancid odor that took a while to go away.
Oh, and Nandi, what we typically call a Dutch Oven here is also technically known as a “Camp Stove” since it has those three legs you mention, and a flat lid with a slight lip to hold briquettes on top. A “Dutch Oven” has a rounded lid (to capture steam and drip it back into the pot), usually no legs, and is meant to be suspended over a fire rather than set on it.
I can’t really recommend the soap thing. Maybe I’m just a crotchety old fogey, but the cure (the thing that makes it non-stick) of a cast iron oven/skillet/etc is made up of fat (or oil, same thing) filling the pores in the iron. Soap dissolves fat, so putting soap on a cured DO surface will dissolve the non-stick surface, and then soak into the pores itself so that it can add a soapy taste to the next meal, which will stick to the bottom anyway. Now, if you’re adding a couple of drops of soap to a large amount of water already in the DO, and dumping it out quickly afterwards, you’re probably okay. But if a scout ever got the order wrong, and maybe squirted a big dollop of soap directly onto the DO bottom, then added the water…
We use them quiet a lot here in South Africa. Its called a “Potjie” pot and it has 3 small legs/stand at the bottom so that its not placed directly on the burning coals. Most of the scouts here in SA can make what we call a “Potjie” that can feed their troop. Its a one pot meal with meat, vegetables and some add dumplings on top, then there is a sepearte potjie that they cook either rice or traditional mielie (corn) pap (porridge).
I would go one step further when storing the dutch oven/potjie, after coating it with oil, we place scrunched up newspaper inside to capture any moisture that accumulates inbetween uses.
I have always used Crisco to season my DO’s. (As we were taught at Camp Gardner Dam!) I have tried oil but don’t like it as much. As far as the soap issue goes, I have tried to do it without soap but I don’t think it ever really gets clean without it.
I pretty much follow Larry’s advice. And if I can’t get a good seasoning at camp I will just do it at home in the oven before I store it away. Just heat it in the oven at a low temp like 250°F, enough to drive out the water and melt the Crisco. Let cool completely and store.
Larry, share the recipe for the lasagna, biscuits and gravy if you could!!!
A note on the cleaning business. Note that after warming the water in the DO we add a small amount of bio-degradeable dish soap or Mountain Suds to the water and then wash our forks and plates off. The DO is then immediately emptied and rinsed thoroughly before drying.
Hi,
I have used salt to scrub the inside of the oven. It washes out easily and won’t harm the oven , just don’t forget to added the oil. This and a good plastic scrubber or straight steel wool, not a brillo.
Thanks Larry,
Good advice Larry!
Might I also suggest a couple of apps for thoes who are smart phone enabled.
To figure out how many briquets to use;
Android based- Dutch Oven calculator and Dutch oven gourmet
Iphone-dutch oven calculator
Hi Allan
That’s interesting. I’ve never had a soapy taste. We usually rinse them pretty well. I think that the key is drying it well and then immediatly oiling it.
Concerning the detergent in the dutch oven, I have eaten from ovens that were scrubbed down with soapy scrubbies, and the next meal was definitely flavored by the soap. Maybe when you have the pot half filled with boiled water and you put a drop or two in, it does not deposit the soap in the porous iron, to return again another day. That may indeed be the only way to use soap. And using this water as wash water is a good idea if there are not many items to wash. We use the Wesson oil, but mainly because it is cheap.
Larry, do you have favorite recipes to share. I usually bring pages from a dutch oven cook book for the scouts and let them pick one that sounds good to them. Always looking for a good idea to set before them.
Thanks for the article. We make good use of our dutch ovens.