The Best Cast Iron Skillet? - Review of Lodge, Field Co, Stargazer, Butter Pat

hey folks y'all been asking for it so we gonna deliver it aside by side comparison of the butter pants stargazer filled and large skillets stick around you don't want to miss this an I promise welcome to the barn and got my beautiful wife with me again today I'm a blessed man I guarantee something I want to say for we go on any further is I thank you so much all of you for your concern about my mustache take a good look here it is coming back I mean Bertha got it and he's on his way back so give me a little time it will get there we've been doing a short cast iron seer series as we have promised yes we are doing a side-by-side comparison of some major USA made cast iron brands butter pet yep field stargazer and lodge we did contact butter Pat field and stargazer and asked them if they would provide us a skillet and they were very Genest to do so we're not being paid by those companies to promote or say anything about their products but they did provide the skillets for an honest review for the large skillet we just went and purchased one the categories that we were comparing these skillets in our weight seasoning and finish handle design overall design and finally price there you go you know yes we are much-anticipated episode I've been waiting for weeks for this this Lodge they're calling this their 10.25 skillet however all of these skillets have about an eight and a half inch cooking surface larges weight is 5 pounds 6.4 ounces and this does come in as our heaviest skillet so um the next one we're going to talk about is a big one in castle here it is that it is the seasoning and the finish the lodge that I have and I have a lot of it is a pre-season base sure it's blacker than any of these other skillets it's got that nice black color but let me tell you folks this is like a truck bedliner when you run across here and I'm a firm believer just me you have to start with a smooth surface to end up with a smooth surface now I've always just took orbital sander and 60 grit paper II got down to the Smoove and then started over but do you feel that over time it builds and accepts seasoning well Ivan I've sanded a piece down and started over and it finishes back pretty quick but it is definitely a whole lot easier to clean after I did away with their pre-season and started with a slick finish anyone is interested in the way that we smooth and then rebuild that seasoning we'll put a link below it's a free crap guide that we've created and it's pretty easy to follow if you do have lodge or interested in buying some lodge so next we're going to talk about the Stargazer seasoning and finish well as soon as I pull it out of the box I seen that good slick finish and it had a good bronze color to it and we fried a little bike in as y'all seen and then we scramble the egg in there I was impressed with this skillet in the way that it accepted the seasoning that we put back on it and the way it performed with what they already had on I even think that we maybe felt it cleaned up and the other skillets did they do sell this season and no more difference do you recommend go ahead and go with their seasoning they've already started it for you and it was a really good seasoning yes when you run you cross your hand across this and a hand across this you I mean you can you can hear it folks hear this there is a difference her field skillet and I do have to say from our unboxing my favorite seasoning was on the field I would say the Stargazer the field and the butter Pat all had smoothness to me the field had a hand-finished feel to it I ran my thing across it and I could see my fingerprint and the oil come through and it felt like somebody had personally oiled rep the thing that I really liked about it as well as the stargazer and the butter pet - it had the feel of old arm of Wagner and Griswold yes butter pet and so the thing that was unique about butter pant I saw was that because it's the only one that it's hand finished there are none of those swirl marks that you can see on all of your field and field this one was just like LexCorp yeah I mean it was slick slick finish yeah all of them that is kind of where they are all different yes it is and we'll start back here with logic that is about three quarters yeah four and three quarters inches but I when I grab a hold of this it's automatically here short handle to is gonna make this skillet seem a little heavier when it's a shorter piece of leverage that you're trying to pick up feels good in my hand it's heavy but I do like that it's just a classic design and it feels good and and maybe it's because we had cooked with Lodge quite a bit on the Griswolds and the Wagner's this is seven and a half inches so you gained three inches okay now when I first seen this my automatic thought and y'all see y'all heard me say it this is for a cooling design but also folks there is one other feature that they have here that I overlooked you can lay a spatula or a wooden spoon right here the more I used it the more I picked it up I got to sort of thinking hey this thing is alright does have the longer handle it is cooler I can grab it barehanded we have noticed like when we did cook with it it took a lot longer for this handle to get hot while cooking so that was a big advantage for me however I don't like the handle I have a smaller hand it's a little too wide and it just doesn't feel because then I have to grip it so hard it's this cutting into my and you do have this on a campfire and stick it there you're further away from the actual fires ain't burning the hair off your knuckles the feels good yeah it has a little more roll to it which makes it a little easier to grab ahold of big hands or little does it feel good in your hand cast-iron feels good in my hand all the time but I do like the way this skillet fields it is longer than the lodge this one is so it also has just a flat yeah coming out and some maybe that does help out my hand yes four and five eighths I was close doesn't feel as good as the lodge or the field and why is that this cuts into me here this design with not being a solid and being solid or being maybe a little more rounded to me it feels pretty similar to the old handles that were on the Griswold stuff it's just this age if it was wrong down just a little over all my completely favorite handle is the field really yeah but I do you give me more time to use this one and that gives me a little more room you know I would say my favorite is either the lodge or the field the only reason I would lean toward the field is because it is a lighter skillet and so I don't have as much weight holding me down talk about the overall design of these skillets and since we can we did the magic shield the thickness of the wall reminded me so much of Griswold Wagner Ware has no pour spouts but it's flared enough that I have poured gravy from any direction in the world sometimes when you just have a flared edge on these and you go to pour and gravy across the chicken-fried steak that beat Bobby Flay's but it's going to drip down the pan what I liked the most about the field is it was very very simple design yeah straight handle a nice thin wall stargazer next okay this is probably the most unique billet unlike that you can put your whole hand through it I don't know why it's not like I'm walking around like you carry that Airport know me but you don't want to do it you could I do like that it has a more rolled flared out edge versus the other ones but like I said for me I just the the handles not my friend the other thing too this is the deepest of the skillet yes like a tuna quarter depth field is 1 and 3/4 Lodge is nearly 2 and butter pad is just over one and a half maybe Lodge does have a poor smoke which I like it's it's little I would have liked to see that more pronounced a wall however is significantly thicker than the other ones yeah that will go into the weight factor which I don't like but I did like the handle it's just a classic handle if it was a little longer it would be a good deal yeah would finish off overall design with the butter Pat the thing I love the best is the thin wall yeah and then also the pour spout it has the most pronounced pour spout which I do like this is kind of a little unique design for them it's different than anything we've seen but it does give you a little know I've got a leverage German the handles not my favorite it actually the longer I hold it it does start hurting I don't feel like it's very ergonomic that's a big word apart I really like these pour spouts I really did I like the way the design of the skinny would out rolled the edges just a little bit to me this is a this is a skillet that hey it's user friendly to nearly everybody how much will it affect your wallet or credit card yes but one thing about cast iron when you buy good quality cast iron it is an investment every time you cook out of it it's giving you something back the watch I picked this up at Walmart I told you and it was $20 the Stargazer it comes in two styles like we said unseasoned it's $80 seasoned it's eighty-eight dollars but they also have a military discount yes so if you go on their website they do offer a 15% discount field and their skillet is $100 yeah but they do have a 15% off now going on right yes ma'am their promotions so be sure to check out site or contact them I think I did see maybe that if you sign up for the lodge email you do get a coupon alright so you could check that and then finally butter Pat is a hundred and ninety five dollars so let's just go through and do a quick kind of pros and cons pros and cons to each skillet when Lodge changed and went to the pre seasoning that they do now to me it didn't do anything but create me more work to get what I was after now the old lodge that I have I wouldn't take nothing for it it has served me well biggest con to lodge is the priests the rough pre seasoning and it's wait yeah the pros to lie deeper its its inexpensive it's available nearly everywhere they have different sizes much is the only company currently making quality american-made cast-iron Dutch oven so if you're looking for that we do recommend their dutch ovens the only thing that I really disliked about this skillet and it's very little was I might have squeezed this handily and just a tad yeah you know and it would have made it a little easier I like that it's cooler you know I love the design I like the flare on the lid the thing I really love about this skillet is its weight and its finish I could take my finger and rub across there and I knew that this skillet was going to finish well it was going to perform well clean well I would have liked to have seen a pour spout on here they just kept it real simple that this handle does feel really good to me the butter pad no I'm just gonna say it right out of the gate the biggest con to this one it's its price but you do have to remember that it is completely handmade this to me would be something that a collector an aficionado would have really it's such a classic a piece of of American cast-iron I'm not a big fan of the handle I do love love love love stop so first thing that got me when I run my hand across this and better than any of them was the finish they had all you know it was like blast smooth and that's how I know that a skillet is going to perform well okay but I'm gonna play devil's advocate here a little bit do you feel that there is a big enough difference between the stargazer at 88 and the butter Pat at 195 uh not necessarily no and I'm not belittling these people or telling them that tell you that don't buy one no and that's the thing with butter Pat is because there's not a machine involved that's where you're getting that your cost like I said I would say this is the skillet for the collector for somebody that's really hard to buy for that's where that's where I think your butterfat market comes in I would give a maybe final recommendation if you are new to cast-iron I would probably recommend either the stargazer or the field because they come with a really great pre seasoning a lot of people who are just new to cast-iron don't understand how it works and how the seasoning works and they get frustrated for more ease of use out of the beginning I would maybe suggest one of those you know say the lodge is a good one it's just the preseason is so rough I wouldn't give that to somebody right out of the bat and say here this is what cast-iron is like because you have to put a little more love into the lodge remember what you're looking for but first of all remember it's all made in the USA by hard-working people here yep and so the biggest takeaway is there are all different styles of skillets all different price ranges we hope this helped you know maybe find out what works best for you are you gonna pick a favorite oh they can overall fit that's what people been asking me although they weren't overall they wanted a favorite chin I mean is it not me okay the mimori on I think I'd have to go with the field simple light and the handle is good if I was saying that I had to go and buy one skillet it would be a field yeah but I haven't cooked with this skillet long but I am really lucky I think you're kind of Yat like as you have talked about it more and more I think the stargazer is growing on you we thank y'all for stopping by the barn thank you for your concern about my mustache I was really it was just heartwarming all the sympathy and support that I got over it she said that is a really good impression of Kent Rollins hope you enjoyed this little series we did on cast iron what you do kit you'd reach over there and you hit that subscribe button and you'll get there god bless each and every one see you down the trove hey folks y'all been asking for it so we're gonna give it to you side-by-side comparison of the butter path the Stargazer of the field and large cast iron you don't want to stick around oh you don't I told you we should have wept with the first woman dorky do sorry

Channel: Cowboy Kent Rollins

Views: 886,744

Rating: 4.9364572 out of 5

Keywords: cast iron, cast iron skillet, skillet review, cast iron cooking, lodge cast iron, butter pat cast iron, stargazer cast iron, field company cast iron, outdoor cooking, camp cooking, cowboy cooking, cowboy recipe, best cast iron skillet, best cast iron skillet review, best skillet, best cast iron pan

Id: UXCGiRsUwLQ

Length: 15min 59sec (959 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 27 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/millertyme007]

I'd like to see Finex and Smithey next

[u/JackGetsIt]

If Field had integrated a support handle similar to the Stargazer I'd be all about it.

[u/nycjv321]

He needs to do a review on Smithey.

[u/Trod0]

Good honest review of all 4 skillets 🍳.

[u/downztiger]

If only those butter pats weren't so fucking expensive.