Originally Posted by
storckm
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 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.