Bought a new Lodge dutch oven which is very rough inside. I'm thinking I will remove the roughness from inside.

Wanted to buy one while I knew I still could buy one made in the USA.

I've only ever seen them get seasoned.  I think that smooths out some of the rough bits.  I imagine if it's crazy rough, it couldn't hurt, provided you season it after.  Otherwise, Season it and forget it.

jim

I have heard of people sanding and then seasoning their lodge pans, but i dont recall a dutch oven.  if you do, please post an after action report with how it went.

How rough is rough?A picture would help!
If you are going to use a little steel wool and may a lite hit with wire brush.
OK!!! But more then that on a NEW dutch oven. Why? It is NEW why should you fix it?
I would call Lodge Dutch Ovens
and ask them if this is the best that their product are?
If they say no, Ask what they are going to do about it!!!
IMHO!
Let the hive know what happens!!!


PITA45

Yes, many sand down to smooth the interior of new Lodge items.  Do yourself a favor and strip the factory seasoning first.

There is a point of diminishing returns, it takes a tremendous amount of sanding to get down to perfectly smooth but there isn't that much benefit of perfectly smooth versus just knocking off the high points of the texture of the cast iron.

Remove seasoning, sand with finer and finer sand paper until I get to 600 grit. Then season again.

Reason for doing it is the smoother it is the easier it is to clean up afterwards because less sticks to it

I swear I can clean day old scrambled eggs with a paper towel even on my $7 Coleman clearance pans....

Go play in general discussion.



Subnet just had and probably still has a thread on this stuff.



There were links to when lodge stopped finished the inside of their stuff and what not.



To some extent I do agree with those who say to run it and let it be and deal with it.



I personally like the old stuff that is super smooth and I use metal utensils on mine since I currently had nothing made of wood or plastic.



I have some old odds and ends I found, some stored poorly and some poorly seasoned.  I will eventually get around to cleaning them up.  They are all older stuff that is decently smooth.



But I do think the current stuff will work if you keep it seasoned.



But I like to mess with stuff as well.



If I wound up with a new one I would sand it smooth.  I have the tools to easily do it and yeah it might use up a few sanding discs or flapper wheels or whatever but I kind of consider it the cost of me not arguing with myself over things.



I also admitted to owning a few zippos.



Having stuff to fiddle with and tune up does not concern me much.  I pretty much seem to seek it out actually.

There are about four threads going on about this topic right now, only not specifically focusing on dutch ovens.

I did sand/grind the couple of Lodge skillets I bought.  I won't bother with the dutch oven because there's not too many things I'll cook in there that need a super smooth surface.  

I make stews, roast chickens, chili; those types of food.  No need for super smooth bottom there.

I found this out the hard way.  Now I just grind it down to where it's level and smooth to the touch.  You will still see a very large amount of small "pits" from casting but they will fill in nicely with seasoning.

Trying to get it to a machined like surface is a fools errand IMO.  Diminishing returns is probably the best way to say it.

After buying a Lodge to use for camping and questionable cooking (to spare my heirlooms that are smooth as glass) and having it stay rough after 2 years of cooking I finally sanded it down.

Now it's extremely smooth and cooks as well as my old heirloom pans.  You can't get the Lodge's perfectly smooth.  There will be a lot of tiny pits but they fill in with 5 or 6 seasoning cycles (see Subnet's cast iron experiment thread).

I have one more to do and wish I'd done it a long time ago.

Chickens, roasts, stews, etc go right in there with out issue. The liquids make sure that doesn't stick. A bit of bacon grease ensures biscuits break free. For everything else theres aluminum foil.