Gear review: Lodge Cast Iron Dutch Oven

The Lodge Cast Iron Dutch Oven is a versatile tool to take car camping to use for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

This 12-inch, approximately 6-quart Lodge Cast Iron Dutch Oven is used to cook meals, desserts or snacks over a fire.

What sets it apart?

The 12-inch Lodge Cast Iron Dutch Oven is a heavy-duty dutch oven made to be placed on hot coals. The three legs under the dutch oven keep it level and next to the coal base for easy heat transfer. The dutch oven lid is rimmed, allowing the cook to easily add coals to the top, and it can also double as a griddle when inverted. The Lodge Cast Iron Dutch Oven also comes with a wire handle that allows the cook to move and rotate the dutch oven while cooking.

How do I use it?

When camping close to the car, we usually cook with our Lodge Cast Iron Dutch Oven over a hot coal base at camp. Sometimes, the recipe will call for the Dutch oven to be preheated over the coals, like the campfire cookie bake. For this recipe, we lined the dutch oven with a tinfoil insert that allowed us to prepare the recipe while the dutch oven was heating over the coals. Then we just slid the liner into the dutch oven, placed coals on the lid and cooked for five minutes. The liner also allows for easy cleanup for messier, cheesier recipes, like the campfire enchiladas we cook in the dutch oven.

How much?

$74.95

Corey’s insight:

The Lodge Cast Iron Dutch Oven also comes in smaller and larger sizes. The 12-inch model can serve 12 to 14 people, according to the small cookbook that comes with the Dutch oven. This dutch oven is heavy duty and also heavy. Make sure that, if using it over a fire/coal base, you have a pair of leather gloves because the wire handle will heat up. It seems to cook extremely evenly over a coal base, and we have loved this method of cooking as compared to tinfoil packets over the fire. The handle can also be used to hang the dutch oven if you like to cook with the tripod setup instead of coals, which we have not tested yet.

More information:

Visit Lodge’s website to see their full range of cast-iron cookery.