Touring - Cast Iron Cookware

So far, I've only gone on one tour, and it was only one night; I didn't cook. While I know that weight is a concern for bicycle touring, it is much less of a concern than for tourers than it is for other cyclists. So I'm wondering whether anyone brings cast iron cookware on a tour. I like cooking with cast iron, especially while camping, and if I were ever to take a longer tour, I would want to cook occasionally. Is this crazy? A titanium frying pan seems sort of like having gold flashing on your roof--it wouldn't rust, but it doesn't seem the best use.

After riding a bicycle all day, I doubt that your stomach cares much about what manner of metal that the food it's being fed, was cooked in.

I had a customer that had a titanium roof. Looked just like a galvanized roof. But he say he had a Ti roof...I understand cooking in CI, but wouldnt carry same on tour, it's not that much better.

I love my cast iron, but not that much.

I'd rather carry 5 lbs. of ingredients than 5 lbs. of pan. I only cook specific things in cast iron at home anyway, and I wouldn't prepare those same meals on tour.

I've been known to bring cast iron cookware on cycle outings. It really depends on what you want to cook. Thin lightweight cookware is perfect for only one thing - boiling water. There's a reason that quality cookware for home use has heavy metal bottoms - even heat distribution and more temperature control. If you really want to know what something's like - try cooking with it at home on a normal stove for a while.

If travelling in a group - a small cast iron paella pan can be used for omlettes, pancakes, fried fish, stews, couscous, fried rice - and of course -paella. Alternatively I have a couple really small stainless steel pots and pans that are perfect for cooking for two. Each unit is about 5 1/2 inches accross. Pefect for oatmeal, or soup, or KD, or rice - and the frypan will do 2 eggs perfectly. Some people can live of freeze-dried camping foods -I can't.

But during hotter weather I generally leave it all at home and stick with salads, cold drinks, fruit, cheese, nuts, energy bars and whatever turns up along the route. There's usually no shortage of restaurants, grocery stores and convenience stores.

I've been touring with a cast-iron skillet for about 3 years now. Started with an 8" (3.5 lbs) but switched to a 9" (4.5 lbs) for my cross-country trip. Never regretted it. I don't like burned food, and the cast-iron is FAR more versatile than titanium, aluminum, or even stainless. Plus after 6 months on the road it becomes naturally non-stick.

Yeah, it weighs as much as the entire rest of my camp kitchen, including fuel - but what fun is touring without at least one luxury item?

I should add that I've used the pan to cook pancakes on overnight outings on Cycle Wild camping trips (www.cyclewild.org), as well as making a sort of "hamburger helper" on tour (1lb ground beef, 1 cup macaroni noodles, 1 pkg stroganoff or meatloaf seasoning, fill most of pan w/ water, cook 10 minutes). I use it with a MSR Whisperlite International stove. Great for cooking bacon, eggs, or anything else which might be prone to burn in thinner pans (i.e. everything but water).

That's the beauty of touring on a bike, you can pretty much carry anything you can fit on the bike. Now pedaling it up a hill, that's is another matter:)

http://i783.photobucket.com/albums/yy112/Doug64_photos/Bike%20Trips/fryingpan.jpg

Fully supported tour? put it on the truck !

Try a French steel fry pan. Steel is less brittle and lighter than cast iron, but it has the same heat distribution properties. It is also as non-stick and rust-proof as cast iron as long as it is properly seasoned. The other bonus is that steel fry pans usually have a milled surface (modern day cast iron no longer does, although vintage cast iron has this feature), and the smoother surface is easier to clean and season.

I've been known to bring cast iron cookware on cycle outings. It really depends on what you want to cook. Thin lightweight cookware is perfect for only one thing - boiling water. There's a reason that quality cookware for home use has heavy metal bottoms - even heat distribution and more temperature control. If you really want to know what something's like - try cooking with it at home on a normal stove for a while.True, but I find that the less even heat distribution and temperature changes can be dealt with quite well when one is only using a single burner and can pay full attention to what's cooking in that particular pan - as opposed to preparing an assortment of things simultaneously on a full kitchen range. So even though I'm rarely using the stove to just boil water I find the lightweight camp pans to be quite well suited to the task and wouldn't want anything heavier.

I have the now obsolete Trangia SS lined aluminum cookware and love it. Very even heat, no metallic taste, but alas even at a fraction the weight of cast iron they are still too heavy for solo bike touring. My three pan titanium cook set weighs 7 oz. Titanium has poor heat distribution, but by adjusting the pot height over my alcohol stove I can spread the heat out for stir-fry or concentrate it for boiling. Now if someone would come up with cast iron lined titanium pots we would be really cooking with style.:thumb:

I have and do on occasion. One of my favorite camp cooking pots is a dutch oven, thank god they make them in aluminum!

Aaron :)

I have the now obsolete Trangia SS lined aluminum cookware and love it. Very even heat, no metallic taste, but alas even at a fraction the weight of cast iron they are still too heavy for solo bike touring. My three pan titanium cook set weighs 7 oz. Titanium has poor heat distribution, but by adjusting the pot height over my alcohol stove I can spread the heat out for stir-fry or concentrate it for boiling. Now if someone would come up with cast iron lined titanium pots we would be really cooking with style.:thumb:

Hi ! I'm a little curious cause I like an alcohol stove myself. I'm guessing you're talking about something like the SnowPeak cooking set. How do you deal with multiple cooking pots a d a single burner - or do you bring more than one stove?

I've had good luck myself with stacking SS tiffin style containers but generally only bring one heavy bottomed pot and a thermos with a single burner stove.

Storchm, If you don't mind toting the weight, absolutely bring a cast iron skillet. I've used cast iron cookware my whole life and some of mine are over 30 years old and becoming better every year.:)

Brad

PS My daughter recently told me that for a Zombie apocalypse she'll grab one of my skillets and a skinning knife. I didn't ask why, but it leads to a couple of tasteless scenarios. ;)

You used to be able to find quality, spun steel backpacking skillets by sigg or one of the other euro manufacturers. Thick bottom, thin sides (think "wok")and very lightweight, but I haven't seen campers' spun steel pans on the market for a while, and i've lost mine.

It's a shame, too, cooking in a wafer thin slice of teflon coated aluminum simply doesn't cut the mustard for an outdoor gourmand.

I had a friend often pack a quite small, spun steel wok on backcountry and bike trips. I would suggest this.

Try a French steel fry pan. Steel is less brittle and lighter than cast iron, but it has the same heat distribution properties. It is also as non-stick and rust-proof as cast iron as long as it is properly seasoned. The other bonus is that steel fry pans usually have a milled surface (modern day cast iron no longer does, although vintage cast iron has this feature), and the smoother surface is easier to clean and season.
can you point to a link or photo of a currently available camping oriented one? I had a spun steel LW frypan with a folding handle, and it sounds like a version of this French pan, but haven't been able to locate from any gear wholesalers.

I assume you are talking about cast iron only for a fry pan or skillet, not the sauce pan or deeper cooking pot.

I tried several camping type fry pans and disliked them all. Too thin which resulted in very uneven heat.

I saw a nice cheap kitchen type non-stick aluminum fry pan on sale in the farm store that had a bolt, not a rivet for the handle. Thinking that I could remove the handle to cut the weight in half and use a camping type pot gripper I bought it. It is 10 inch and 410 grams without handle.

Works great. The thickness of the aluminum is almost exactly half way in between the thicker aluminum omelet pan I use at home and the thin camping pans I hated. I have used it on several week long canoe trips and a week long backpacking trip.

292816

The outside bottom was smooth black paint which is a bit slick, the pan has slide on my stove so I recently went over the bottom with a course sander to roughen it up but have not tried it since I sanded it.

MSR has a stainless pan with an aluminum heat spreader disc bonded on the bottom..

a sand blaster prep, and some of the high temperature paint for Automobile engine exhaust headers,
seemed to stick, fine, when I applied it to my Sigg Stainless steel cook pot.

i love my cast iron, but not that much.

lol, +1.

So far, I've only gone on one tour, and it was only one night; I didn't cook. While I know that weight is a concern for bicycle touring, it is much less of a concern than for tourers than it is for other cyclists. So I'm wondering whether anyone brings cast iron cookware on a tour. I like cooking with cast iron, especially while camping, and if I were ever to take a longer tour, I would want to cook occasionally. Is this crazy? A titanium frying pan seems sort of like having gold flashing on your roof--it wouldn't rust, but it doesn't seem the best use.

Somethings to consider: A 10" cast iron frying pan weighs 5 lbs (2.2 kg). A 9" aluminum MSR frying pan (http://cascadedesigns.com/msr/cookware/gourmet-cooking/flex-skillet/product) weighs 7 oz (0.2kg). An 8" steel MSR steel frying pan weighs 11 oz (0.32kg). There's the weight factor to consider but a more important consideration is the heat capacity of the metals. You have to provide energy to get the metal up to the temperature that you want to use. The formula for doing this is very straight forward. The heat needed (Q) is equal to the weight (in kg) times the metal's specific heat (in kJ/(kg*C) times the temperature difference. If you want to sear beef, for example, the temperature needed is 350 F (175C). Let's assume that you are heating from about 70F or 20C.

The amount of heat needed, in kilojoules, for the aluminum pan is 28 kJ. For the steel pan, it's 24 kJ and for the cast iron it's a whopping 162 kJ. The actual units don't matter but the magnitude does. In essence, a thin steel or aluminum pan takes about the same amount of heat to get to temperature while the cast iron takes a bit over 6 times more heat just to heat the pan. If you are cooking at home where you have a pipe to a nearly infinite supply of fuel, this doesn't matter too much. But out on the road, you have to carry not only the 5 lb pan but you'll need to carry 6 times as much fuel to do the same job.

Leave the cast iron at home.

We've been cooking very elaborate meals in our plain aluminum pans for 45 years. However, we don't fry anything, other than browning a roux, scrambling eggs, or browning FD hash browns a little. It's a myth that aluminum is bad for you:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-there-any-proof-that-a
http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/features/antiperspirant-facts-safety

It's the most abundant metal in the earth's crust. Our 45 y.o. cookware is still all there. We haven't eaten it. Ti pots and pans suck, IMO. Terrible heat conductivity, one of the very worst metals. You want the most conductive metal you can get for camp cooking, which is aluminum, 4 times better than cast iron. Copper is best, except for being heavy and a heavy metal poison as well. Copper clad SS is popular at home, but is less conductive than aluminum and also heavy. Thermal conductivity chart here:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-metals-d_858.html

The amount of heat needed, in kilojoules, for the aluminum pan is 28 kJ. For the steel pan, it's 24 kJ and for the cast iron it's a whopping 162 kJ. The actual units don't matter but the magnitude does. In essence, a thin steel or aluminum pan takes about the same amount of heat to get to temperature while the cast iron takes a bit over 6 times more heat just to heat the pan. If you are cooking at home where you have a pipe to a nearly infinite supply of fuel, this doesn't matter too much. But out on the road, you have to carry not only the 5 lb pan but you'll need to carry 6 times as much fuel to do the same job.

Leave the cast iron at home.

Wasn't a problem for me. 154 days on the road with a cast-iron and MSR Whisperlite with white gas. I *did* go through more fuel than I would otherwise, but still not all that fast. I had a 20 oz and 30 oz fuel bottle, and refilled them 4 times over the course of the trip. Some of the days were cooking over a fire, with no fuel use, and about 1/4 were "no cook" days where I ate in a restaurant or home stay. I'd rather carry the fuel than burn my food. Also, that "extra" heat to heat the cast-iron allows for a lot more variation in how the food is cooked.

If you only care about "food", leave the cast-iron at home. If you want a *meal*, then cast-iron is a good investment for the road. Seriously, a well-cooked meal goes further than any other item for making a tour enjoyable. (for some of us)

Hi ! I'm a little curious cause I like an alcohol stove myself. I'm guessing you're talking about something like the SnowPeak cooking set. How do you deal with multiple cooking pots a d a single burner - or do you bring more than one stove?


Yes it is a modified Snow Peak cook set (http://www.snowpeak.com/cookware/backpacking/3-piece-titanium-cookset-stw-001t.html). The pots and fry pan are stackable in the right order. I use a single alcohol burner that has an adjustable flame. So a common meal I make on the road would start with a stir fried onion and/or pepper in the fry pan, which in turn acts as the lid for steaming potatoes. When the potatoes are done I would quickly bring the vegies up to sizzle temp again and serve. Then I might make some apple-pear sauce for dessert from fruit I picked during the day and simmer it while I enjoy the hot main course. I occasionally cook with all three pots stacked on top of each other, which will keep the bigger pot (@ 0.75 L it is not BIG) reasonably warm while the smaller pot is on the bottom at cooking temp. If there is anything in the fry pan on top of the stack it will need to be reheated before serving.

With all the references to thermal conductivity and whatnot - nobody's mentioned the importance of thermal mass yet. The stove doesn't have to just heat up the cooking utensil - it has to cook the food too. Drop food into a thin-walled cooking utensil and the heat is immediately absorbed by the food - and you get to start from zero.

Drop food into a cast iron utensil and the thermal mass will start the food cooking immediately - and continue after the stove has been shut off. Total calories required to cook the FOOD doesn't change.

Thats pretty basic stuff that was taught in high school.

If you only care about "food", leave the cast-iron at home. If you want a *meal*, then cast-iron is a good investment for the road. Seriously, a well-cooked meal goes further than any other item for making a tour enjoyable. (for some of us)

Sorry but you don't need cast iron to cook real 'meals' on the road...nor at home. Thin metal pans require some refinement in your technique but not all that much. I cook many of the same recipes on the road that I cook at home. I do so because I have the recipes memorized. Camp cooksets and camp stoves can do a whole lot better than just boiling water but you do have to learn how to use them.

Yes it is a modified Snow Peak cook set (http://www.snowpeak.com/cookware/backpacking/3-piece-titanium-cookset-stw-001t.html). The pots and fry pan are stackable in the right order. I use a single alcohol burner that has an adjustable flame. So a common meal I make on the road would start with a stir fried onion and/or pepper in the fry pan, which in turn acts as the lid for steaming potatoes. When the potatoes are done I would quickly bring the vegies up to sizzle temp again and serve. Then I might make some apple-pear sauce for dessert from fruit I picked during the day and simmer it while I enjoy the hot main course. I occasionally cook with all three pots stacked on top of each other, which will keep the bigger pot (@ 0.75 L it is not BIG) reasonably warm while the smaller pot is on the bottom at cooking temp. If there is anything in the fry pan on top of the stack it will need to be reheated before serving.

Cool! Sounds like a great way to travel!

Cast iron is certainly not the only way to cook well, but I do find my cast iron pan the most enjoyable to use, and for some things I find that it makes a big difference. I'll look into the spun steel, next time I buy a frying pan, though.

Cast iron is certainly not the only way to cook well, but I do find my cast iron pan the most enjoyable to use, and for some things I find that it makes a big difference. I'll look into the spun steel, next time I buy a frying pan, though.

The toughest challenge for me was to find some sizes small enough for solo cycle camping- and it ended up at some unconventional selections. Check out this brie baker - its TINY - but that's a GOOD thing! http://www.tweedandhickory.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/stainless-steel-brie-baker-by-gourmet-du-village.html
And then there's this cast iron chocolate fondue thing http://shopping.aol.com/1400406-mini-chocolate-025-qt-fondue-set-in-cherry-sab1178/pg756849367

You can get cast iron pots in 10, 12 and 14cm sizes (http://www.allianceonline.co.uk/cookware/cast-iron-cookware.html), useful for the solo camper (if a little heavy)
What did old timer pioneers or cowboys cook with (assuming no chuck wagon full of Dutch ovens etc).
I always wondered how those nice coffee pots fitted inside their small saddle bags.

Mongol horsemen seemed to have carried a small cast iron pot to cook up sheep fat and sheep meat in the embers.

So far, I've only gone on one tour, and it was only one night; I didn't cook. While I know that weight is a concern for bicycle touring, it is much less of a concern than for tourers than it is for other cyclists. So I'm wondering whether anyone brings cast iron cookware on a tour. I like cooking with cast iron, especially while camping, and if I were ever to take a longer tour, I would want to cook occasionally. Is this crazy? A titanium frying pan seems sort of like having gold flashing on your roof--it wouldn't rust, but it doesn't seem the best use.
Yes

The amount of heat needed, in kilojoules, for the aluminum pan is 28 kJ. For the steel pan, it's 24 kJ and for the cast iron it's a whopping 162 kJ. The actual units don't matter but the magnitude does. In essence, a thin steel or aluminum pan takes about the same amount of heat to get to temperature while the cast iron takes a bit over 6 times more heat just to heat the pan. If you are cooking at home where you have a pipe to a nearly infinite supply of fuel, this doesn't matter too much. But out on the road, you have to carry not only the 5 lb pan but you'll need to carry 6 times as much fuel to do the same job.

Yeah, but if you have a good alcohol stove, this isn't a problem at all.

Yeah, but if you have a good alcohol stove, this isn't a problem at all.

I'm sorry, but this just isn't the case, alcohol has a set amount of energy per gram. If the same amount of fuel were used to heat an aluminum skillet and a cast iron one, the cast iron one would only be a fraction of the temperature of the aluminum one. Quite honestly though, the thermal mass of a cast iron skillet, the very thing that makes it great to cook with, is also the thing that makes it difficult to use on a camping stove with limited fuel.

I'm actually not even sold on cast iron for home use. It's heavy and awkward on a stove, and not as non-stick as non-stick. A good clad skillet has a better thermal mass (Cast iron per gram is fairly low, it's only in sheer mass that makes it so good), and a good teflon coating is better than even the cast iron skillet you inherited from your grandmother (at least in my experience), and you can cook acidic foods without worry.

I'm sorry, but this just isn't the case, alcohol has a set amount of energy per gram. If the same amount of fuel were used to heat an aluminum skillet and a cast iron one, the cast iron one would only be a fraction of the temperature of the aluminum one. Quite honestly though, the thermal mass of a cast iron skillet, the very thing that makes it great to cook with, is also the thing that makes it difficult to use on a camping stove with limited fuel.

I'm actually not even sold on cast iron for home use. It's heavy and awkward on a stove, and not as non-stick as non-stick. A good clad skillet has a better thermal mass (Cast iron per gram is fairly low, it's only in sheer mass that makes it so good), and a good teflon coating is better than even the cast iron skillet you inherited from your grandmother (at least in my experience), and you can cook acidic foods without worry.


You're supposed to be heating the FOOD, not the pan - so the fuel requirements are determined by that. If it actually required more fuel - I wouldn't bother with it myself. There's also ceramic coated cast iron on the market - has been for 30 years. Thats what I use when I take cast iron. It also has the advantage of being easier to use if you decide to cook over coals.

There seems to be some doubt for some reason as to the ability of an alcohol stove to get very hot. As a reference, stainless steel needs a temperature between 260 and 316 degrees Celsius to turn blue. The bottoms of all the SS pans I use with an alcohol stove are all slightly blued - even though there was liquid inside acting as a heat sink. Thats an indication of the surface temperature of the outside of the pot - (inspite of being cooled by the contents inside) the actual flame is obviously a lot hotter than that. Water boils at 100 degrees Celcius and that's usually all I use thin walled pots and pans for - boiling water. Even with a supossedly low output alcohol stove they burn food too easily.

Yeah, but if you have a good alcohol stove, this isn't a problem at all.

See below.


I'm sorry, but this just isn't the case, alcohol has a set amount of energy per gram. If the same amount of fuel were used to heat an aluminum skillet and a cast iron one, the cast iron one would only be a fraction of the temperature of the aluminum one. Quite honestly though, the thermal mass of a cast iron skillet, the very thing that makes it great to cook with, is also the thing that makes it difficult to use on a camping stove with limited fuel.

I'm actually not even sold on cast iron for home use. It's heavy and awkward on a stove, and not as non-stick as non-stick. A good clad skillet has a better thermal mass (Cast iron per gram is fairly low, it's only in sheer mass that makes it so good), and a good teflon coating is better than even the cast iron skillet you inherited from your grandmother (at least in my experience), and you can cook acidic foods without worry.

All fuels have a set amount of energy per gram. It's all tied to the number of carbon to carbon and carbon to hydrogen bonds in the molecule and the energy released when those bonds are broken and new bonds with oxygen formed. If the fuel already has oxygen bonds, like alcohols do, the amount of heat that can be released in these chemical reactions is greatly reduced. Most hydrocarbons...molecules having only carbon and hydrogen bonds...have close to the same energy content. But once you start putting oxygen atoms on the fuel like alcohols, the amount of energy drops significantly. Ethanol and methanol have a 40% and 60% reduction, respectively, in energy over isobutane. If the alcohol fuel contains water...a distinct possibility with ethanol...the drop in energy is even higher because you have to heat the water in the fuel while burning it.

It gets even worse, because you don't get all of the heat out of the fuel that you burn...not even close. The heat goes into heating the pan...which can be a lot of you are trying to heat a 5 pound chunk of metal...the air around the pan, the food in the pan, etc. While it is true that a large cast iron skillet will hold heat, you have to get the heat into it first. And even then it's not going to hold it there for long. It will hold it longer than a thin metal pan but by the time you've heated the cast iron, you'd be a long ways towards actually cooking the food in the thinner pans with less thermal mass and that's the point isn't it? To cook the food and not waste fuel on heating metal?

And, finally, there is thermal conductivity to consider. Thermal conductivity is the ability of a material to conduct heat through the material. Using the link that Carbonfiberboy posted, you can see that the thermal conductivity of aluminum compared to cast iron is about 3 times higher. That means that heat passes through the aluminum at a higher rate than through the cast iron. Cast iron is somewhat insulated compared to aluminum. If you are passing 3 times the energy through the metal, that means that you are utilizing the fuel you carried around all day in a more efficient manner. To use a car analogy, cast iron is an SUV while aluminum is a Volkwagen TDI;)

You can get cast iron pots in 10, 12 and 14cm sizes (http://www.allianceonline.co.uk/cookware/cast-iron-cookware.html), useful for the solo camper (if a little heavy)
What did old timer pioneers or cowboys cook with (assuming no chuck wagon full of Dutch ovens etc).
I always wondered how those nice coffee pots fitted inside their small saddle bags.

Mongol horsemen seemed to have carried a small cast iron pot to cook up sheep fat and sheep meat in the embers.

The ones in the movies got theirs from the prop truck. Never confuse what you see from Hollywood and their tales of the mythic "West" with real life.

Real cowboys used enamel wear...thin steel pots and pans covered with enamel to keep them from rusting. They also ate foods that didn't require a lot of cooking like hard tack and jerky.

You're supposed to be heating the FOOD, not the pan - so the fuel requirements are determined by that.

I fried some eggs in a pan this moring. The eggs didn't start cooking until the pan heated up. Did I do something wrong? Was there a way I could have cooked the eggs in the pan without some of the energy from the burning natural gas going towards heating the pan? I am always looking for ways to cut my utility costs.

I'm actually not even sold on cast iron for home use. It's heavy and awkward on a stove, and not as non-stick as non-stick. A good clad skillet has a better thermal mass (Cast iron per gram is fairly low, it's only in sheer mass that makes it so good), and a good teflon coating is better than even the cast iron skillet you inherited from your grandmother (at least in my experience), and you can cook acidic foods without worry.

I'm using some cast iron from the early 1900s and it's still non-stick. I don't think any teflon coated pan will be around in a hundred years and still be non-stick if it's used like I use cast iron. I can fry eggs without having them stick in my cast. Coatings will wear off over time. I like to be able to use stainless steel utensils when I cook too so cast iron has that going for it too. Even if I get stuff to burn to the pan a good seasoning layer can withstand scrubbing. Cast iron has a lot to offer cooks but it does require some love and care. I have to wipe my pans with oil and store them in the oven to keep them going but it didn't take long to get nice seasoning. I cook tomato sauce and other acidic food in my cast iron without worry... worse that can happen is some extra iron in the food.

50$ spent on thrift store cast iron is a way better value over the long term for me than buying new teflon pans every few years. I used to cook at a restaurant and we'd trash teflon pans in about six months and they were pretty decent quality pans. Even in home use I found pans never lasted... granted I wasn't spending hundreds of dollars on cookware but I know that it won't get me anything better than the cast iron. I know cast iron isn't invincible but it's pretty hard to ruin. Personally I'm okay with most people not using it, it keeps prices on nice pieces reasonable for us aficionados.

I'm actually not even sold on cast iron for home use. It's heavy and awkward on a stove, and not as non-stick as non-stick. A good clad skillet has a better thermal mass (Cast iron per gram is fairly low, it's only in sheer mass that makes it so good), and a good teflon coating is better than even the cast iron skillet you inherited from your grandmother (at least in my experience), and you can cook acidic foods without worry.

One of the things that I love about Bike Forums is that it makes me go back and think about things I learned in college that I haven't had a need for in a long time. This is one of those things. I'll apologize in advance if you already know this stuff but here goes.

In post 21, I talked about the heat requirements for heating various metals. The data for those calculations were taken from the Engineering Toolbox website (http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/specific-heat-metals-d_152.html). Using that information, it's possible to tell a tale of why cast iron isn't all that good for cooking and why titanium is abominable. The specific heat of aluminum, i.e. the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of the metal, is actually higher than cast iron, steel or titanium. If you had the same mass of material, it would take more heat to raise the temperature of the aluminum than it would the cast iron by a factor of almost 2. Titanium has a specific heat that is almost the same as cast iron. To think of it another way, if you could make cast iron pans as light as aluminum, it would take less heat to raise their temperature from room temperature to cooking temperature. Energy-wise, the advantage goes to cast iron, although getting cast iron as light as aluminum would be next to impossible

The interesting bit, however, is when you figure in the thermal conductivity (provided by Carbonfiberboy). As I said above, aluminum has a thermal conductivity that is twice that of cast iron. This means that heat applied to the metal moves through the metal to the food you are cooking much more quickly. Because the heat doesn't go through the cast iron as quickly, heat used to raise the temperature of the metal doesn't cook food but instead is dissipated back into the environment. In essence, the cast iron pan acts like insulation and, by radiating the heat away from the food, keeps the food in the pan from cooking as quickly when compared to aluminum.

The really interesting bit is that titanium's thermal conductivity is 2 to 4 times less than that of cast iron and around 10 times less than that of aluminum. You really have to heat the bejeebers out of titanium to get any heat through.

So the take away is that titanium is horribly expensive and doesn't work all that well. Cast iron is heavy and doesn't work all that well. Stick with aluminum...at home and on the road.

I fried some eggs in a pan this moring. The eggs didn't start cooking until the pan heated up. Did I do something wrong? Was there a way I could have cooked the eggs in the pan without some of the energy from the burning natural gas going towards heating the pan? I am always looking for ways to cut my utility costs.

Go with aluminum. As I said above, it does take more to heat it if the mass is the same (it usually isn't) and the heat goes through the metal faster rather than just heating the outside.

The fact that they require more fuel isn't an especially big deal for most bike touring since you can still carry the same amount of fuel and just restock more frequently. That said I can't imagine carrying the extra weight of cast iron on tour.

Picked up a used Trangia , kept burner and windscreen . Threw alloy pots away . Thrft store Revere ware pot SS with copper bottom , cut off handle . I timed my boiling times , the Revere was faster , and by using a silicon bowl , weight is close . I carry a small SS Wok 12in. sometimes works on the Trangia . Couscous is my fave for a one pot meal .

Ti pots and pans suck, IMO. Terrible heat conductivity, one of the very worst metals. You want the most conductive metal you can get for camp cooking, which is aluminum, 4 times better than cast iron. Copper is best, except for being heavy and a heavy metal poison as well. Copper clad SS is popular at home, but is less conductive than aluminum and also heavy. Thermal conductivity chart here:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-metals-d_858.html

When I did boil tests comparing similar size aluminum (Trangia) and titanium (Snow Peak) pots there was a >15% difference favoring aluminum. That is certainly significant but not an overwhelming difference, especially for most bike touring where fuel is readily available, but pots have to be carried up every grade, everyday.

The main challenge I find with titanium is it doesn’t disperse the heat evenly so there are “hot and cold” spots. At the extreme, this means part of your omelet is charcoal and part is still raw and runny. Mostly it means I need to stir my food frequently while cooking. My fix is to disperse the flame by changing the pot height over my alcohol stove or putting a heat disperser under the pot, e.g. a square of fiberglass fabric. I notice that the Snow Peak recognizes the titanium problem and their LiteMax canister stove sends the flame out sideways to spread the heat across the bottom of the pot.

Has anyone used hard anodized aluminum cookware? I notice a number of outdoor companies are marketing hard anodized aluminum cookware, which claim little or no aluminum contact or reaction with food. I have not tried them, but it seems like they might be as close as you can get to cast iron cooking at a backpacking weight.

Has anyone used hard anodized aluminum cookware? I notice a number of outdoor companies are marketing hard anodized aluminum cookware, which claim little or no aluminum contact or reaction with food. I have not tried them, but it seems like they might be as close as you can get to cast iron cooking at a backpacking weight.

Aluminum is a reactive metal. Any of it that is exposed to air instantaneously oxidizes which is what anodization does. The anodized layer is only a couple of atom thick and is easily damage which exposes fresh aluminum which oxidizes ad infinitum. "Hard" anodization just makes the layer thicker. The anodized layer is also very hard...a 9 on the Mohs scale...so it resists scratches. All of the backpacking cook kits that I've seen have a color to them...usually black...which means that they have been anodized. The only problem is that the pans are still thin which means that you have to adjust your cooking technique to match the pans.

Still beats titanium for heat conductivity and beats cast iron for weight and heat conductivity.

When I did boil tests comparing similar size aluminum (Trangia) and titanium (Snow Peak) pots there was a >15% difference favoring aluminum. That is certainly significant but not an overwhelming difference, especially for most bike touring where fuel is readily available, but pots have to be carried up every grade, everyday.

The main challenge I find with titanium is it doesn’t disperse the heat evenly so there are “hot and cold” spots. At the extreme, this means part of your omelet is charcoal and part is still raw and runny. Mostly it means I need to stir my food frequently while cooking. My fix is to disperse the flame by changing the pot height over my alcohol stove or putting a heat disperser under the pot, e.g. a square of fiberglass fabric. I notice that the Snow Peak recognizes the titanium problem and their LiteMax canister stove sends the flame out sideways to spread the heat across the bottom of the pot.

Has anyone used hard anodized aluminum cookware? I notice a number of outdoor companies are marketing hard anodized aluminum cookware, which claim little or no aluminum contact or reaction with food. I have not tried them, but it seems like they might be as close as you can get to cast iron cooking at a backpacking weight.

I think part of the problem with titanium and uneven heating is the thickness of the titanium pan itself. While the thermal conductivity of titanium is also very low, the thin bottoms of most titanium pots only exacerbate the problems. Of course nobody would pay for a centimeter thick titanium frying pan, even if you could cook wonderfully on it.

I'll agree that teflon based non-stick is less durable than cast iron, it's also more expensive. I'm (personally) happy to replace a skillet every five years or so rather than deal with trying to cope with a cast iron frying pan.

Of course, non-stick cookware should only be one tool of many in a cooks arsenal, I do also have a good supply of enameled cast iron (which, while gorgeous to look at, isn't terribly non-stick), and Stainless steel clad aluminum (which really does offer the best compromise in terms of the heat capacity of aluminum and reactivity of stainless steel). A few disposable teflon pans for delicate tasks like frying eggs are not amiss in a well stocked kitchen.

Of course, none of that is really applicable to camping, I just stick with a thin aluminum pot and accept that I'm not going to be eating the most gourmet meals on my one burner camping stove.

I'm using some cast iron from the early 1900s and it's still non-stick. I don't think any teflon coated pan will be around in a hundred years and still be non-stick if it's used like I use cast iron. I can fry eggs without having them stick in my cast. Coatings will wear off over time. I like to be able to use stainless steel utensils when I cook too so cast iron has that going for it too. Even if I get stuff to burn to the pan a good seasoning layer can withstand scrubbing. Cast iron has a lot to offer cooks but it does require some love and care. I have to wipe my pans with oil and store them in the oven to keep them going but it didn't take long to get nice seasoning. I cook tomato sauce and other acidic food in my cast iron without worry... worse that can happen is some extra iron in the food.

50$ spent on thrift store cast iron is a way better value over the long term for me than buying new teflon pans every few years. I used to cook at a restaurant and we'd trash teflon pans in about six months and they were pretty decent quality pans. Even in home use I found pans never lasted... granted I wasn't spending hundreds of dollars on cookware but I know that it won't get me anything better than the cast iron. I know cast iron isn't invincible but it's pretty hard to ruin. Personally I'm okay with most people not using it, it keeps prices on nice pieces reasonable for us aficionados.

This is my take on it. Most of my "non stick" pans make it about 5ish years before needing to be replaced and I am very careful with how I cook in them and clean them. My cast iron will be better in 50 years than it is today assuming it is properly cared for (which is very simple btw).

How I would make the decision about bringing it on the tour is ask yourself, "will this make my experience better?" If you love your cast iron, especially if it has some sentimental value than by all means bring it. If you just want to be able to prepare decent meals on the road and don't care what the tool is as long as it does an OK job than leave it at home.

I fried some eggs in a pan this moring. The eggs didn't start cooking until the pan heated up. Did I do something wrong? Was there a way I could have cooked the eggs in the pan without some of the energy from the burning natural gas going towards heating the pan? I am always looking for ways to cut my utility costs.

Do what you want. Personally I heat the pan first, and during the short time that's going on - crack the eggs in a cocktail shaker, cut the chives and then pour the eggs in the pan. At that point I can turn OFF the heat - the heat in the pan is more than enough to finish an omelet. Works for cast iron or SS - at least in the quality I bought.

I've owned cast aluminum pots (which are the next best thing to cast iron), spun aluminum pots, titanium and stainless steel. I don't bring what I use cause there's no choice. I bring what works for me. If someone else has another preference - that's a personal choice. As just about anything else - its the person using the equipment that makes the difference. And personally I'd much rather travel with someone that knows how to use what they've got, rather than someone thats just lugging around a bunch of ultralight equipment in the belief that expertise is somehow included with the equipment.

Actually, when I'm touring out of the country or even in a different part of the US, one of the things I like to do is to sample the local cuisine. While I do cook on tour, using titanium or aluminum pots, they are usually simple meals that don't require anything special. Carrying a pan that weighs about 15% of my kit weight is not something I would do. I don't eat much fried food as a matter of course, and do not take a frying pan made from any type of material on tour. However, sometimes I'll take 2 pots.

Different strokes for different folks:)

That's it folks-stove, pot and windscreen.
http://i783.photobucket.com/albums/yy112/Doug64_photos/Michigan%20bike%20trip/pocketrocket.jpg

This thread started off simply enough. It was an honest question from someone who liked cooking with cast iron and wanted to know if it was feasible to bring cast iron bike touring.


......While I know that weight is a concern for bicycle touring, it is much less of a concern than for tourers than it is for other cyclists. So I'm wondering whether anyone brings cast iron cookware on a tour. I like cooking with cast iron, especially while camping, and if I were ever to take a longer tour, I would want to cook occasionally. Is this crazy?.....

The simple answer is - YES, its feasible - lots of people do it.

For those posters that insist at scoffing at what they feel is unjustified weight and possible extra fuel requirements - here are a few other numbers for you. Fully loaded with four overly heavy Arkel panniers and a cast iron pan - my luggage has never exceeded 35 lbs. Thats about 20 lbs less that what some posters have stated they have packed. And my body weight is only 155lbs - which is a good 45lbs less than many posters on this forum. So compared to that 60+ lb difference - a 2lb pan seems pretty light to me - and really not worth all this fuss.

a 2lb pan seems pretty light to me
??? A 2lb cast iron pan seems pretty unlikely to me.


and really not worth all this fuss.
Talk about "fuss"! You have 8 posts in this thread. That's more posts than any other person!

There was useful information in the "fussing" you are weirdly complaining about.