Cast Iron Myths with Kyle Seip

On this episode of Huntavore, Nick tries to get to the bottom of a few cast iron myths that have been circulating around the internet.  Smooth vs rough finish, expensive vs cheap, and folks still think using soap is ok.  Kyle puts these myths to bed along with a ton of info about our favorite cookware.  So preheat that skillet, and let the facts cook on this episode of Huntavore.

Kyle Seip has been around cast iron and metals most of his life.  Now he finds and restores vintage cast pieces both as a hobby and side business.  Kyle talks briefly about his process in using electrolysis on gunked up pans, and how a simple oven clean feature can help you start over on a damaged seasoning.  He Al breaks into several questions about cast iron and how in the long run, cast iron is far superior to any new modern material. The whole conversation is a great informative piece on care and use of your current and future cast iron pieces.

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Nick Otto: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Huntivore podcast powered by Sportsman's Empire, where we celebrate the hunting and fishing lifestyle through the utilization and consumption of our wild game. No egos. Fork in hand, beer in the other. No status. A piece of red meat on a hot grill and turn it into a burnt offering. Just catch it, cut it, cook it.

This is episode 133, Cast Iron Myths with Kyle Seidt. On this episode of Huntivore, Nick tries to get to the bottom of a few cast iron myths that have been circulating around the internet. Smooth versus rough finish, expensive versus cheap, and folks still thinking that soap is okay. [00:01:00] Kyle puts these myths to bed along with a ton of other info about your favorite cookware.

So preheat that skillet and let the facts cook on this episode of Huntivore.

Hey folks, beautiful evening here in Michigan. I tell you what, I was wearing a sweatshirt today. Believe it or not, the sweatshirts are coming out. Fall is around the corner. If you, again, have not been shooting your bow, then then shame on you. I am in that camp, so it's a full camp.

We're all in here, not shooting together. My boys have taken over as far as practice and games being both in soccer and football. So yeah, time crunches towards that October 1st date where we want to get in the stand. I've looked at my bow. And I do know that it's shooting true. We've gone through some paper here a couple of weeks ago.

But now it's time to get out there and [00:02:00] go a little bit longer range. As far as trail cameras are going, they are still in the garage. I didn't get them out again this year. We're just going to be happy with whatever walks out in front of me. The goal is for dough out early, and then we can wait for the eight point coming later in the year.

So anyway. That's our quick intro into that. We are real close to the opener here for archery for deer here in Michigan. And I know it's going to be opening up a lot of the places here out East, but Hey, we're going to take a shift gears rather than get into the woods. We're going to get. to the kitchen.

We're going to get to the open flame. We're going to get a chance to really dive into some cast iron talk. There has been more and more of this cast iron talk popping up on social medias and through YouTube and just different areas. Not just how to season or what to season with, but man, we're getting into some nitty gritty stuff.[00:03:00]

And then just to see vintage to see really old pieces pop up. And folks I tracked down Kyle Sipe. He is Cast Iron Kyle on Instagram. We were just talking a little bit here and I learned that Bone Appetite Magazine has even called him like, what was it Kyle? It was the something about vintage vintage cast iron.

Yeah, the

Kyle Seip: Instagram king of vintage cast iron.

Nick Otto: I tell, what a title Kyle was also sheepishly saying he feels like he's got a little imposter syndrome, but Hey man, when the rubber meets the road, it comes to knowing about old metal. You seem to got it. You seem to get it. Yeah, it's fun.

Kyle Seip: It's it's definitely one of those weird niche things that you feel like a potted plant at the party.

And then things to talk about. But when people realize what you can do with those pans, then you get invited to a lot more parties and they expect you to bring stuff.

Nick Otto: I [00:04:00] can imagine that. How did your love for cast iron start? Like just as I was going through your Instagram and just for the stuff that I've seen, like going around to like flea markets, going around to these different shows trade shows, just even thrift shops are you just picking for cast iron and is it specific?

Or is it anything cast that is, that's on your radar?

Kyle Seip: It all got started, back in the day. There's a longer form version of this story, but basically my grand mom was an antiques dealer and, used to take me to auctions and all this stuff. And I really enjoyed, Using the old things the way that they were made to be used.

And I grew up in a farm family where, we didn't buy new things. We used what we had. So cast iron just made sense. And on my, on the other side of the family, my grandfather, I used to cook for him. I lived with him for the last five years of his life through Alzheimer's dementia and Parkinson's and all that.

So I keep the memory of both my grandparents alive [00:05:00] by doing this, but curating it I have a really good reputation in the cast iron world for paying good prices for things. So I always have people, with an eye out for me all over the country. I'm really lucky to have a good pool of pickers.

And it all comes down to honesty. If you pay honest prices and you don't beat people up, they're pretty willing to hold on to stuff for you and let you know when they have it. I try to keep an account on Instagram that's very open and somewhat personal, there's a lot of other cast iron accounts where it's just every post is just a piece of cast iron and then words cast iron and words and there's nothing about the person. They're not showing you how to cook. They're not really showing you anything about the skillet other than what it looks like and, what it does. So I like to teach people how to cook and I think that gives people a personal nature of who I am and thus making them want to work with me.

So curating them is pretty easy. If you're you're kind and honest.

Nick Otto: I love it. I love it. Yeah, keeping a little bit [00:06:00] of meat on the bone when it comes to, passing the money down goes a long way. Yes. And then, like you said, being open with information. That's huge. I think that really shows the passion that you have, Kyle, as opposed to, Wow, I'm going to, I'm going to strike it rich with this stuff, but no, like I'm going to, you're going to share your passion about it.

And I think that just draws people. I think it's a fresh take on things. So that's it. Awesome way to be going after that.

Kyle Seip: Yeah, it's you see, you'll see a lot of guys that, that are honest as well. Like the community's not, crooks or anything like that, but you'll see dudes that are out picking and then you'll look at their Etsy page and they have skillets there for three or four grand.

Like I, I couldn't go to a garage sale and buy a skillet that I know is worth a couple grand for 10 bucks. I've it's been a a rare occasion, but I've come across. Pieces that were in the, couple hundred dollar range. And the person said, Oh, give me a couple bucks. I said, nah, I said, I could probably get, three or 400 bucks for this thing if it's restored and [00:07:00] cleans up right here's a hundred dollars, being, like I said, being honest is is really crucial. And I don't want people to get the wrong idea that other sellers, but they're just they all just fall in line with they all kind of blend in except for a few of them. So I try to stand out.

Nick Otto: Awesome. And that's a great segue into my first question.

I see Griswold. I see Eerie. I understand that these are names that, that are that are sought after that these are names that, hold a lot of history to them. Building my own collection and I'm a hunter and a cook first and I would say like a lover of old things, third or fourth in the line.

I got enough hobbies that, keep me busy and keep me out of, keep me out of getting in trouble. Yeah. But at the same time, I look at some of this stuff and it's isn't that. Isn't it all the same when it comes to, it's just literally iron that's been casted into a mold when we're looking at Griswold and Erie and comparing that [00:08:00] to, a modern company right now, like Lodge, that those are the pieces that I have.

And I got them. I didn't get them for these couple hundred dollars. I got them, straight off the shelf out of the cardboard and I had to, season them or they came with the seasoning on them. What is making the Griswold and the Erie and these older pieces so valuable? Is it the fact that these are now one of a kind pieces that are no longer being made or is there something different about the process of casting those pieces entirely?

Kyle Seip: I work in the metal industry. I'm a manual machinist, a certified welder. I've been doing that for about 15 years of my life. So it's given me a really good background in metal composition and metallurgy as a whole. The modern stuff is. Casted for quantity and the old stuff was casted for quality.

It's the same reason why, if you had, if you had infinite funds and you had the opportunity to have a [00:09:00] 69 Camaro versus a 96 Camaro, you don't, you'd choose the 69 every time. Why? Because they were made better back then there's less of them and it's, they're just cooler. They work better. They're better for.

You're, for what you need metal back then, iron ore back then was like straight from the mountain. Like iron was not like a recycled thing. I've mentioned many times before that when you're using metal when you're using iron, it could be, recycled. It could, you could have.

Iron from an unknown source that was melted down and made into a skillet and I just think that the quality of the iron nowadays is just really for quantity. There are a few brands that are doing it right that I think are doing it the way that they used to. But a lot of it comes down to being able to get your investment out of them.

If you buy a brand new, like you said, lodge yeah. You'll never get what you paid for it out of it, but I could buy a Griswold eight tomorrow for, a hundred dollars, use it for 10 years and then sell [00:10:00] it for, a hundred or more that holds their value because of their rarity and quality and craftsmanship.

Nick Otto: Gotcha. Gotcha. Is Griswold and Erie, are those companies dissolved at this point, or are they still making making pieces or is those are long companies that are long gone?

Kyle Seip: Erie, the Griswold Manufacturing Corporation, they had Erie and Erie Erie went out, or Erie changed to Griswold's Erie for about a year, and then it turned into Griswold in around the 1906, 07 range.

I don't have it written down, but from the top of my head, it was, the early 1900s when it went from Erie to Griswold, and you'll see if you find a skillet that's Erie chances are it's from the 1890s. And you'll see that it's, it feels light. But it's not a lack of quality because it's light.

It's just made so well, you can, it's [00:11:00] like a work of art. If like I come from a blue collar background and I, if I hold something that somebody made, I could tell if there's, a lack of quality and there's nothing lacking in this old stuff, these guys did everything.

Nick Otto: Intense.

Cause now they're using virgin. Iron, essentially, we're using or straight out of the ground, pure stuff here from the U S and smelting that down into those processes. Modern stuff now that, like you said it's getting recycled in that casting process. Are they, it's some people, like you said, are doing it right on the, I have no idea on the manufacturing side of it, but at that point, they're probably looking at.

What what is the composition of that cast iron?

Kyle Seip: Yeah that, nor do I know the composition truly. I'm not here to say that, all new cast iron is made from recycled material, but who's running a steel mill out, getting raw ore anymore, it's, if you look at where the main manufacturers of cast iron were, it was all Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio.

Like, all the top [00:12:00] brands were from out that way. Every brand of the late 1800s, short from one or two down south, everything came from that region of the world, which is where, the Steel Empires all started out, Pittsburgh area.

Nick Otto: Yeah. So with these pieces, they've been distributed all over the place, and families, like you were mentioning earlier, they're holding onto these pieces, it's, it's probably been handed down from grandkid to grandkid, or, grandfather to grandson, or even granddaughter, and these pieces are just going along, and...

As these shows pop up, as far as three, either trade shows or even thrift stores, like you said, you had a whole community of pickers that are finding these things. What kind of condition are you finding some of these that are like, shoot, you could go throw it right on your stove right now and heat it up and be ready to go.

And then at the same time, are you finding somewhere you're having to uncover what this thing is? [00:13:00] Oh, absolutely.

Kyle Seip: I just posted a reel today about a restoration I did for a client. He gave me a piece to restore for him. It was his great grandmother's and he wanted me to tell him what make it was. And I told him, I said, I can't even tell this thing is so suited up and.

Corroded. We had no idea what the manufacturer was. And after, a session or two in a electrolysis tank, we found out that it was a hammered piece. It had an eight in the handle. You couldn't see any of that. And, I like when you get a skillet that's all crudded and corroded up and, the challenge is bringing it back to life, but you find them in all condition.

I find them, I call it turn key if I find a good one, because all I got to do is oil it up. I always sanitize everything because I'm not about to buy a mystery piece. I have no idea what was on it and then just send it off to somebody. So I like to sanitize stuff. I'll sanitize it through means of heat.

I'm the team no soap guy and I can explain the reason why for that if you'd like to hear it. But [00:14:00] I'm not about sending a piece out without doing at least some sort of work, cause I don't, I feel like, A, that's not really the right way to do stuff. You gotta be consistent about your process.

And B, it doesn't happen frequent enough for me to figure that out. So usually it is having some sort of restoration needed.

Nick Otto: I'm glad to be talking to another no soap guy. At the same time, I joined No Soap because I was told No Soap. I have no idea why. Other than the seasoning, but that's my only reason.

Dive into that. Why No Soap?

Kyle Seip: See, the guys that are Team Soap nowadays are the guys that are doing interrupted content. Meaning they are the ones that... Figure out that they can get a clientele based on having the conflicting opinion, so to speak, like how uber disrupted the cab world.

They knew that they could come in and make a splash. It's funny I get accused a lot, people tell me I don't understand polymerization. It's not really understanding polymerization because we all know that oil bonds [00:15:00] to cast iron through heat, polymerizes the oil to the cast iron. Soap's not going to ruin that polymerization, correct?

Correct. So why do you need it?

Nick Otto: Other than I've washed everything with soap since day one. But

Kyle Seip: if you're out in the wild and you don't have soap and you all you have is fire and water What do you do to the water to sanitize it? You boil it, right? So if you have a skillet, that's well seasoned Hey food shouldn't stick to it to begin with but if food does stick to it All you need to do is, you know Hit it with a little steel wool or something to loosen up if any little parts of something here stick Here and there rinse it out and heat it back up and then you're done It takes five to seven gallons of water to rinse and clean the soap off of a skillet each time you use it.

So let's do some math real quick. You ready for these numbers? I'm ready. So say you five to seven, we'll just call it six gallons, right? So say you use your skillet every other day, we'll call that [00:16:00] 180 days a year. That's a thousand gallons of water for one skillet that you use every other day if you use soap now that's just your house.

I'd like to say I've done, research in my neighborhood. There's at least three houses on every street that uses some form of cast iron. So on a really low end, you're talking a few thousand gallons. Per neighborhood at least,

Nick Otto: and this is just on one piece of, yeah, this is just on one skillet that they

Kyle Seip: have.

Dude, you're talking swimming pools of unnecessary water. And my whole thing is, and know what, this is gonna piss some people off, but I'm cool with that. If you need soap on your cast iron, you're not seasoning it well enough. . Got to do better, man. And if you want to make content around using soap on cast iron, that's fine.

But I think a lot of the modern, and I'm not afraid to say this, but I think a lot of the modern cast iron manufacturers say that soap is okay because they know they'll sell [00:17:00] more skillets if they tell people they can use soap, because there's so many people that are clouded by the idea that if you don't.

If you can't use soap, it's not clean. So they're not going to buy your product. How do we get them to buy our product? We tell them that they can use soap. So it's not a, and it's not a, it's not a lack of knowledge of science. It's a, it's just a really I'm not about wasting time, money.

Water. I don't need to buy more soap to wash my seals. I don't need to pay more water on my water bill. I don't need to send thousands of gallons down the drain. It's just a total necessary step that, unnecessary step that doesn't need to take place. You know what I mean? I love it. I love it.

I have for to put a cap on that conversation. I've been doing cast iron for about 10 years now. I've sold in the thousands of skillets. I only show about, Maybe 10 percent of what I actually do on my page. A lot of it is repeat customers. A lot of it is curating for restaurants and chefs, from [00:18:00] your average home chef to guys on TV, I have not had anyone in all of my years of business ever complained about the quality of a skillet with food sticking to it ever.

Nick Otto: Yeah, that's cause you're like, you're just saying like you've got people who understand why they're using cast. They have an understanding of food in general. It's the people that are having problem with the food sticking on there is they're not getting that thing hot enough.

Or letting the food have a chance to cook on it.

Kyle Seip: Or they're using the wrong kind of oils. You want to use an oil that has a high smoke point so you can get that pan heated up and allow those pores to open in the cast iron and contract with that oil in them to bond that oil to your pan. So you want to use something like, like an avocado oil or something like that.

Avocado oil is the smoke temp is, I would say somewhere around 500, maybe 480, something like that. I'm a big fan of animal fats. I use lard, tallow, ghee. I [00:19:00] use bison fat. I use goat fat. I've used every kind of animal fat you could ever think of. I have a Bucket, a five gallon bucket of a five Wagyu fat that is not ever going to run out and seasons all

Nick Otto: of my stuff.

That was going to be my next thing too, is yeah, we want high smoke point, but at the same time, like animal fat works out really well. I, as simple as it is too. Like I've been using just stuff off bacon. I, when we cook bacon and I've actually been doing that in the oven.

My boys seem to like it. It crispens up a little bit better for me, but I did all that fat and I was just sitting in that that tray and I pour it right into a little Mason jar that I have sitting there. Now, when it's full, yeah, at that point it's done. I'm not going to keep over filling it, but shoot, just a dab after I've gotten that thing cleaned up.

After I've gotten all the food residue out of there, I bring it back up to temp. And it's literally just dab of a cloth, wipe it around on the inside. And now it's ready to go for the next time. Oh

Kyle Seip: yeah. And [00:20:00] the thing is, if you're going to filter that bacon, if anybody's listening and wants to try that, I would recommend putting a piece of cheesecloth over top of your jar before you pour it in, because all the little food bits and crispy bits of stuff, that stuff can go rancid.

So if you can get that oil as pure as you can, by filtering out. Any type of impurity besides pure oil that can last you forever. There's a shelf life of, infinite use. If you take care of it, and you store it, and doing it that way.

Nick Otto: That's good. My little bits are all congensed right to the bottom.

They're all encased in the fat, so I should probably heat it back up. I'll heat the whole jar up and then we'll filter that out. But I've just let them like there ain't going anywhere. They're staying down there and it's all white on the tip top of that. Yeah. A5 Wagyu. How do you come across A5 Wagyu tallow?

Kyle Seip: So there's a company out in Colorado, they're called Fatworks, and their whole company mission is using animal fats [00:21:00] in your daily life. There's so much science. There's so much science out there teaching you how you can benefit from animal fats. You can get energy from animal fats. There's no refining process.

There's no, homogenization. There's no soy in it. There's so it's such a natural thing. You're literally just using a piece of an animal. To cook with. And these guys have every kind of animal fat. And to correct something I said before, the animal fats I use, that's for my pans. When I do a pan for a customer, I either use Crisco or I use an avocado oil.

And that's simply because I'm not here to ask every single person their Eating preference. So if someone's a vegan, I don't want to set them up with a skillet that's smothered in in, in lard. So when I restore a pan or before I send it out, everything's done with a with a oil that won't, mess with anybody's passion or their lifestyle of vegan eating.[00:22:00]

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Yeah, no, that's good too. Cause just out of habit, I have a can of Crisco in the camper and that's what I've hit all my stuff when it comes with me on the camper, that's usually. Again, it's the shelf life. I like the tin. It's the convenience. I can throw it. It doesn't need to be refrigerated. I just throw it in the camper and it just lives its life in there.

No, that's a shoot. That's another good thing too that you mentioned that cause that's exactly how I've been doing them on the road. At least when I take the few pieces I did have a Dutch oven I, it, it's one of those ones that has the legs on it, and I went to go put it on the fire, I put a roast in there, I had a bunch of, I had a beer in there with a little bit of water, and I seasoned it all up, and we went on a hike.

And that hike ended up taking way longer than what we expected. It got a little rocky. And then we also had my three boys with me, which are really young. Youngest is five. And so what ended up going to be like a three hour trip or ended up bringing like a six hour trip by the time we [00:25:00] got back and I got back and that thing had just been sitting on the fire.

I took the lid off and the roast was completely incinerated. I'll have to. I have to, I've mustered up the courage to talk about it now. I like to know that I'm somebody I've, I think I talked about it on another podcast as well, but I think, okay, maybe I got to share it on the show notes, at least show the picture.

But I turned that roast into a complete piece of charcoal. The bone you, I could, I broke it with my hands and it was merely because we got back so late and it just spent so much time there. But the seasoning that was on that that piece was completely, or at least in my opinion is completely gone.

I had cooked it. Completely out and then so yeah on the road here I am up in the UP in Michigan and now I've begun the process of it. I actually moved it over to my propane cooker at that point and there I just I was just putting layer after [00:26:00] layer trying to build back that, that season when it comes to cast iron and I do something that move right there where I Completely ruin it Is scorching it?

One way to get rid of the seasoning that you see you can start over Or is there a far more effective, better way than doing that?

Kyle Seip: The way they've always done it, since ovens have had the feature of self clean the way they did it back in the day, the way that they've always done it, and the way that does not need to be changed, in my opinion, is you can always put your pan on self clean mode, or put the oven on self clean mode and put your pan in there upside down.

It's it works. I've done it a thousand times maybe and I've had zero breaks. I had an old lodge pan that was a commemorative piece for the Boy Scouts of America and had the I guess it's a cornflower emblem with the eagle on it and all that and it was all crusted and baked up [00:27:00] bad and I put that sucker in there on self clean and that stuff just flaked off.

A lot of the base seasonings that these new skillets use is just a really low budget. Bottom of the not a really quality quote unquote pre seasoning and I get. Probably every day if not every other day a message of why is my new skillet flaking? So I always just tell people put it in your oven on self clean mode and I get it.

It's like clockwork. If you followed me around for two or three days you I would guarantee I would bet my soul that you would see this message. Why is my skillet flaking? And then I respond. Here's what you do And then a day later, I get a DM picture of the same skillet oiled up and cooking for their family.

It's it happens probably a hundred times a year.

Nick Otto: That is the one that probably one of the number one questions that does come back to you. How often do you [00:28:00] restart a skillet or have you gotten to the point now where you're, if you don't have to restart it, like it's better to just keep that seasoning going, or are there points where it's okay, let's start from scratch.

Let's get all of this extra. Burnt off, let's get this flaked off, and then start fresh. Is there a timing that, that could happen?

Kyle Seip: Without sounding, overconfident or quote unquote cocky about it none of the skillets I've used in the past decade have needed any kind of really redoing, so to speak.

And also a fun fact I only have about. 10 or 12 skillets in my personal collection and they're nothing, crazy rare or unordinary because any piece it's my understanding and my philosophy that if I find a skillet, I put a lot of time into it and I could sell it for. A couple hundred bucks or, even up to, almost four figure range.

I should just sell it because I have the potential to crack it or break it at my house. I have my good set of pants [00:29:00] and I'm keeping true to the philosophy that I don't need to over accumulate something I already have. So the 10 pans that I do have, 10, 12 pans I do have in my collection are very well seasoned, very well taken care of.

They can all pass the egg test. And I like, I have a griswold six that looks like the surface of the moon. It's so pitted, but all those little pits are little seasoning traps. I call them and that's my filet mignon pan. I use that for that method. I have a breakfast pan. I have a pizza pan. And they are, I'm not saying that what I, Myself and what I'm doing is perfect, but I have not ever needed to take a pan and completely redo it if it's something I've owned since

Nick Otto: restored.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. As as someone who lives and breathes that that's something that, you understand. And so just constantly just re upping on that seasoning after you've used it, you've been able to keep that and not had to redo on some of [00:30:00] those. I know some folks like, and I've come across it, I'm no guru with it and I'm.

I'm sure I got one right now that it's taken some abuse. It's taken some neglect and as much as I want to try to stay up on it. I got my little I think it's a 10 inch, my 10 inch. I use shoot probably two, three times weekly on, on dishes that I'm making. And sometimes it's, it could be a multiple times a day, as an educator, not.

Working during the summer, at least not in the office during the summertime, I'm baking and cooking stuff every day. So using that pan got used. It was my bigger one that, it got left in there or I put them in my lower oven when we're not using it. And it just gets.

It gets left there and I did see a little fleck of rust on it. And I took care of that at that point, but it was like, man, this is, it's starting to look a little sad. So maybe going through that process, throwing it in the oven through the cleaning cycle and just getting it back to square one, starting over on what I've [00:31:00] got there, probably will bring life to any piece that somebody has that's, that has a little bit of neglect to it.

You haven't had a chance to get after it, starting fresh, isn't a bad deal. No, never. No,

Kyle Seip: it's never a bad deal. And if you do it, it's like it could be part of your maintenance routine, but I feel like the more you use the skillets, the less you really have to worry about them.

So if you keep consistent with how you do things and you use your skillet quite frequently it'll get better with time. The more, the main phrase is just keep

Nick Otto: cooking, yes. Yes. You mentioned the egg test, lay that out for the layman that does not know what the egg test is.

Kyle Seip: So if you have a well, A finely tuned cast iron skillet that sees a lot of use and is well seasoned and ready to go.

Should be able to take it out of the oven or off the rack, put it on the stove, heat it up, crack an egg in it, and the egg should

Nick Otto: move around. Gotcha. It should slide around early on in that. Wow. Yep. Very early on, yes. Is that also because it [00:32:00] is a smooth surfaced cast iron? Or can a rough surfaced also pass this egg test?

Kyle Seip: Oh, a rough surface can too, because like I said the one that I have that's really pitted, it just holds little, they're like little oil traps or little seasoning traps. It should be fine. As long as the majority of the pan is nice, it'll it'll

Nick Otto: be able to move around. Good.

And I lead up with that because I feel and I've just seen it pop up and surface around about some of these companies that are trying to sell cast iron. They're trying to sell what they are claiming to be higher grade. And I'm. Very possibly that they are, but then they're talking about how they have this smooth mirror finish on their skillet bottoms.

And I'm seeing now videos of guys taking a, either a sanding wheel or they're putting something on an angle iron or their angle grinder. And they're just tearing apart the [00:33:00] bottom, get into this thing to be as smooth as possible. And I'm watching this and I'm like. This is screams bullshit to me, like it doesn't look right.

It doesn't feel right, but I see more and more of this popping up. Kyle, what's going on with this? Why are people wanting us to make smooth bottom pants? Because

Kyle Seip: they're dumb. Dude, it's but I only say that because they argue with you. People are so quick to argue. So like I said, I work in the metal industry, right?

I build tanks. We build, heat exchangers where I work. Oftentimes the customer wants the inside of the tank polished or sanded down to the point where it's smooth. And why do they want that? So that, Microscopically, nothing deposits into the metal. So what you're doing when you're sanding and grinding and polishing down the surface of your cast iron, you're not allowing any material to deposit in the metal.

The skillet will get smooth [00:34:00] from use and proper seasoning. You're forcing it. It's like how people take a guitar and beat it up quickly to make it look like it's seen a lot of road use and you can always tell from a mile away that it's not the case. It's the same thing with skillets. If you, the average angle grinder grinds at 11, 000 to 16, 000 RPMs.

Now, if you take a sanding disc and you put that sanding disc on that grinder and you're, people grinding the surface of their cast iron or sanding the surface of their cast iron, that's concentrating such a high level of heat in a concentrated area. You're literally smoothing over all of those pours that could be potential places for oil to deposit and polymerize, and you're blocking it.

It's the same reason you, if you would look inside a tank at a brewery, it's polished that the tank inside, a place that makes tomato sauce is. finely polished because tomatoes are acidic and they don't want any of that citric acid to deposit into the pores of the tank. So all you're doing is [00:35:00] blocking any potential positivity to enter your skillet if you polish

Nick Otto: it up.

Gotcha. It's a good question. Yeah. Great question. Excellent. I'm glad I asked it because yeah, I'm watching it and I'm like, this just doesn't seem right. It just it seemed like a gimmick and I, it's being used now as a selling point. It's being used now as a point much like the, Oh, you can use our pans with soap.

Now, Hey, you can, you have a mirror finish on this and nothing's going to stick to it because you're going to get the whole thing hot. Yeah. Now, you're not also not going to get any oil fall into those spots. So potentially you could be creating, more of an issue now that you've sanded it down.

Kyle Seip: Now, one, one of the one of the things that new manufacturers use that's right. If it's, if a skill is casted properly, it'll be smooth. It'll start out. It's. journey in life being nice and smooth and ready to go. But microscopically, it'll be ready and open to, grabbing that [00:36:00] oil. Back in the day when they made skillets, what they, how they would bring down the high spots on their castings.

They would put it in a, what was called a vertical turret lathe. It was almost like a lathe, but it's it's vertical and they would strap the skillet in, they would break, they would, bracket it in and they would spin the skillet almost how a record player would and picture like how the record needle goes across a record that would be a.

Bit that would smooth out the cast iron. And that's not polishing it. It's doing it at a slow RPM, usually around 29 to 50 RPMs, which is not very fast at all, and it would bring down the high spots so that you started with an even cooking surface. And there is a big difference in my opinion, there's a big difference between polished and straight.

You know what I mean? If you straighten out a surface. It doesn't have to be polished. It can just be, have the high spots brought down. Does that make you, that makes sense?

Nick Otto: Yes. Yes. At that point. Yeah. It's not [00:37:00] going to a polish you're using essentially like a, oh shoot. But yeah, you said like low RPMs and it's knocking down, it's cutting, it's not polishing.

So it's cutting down those high spots at a low RPM, much yeah, an old school, or even just a, a belt. A belt saw that you would use in a metal shop where that's going to, it's going to slowly cut through, it doesn't want to go too fast because of the heat transfer and you're, you're gonna mess up that blade, but slowly cutting through with a harder steel is going to be able to get through that same sort of way with what you're talking through in that process.

Kyle Seip: Absolutely. And being a machinist and working in a welding shop for as long as I have you get a really good understanding how they do things. Now, I mentioned the word manual machinist, meaning I don't use any digital readout. I don't use any digitized medium to Do this work 1 of the machines I have a lot of experience with the newest patent on that [00:38:00] machine is 1914 and the earliest is, 1890.

so this is the 1 of the exact to a team machines that Griswold Wagner, Erie Wapak would use. To do that surface grading, like I'm talking about the vertical turret lathe, so to have that background and the knowledge of metal in my, that feather in my cap, so to speak, does allow me to give this information, not really as an opinion based, it's like science, there's evidence and there's a reason behind what I'm saying, it's not an opinion that a polished piece of metal will not deposit oils,

Nick Otto: absolutely. Man, working with such machinery too, and just being in the metal and how like the high day of cast iron was in cast iron manufacturing was right there at the turn of the night of the 18th century. They are right down, 1890s into 1901. It's and then you look at just our knowledge of stuff.

[00:39:00] Now, like you think we would be, you think it would be better. Hey we're into the future. Like we're thinking better, but The product that we had to put forward, the thing that's making us better, we thought was going to be Teflon and here it is all flaking off and just, a mess and here we're resorting back.

We're saying, you know what we done screwed up. We got to go back to the early 1900 to find what actually we should be using. Yeah,

Kyle Seip: it's just a proper depiction of, the capitalist society that are our nation's become let's make the most we can as fast as we can and, get as much money as we can for him.

And back in the day, people were like, let's make this right. Let's make it to last forever. And nothing these days, cookware as well. Nothing is really made to last nowadays. It's all made to be replaced. It's not meant to be repaired. And it's just such a [00:40:00] wide gap between what they made in the 1890s versus what they're making today.

And like I said, there are some brands that are doing it right, doing it the way that they used to. That I like, and I want to do more work with them. Showing how they do what they're doing that relates to the old processes. But that, that's something for down the road to think about.

But I think the background in metal that I have has really shown its light with a lot of the chefs and people that I've done work with over the years. Where's the quality of my product comes through,

Nick Otto: so there is a company that I am going to refer to as Sasquatch. Okay. It it started its venture in one corner of food refrigeration, or at least trying to keep things cold.

And it has now ventured into creating a. A cast iron pan. It is, I believe it [00:41:00] is 12 inches.

Kyle Seip: Yep, I know exactly what it is. I saw it before it came out. And I'll tell you what, that thing's worth every penny. You know why? Because it's made by one of the companies, one of the only companies in America right now that's making cast iron the right way.

Nick Otto: Good, good. Because... I'm not going to want to hear more about it. Yeah, I

Kyle Seip: am. I'm a Sasquatch affiliate and I'm not being paid to say that. Okay. But I stood behind that company far before I was ever involved with Sasquatch.

Nick Otto: Good. Cause here's the thing. I I'm being coy with the name. Because I've used their coolers before they're wonderful.

And I, maybe it was the sticker shock. And again it's probably me too. Whenever something pops up, it's either too good to be true or too bad to be true, or just too jarring. Like my. Initial knee jerk reaction is to avoid it or, okay there's something more here that I'm looking at, but it came with a [00:42:00] price tag of 400 for one piece of of skillet.

And so the Midwest penny pinch, the penny pincher myself, like instantly Oh no, we don't walk away from it. But the process that you're going, you're saying that pan is been put together. This is a, that is a pan that is going to essentially outlive the purchaser. It's made of that high quality.

And it's going to, it's going to perform when used correctly. The one as one of the best pans you could get,

Kyle Seip: it is made exactly the way that cast iron should be made. And yeah, the sticker shock is there, like you're talking about, but half the people that. Complain to the price, still bought it and then retracted saying, Oh yeah, that's too much money.

If you can't afford it, don't buy it. You know what I mean? That's my big thing too. Just because just because you can't afford it doesn't mean you have to trash the company or the people that are buying it or the fact that you think it's expensive. Just, don't buy it.

Maserati's are also expensive too, but [00:43:00] you don't see people.

Nick Otto: Exactly. Exactly. And again, and I don't know what I don't know. And what I do know is, yeah, I got my lodge 10 inch and, if that's a comparable to one of the big three being, Ford or Chevy, like great it's serving my purpose it's doing well.

I think I'm getting a great quality out of it. The fact that I've had it for now five years and yeah, it's, I haven't needed to re up on a 10 inch skillet. It still performs for me. Great. But yeah, the to say the point like yeah to upscale to something that is high performance to something that's made with Supreme quality like yeah, you're gonna you're going to pay for that so I can nod my cap to that right?

Kyle Seip: Yeah, it's it all just comes down to like how into it you are You know what? I mean it comes down to do you want to buy something once? If you [00:44:00] look at it, yeah, I think the price tag was what, around 400? Yeah. So if you look at it, 400 bucks, you buy it once, you take care of it, you treat it you never have to buy it again.

The average consumer gets a new complete cook cookware set every seven to 10 years. The average price on your cookware sets around five to 700. So in the course of your life, you're going to spend 10 grand on cooking equipment or you could buy a couple hundred dollar skillets and have them for the rest of your life.

Nick Otto: That is, that's a great way to look at it. It's that buy once, cry once scenario.

Kyle Seip: Exactly. I get I buy all my tools through Snap on and people trash me at work. There's a couple guys at work that don't believe in Snap on that tell me I'm nuts, but my dad was a tractor mechanic growing up and he explained it to me like this.

You buy this wrench, say when you're 18 years old, you buy the wrench. Yeah, the wrench is a hundred dollars, when all the other wrenches are 50, but that hundred dollar wrench. Is the only one you ever have to buy because if it breaks, it [00:45:00] got, it's got a warranty and it's made so well that you don't have to worry about it breaking if it wears down over time.

And above all things, the Snap on guy actually comes to you. It's like an ice cream truck, but with pools, but absolutely. I find that if you buy a quality product and you take care of it, the price. Doesn't really factor into it very much unless, you're up against the wall money wise or something like that.

But you save up, you buy the good stuff. You don't buy crap 20 times and it ends up, floating around in the ocean somewhere. Cast iron wouldn't float around the ocean. You know what I mean? It's out there with what hula hoops, glow sticks, your old roller blades, whatever's out in the ocean.

Yeah,

Nick Otto: exactly. Shoot, man. There's a whole, there's a whole episode right there talking about just plastics in general Oh yeah. Where was I going to go on this tangent? Oh, that's where I wanted to go to. So you've talked about some of the modern stuff that's being put together extremely well.

But at the same time you've got some of those older pieces hanging up in your own collection [00:46:00] and then highly looking after these, the rarities, what has been one of, and I'm going to allude to, I'm going to definitely bring up one of your pieces that, that you've recently restored, but What has been one of the rarities that you have found that has just blown your mind that you have really Wow, like this is a great piece here.

This is a one of a kind.

Kyle Seip: I've restored a couple thirteens Griswold thirteens go for big money And that is

Nick Otto: the size of it. Is that a 13 inch or is that a model? No

Kyle Seip: the number on the skillet corresponds with the size whole of the wood stoves that people used to use. Like a Griswold 8 is a 10 and 3 quarter skillet.

A number 7 is 10 and a quarter. A 13. I'm not positive of the actual dimensions. They're so rare, you don't really deal with them, but once or twice in your career, but I've restored them for people. I've handled a few of them and I've seen some twos. I've done some work with Griswold twos [00:47:00] before.

WAPAC is a manufacturer of skillets, late 1800s, early 1900s that I really like. And I've seen a few of the Indian head medallion skillets come around. Oh, wow. Those are cool. They're really cool. And like I said I, there's no need for me to have a 500 skillet in my collection. So I restore them, send them out.

Nick Otto: Gotcha. Again, folks are surfing around on the interwebs. They're going through social media. You come across cast iron underscore Kyle. And one of the adventures that I saw you put together is you found this It was a bull or a steer hibachi. Yeah. That thing is so cool. And just to describe it to folks.

So it looks like a two piece that's been either strapped together with hardware or if it's been bolted together or even just got hooks on to it holding together. But it's a bull or a big cow, but the top of it is flat. And if you think of an older sportsman's grill from Lodge where [00:48:00] you could, basically you had the coal bed there with a grate and then you also had your cooking plate up on top.

That was one of the first things that I saw it compared to, but it's just this really neat piece of art. When you were restoring that, have you got a chance to dig into the history of that piece? What have you found out about it?

Kyle Seip: So I found out that it's either a cracker barrel piece or it's a really vintage really vintage one off.

It's really, it's a really cool, unique piece. And I spent a lot of time restoring it. I actually made a little extra electrolysis tank just for the three individual pieces. So it has the top part that comes off almost like a grill grate. And then it has a plate in the bottom where it holds the coals off of the bottom of the cow and it has holes in the bottom for the air to circulate.

And, the cow itself obviously is a piece too but you're talking hours and hours of restoration on this thing. And [00:49:00] I brought it to Maine on vacation and cooked a elk steak on it. And yeah, it got a lot of views. It got one of the most successful reels I've ever made. I think it hit like 2.

5 million views or something like that, which was pretty cool. And it was one of the reels with the least amount of effort to piss me off. I was like I did this I posted this video like I couldn't believe it I put it on my you know, my john booze block on the countertop It was like look at this thing check this thing out And I just talked about what it was lifted up the grate put it back down and then you know Here we are a month later the things, you know hit 2.

5 million views You know that the number that's wild about that. It's that 167 000 people Liked it and 41, 000 41. 8 thousand people liked it enough to share it. That's crazy to me Those numbers I still Listen, i'm not saying those numbers in a braggadocious manner at all I'm saying it in what the hell kind of manner like it blew my mind that many people liked it but you know what if I look [00:50:00] at it and I And if, from looking at it, the real, again, it was a really cool restoration piece, a really cool before and after.

And if you look at that reel, the original reel, there's so many people there that trash my eyebrows and it's crap.

Nick Otto: That's the temp they get out of it. They don't take anything else, but they're like, dude, what's going on in the

Kyle Seip: caterpillars? Cracks me up so much that people think that is like.

Dude, you see what I'm doing here? I'm restoring iron pieces of history. You think talking about my eyebrows is going to get through to me, man. You're on the wrong

Nick Otto: page, brother. Oh, you done missed man. Strike one. You missed.

Kyle Seip: Go back to your, go back to your obscurity. Go buy a bag of Doritos, stupid.

Nick Otto: Man, I feel like we've just gotten to the tip of this iceberg, Kyle. There's just so many things I want to get into. But. Man, I tell you what, one of my big passions is using that cast [00:51:00] iron. Shoot, if I, it's one of those things, like if I had a sign, maybe not assigned to baseball maybe I'm like the kid from San lot though.

Like I want things to be used. I don't want things to sit on a shelf and not be used. So like a signed baseball, I want to get it down and I want to throw it. And just because a celebrity, signs, my baseball cap doesn't mean I'm not going to wear that baseball cap. It now I get to show off that Sharpie mark to other people to be like, Hey, look who signed my cap.

Like I want to use it. I want to wear it. And I'm the same way with my cast iron. I don't want to let it sit on the shelf. Even if it's, even if it's expensive, even if it's cheap, I want it to get used. That's where I want to come here to the crescendo of our show is I'm going to give you a two dish Breakdown and I'm hitting you off here quick because I didn't prep you on Anything as far as cooking related, but Kyle, I mean we're dealing with pans here.

We're in the kitchen We're ready to put something together [00:52:00] You were describing to me your dinner tonight. You had an Asian style pancake you were working with, you had some dumplings, and you even had a piece of, it was cod or flounder you had. Go through a little bit of that.

How did you, and I assume you used cast iron for this. How do you go through using, cast iron in a way where you can make a pancake and a dumpling, something that you're going to sear super hard, but at the same time. You need to be so delicate with those dumplings. It just sounds man, you know your way around that skillet.

How did you make that dinner tonight?

Kyle Seip: What I do, I'm an opportunistic when I know I have a gap of time, and I blocked out some time. prior to this podcast so that I could play around in the kitchen a little bit. And I don't like to do normal dinners. You're not going to find, peanut butter and jelly doesn't really find its way around my kitchen too often for dinner.

But yeah, I did the scallion pancakes in number eight Wapak skillet with a little bit of little bit [00:53:00] of oil, little bit of lard, and I crisped it up, cut it into little pieces little six inch, or six little mini slices, almost like a pizza. And then in another pan, I boil some water, and I put my bamboo steamer in there, throw some dumplings together.

And then in another pan, I do the I do the flounder. I cook the flounder in the oven a little bit, and then I crisp it up in the pan, give everything that nice crunch to it. The dumplings are nice and soft though. I don't really sear them. They're more like soup dumplings. If you burn them, the soup can run out of them.

But I do have a couple go to dishes other than the Asian stuff. That I really love to make in cast iron and one of those things is a duck breast. I'm a big fan of the crispy craziness you can get on a duck breast if you do it correctly.

Nick Otto: Absolutely. Absolutely. That's going to be our number two here.

We're going to get all into that duck breast. Guys are going to be hitting the water here very soon. I think actually [00:54:00] Here in September, we've opened up with Canada geese, and I think I think dunks are coming up here soon. When you're doing a duck breast, am I still starting with that cast iron cold, like I would on a thinner pan?

Or is this one where I want to have some heat already built up in the pan? Oh, whenever

Kyle Seip: you're cooking with cast iron, never start cold ever with anything. Even if you're cooking Cheerios, man, don't ever, you don't want that skillet cold at

Nick Otto: all. No cold skillet. Good. Okay. So take me through that process then I got a hot pan then.

Kyle Seip: Alright, so you get your pan nice and hot. You can put the oil in cold if you want, so that way you don't shock the oil when you throw it in when the pan's searing hot and it bubbles up crazy. You don't want to do that. You can add the oil in cold if you want. Okay. But what you want to do is you want to prep the skin of the duck breast.

You want to serrate it nicely, put little slits in it on either side so that it crisps up nice and evenly.

Nick Otto: Not all the way through though. You're just nipping the surface. Okay.[00:55:00]

Kyle Seip: Cause duck breast is a little bit more meatier than your common poultry. It's a it's almost like a red meat.

You have to treat it like but you have to retain some of the fat under the skin too. So that's why I like. That's why I mentioned if you do it right, meaning, it's going to take you a few times. The first time I did a duck breast, it was a disaster. I needed a bath, I put the oil in too wrong.

I was just, it was a mess. But you want to get the skin nice and crispy. You'll, you could do it the night before and cut it and allow that fat to breathe and to dry out a touch. Which would, which will allow it to crisp up. You could put it on a baking sheet in your fridge overnight.

And that, that'll allow the moisture to draw out of some of the fat. Yeah. The less moisture, the crispier you'll get. You won't necessarily lose any moisture from the meat itself. And you want that fat to render off to cook the rest of the meat too. It's like pork belly. It's not easy to do it.

Good, it's not [00:56:00] easy. It's not an easy thing to cook. It's easy to cook pork belly, but it's very hard to cook pork belly, right? Does that make sense? I'm throwing stuff at the wall here.

Nick Otto: Yeah. No, and I think too, like as far as takeaways to that's something we've used for that.

I use for my venison or that I use for shoot any steak that I'm getting out. If I want a sear, if I want to get color and I want to get that crispy and especially on something that doesn't have fat like my venison. I'm going to do like that trip overnight in the refrigerator, or even like I get, a thought out overnight and then I'm getting ready to go to work, I'm gonna open up that package.

I'm going to take those pieces of venison. I'm going to hit it with a little bit of salt, but I'm going to leave them exposed in that refrigerator. Because it's going to wick that moisture off the surface. And if I've got a dry piece, like you said, once I've got that skillet hot and I put that down, there's no moisture that's going to bubble to keep it gray.

There's no [00:57:00] boil ax action going on there. We're going straight to my art at that point, we're going to be browning. And I think that's, what's happening with that. That duck like you're talking about, you got that dry skin, it's immediately going to brown, it's immediately going to render that fat as opposed to have to boil off any of that moisture that's already sitting there.

Kyle Seip: And what you want to do you want to cook, you don't want to go above 130 at all. If you're near 130, stop at one 30, pull it off, let it rest. Always do the fat size first, get that nice crunch, get that nice my artifact that you want, get that fat, nice and rendered, then flip it.

You can crank the heat up a little bit more when you flip it just so that it cooks that meat, locks in that flavor. Have you ever had ostrich by the way, I was going to ask you that.

Nick Otto: No, I've had plenty of big turkeys grew up on a turkey farm. So I've had a lot of big turkeys. I have not had ostrich.

Kyle Seip: I made it for the first time last weekend. I collabed with a buddy of mine who does beer pairings. His name is Paired Pints on Instagram. [00:58:00] Great guy. Good friend. Just that, that solid dude that you could bounce anything off of and you know he's gonna give you a good answer that's best for you.

Like that helpful person in your life. And I was like, dude, let's get together and do some ostrich and waffles. Take your traditional chicken and waffle recipe, but let's do the ostrich schnitzel style. Yeah. Paired it with some blueberry hot sauce, and then we paired it with a blueberry cobbler IPA.

It was a dream, this menu, and it hasn't come out yet, so we'll have to get together on when this podcast is going to come out so we can make sure that the recipe comes

Nick Otto: out first. Yes, you bet. A little foreshadowing here, we'll make sure to put a link or something over to that.

Kyle Seip: Sure. The reason I bring it up, the ringing, the reason I bring up the ostrich is 'cause the ostrich meat was like blood red, like it, it cooked like a steak and it was so much, I wanted to treat it like a filet so much that it was like reprogramming my inner computer, how to [00:59:00] cook this thing.

Yeah. I don't want people to be afraid of cooking duck. I've had a lot of friends, I have friends that claim to be foodies when I say, hey, let's do some duck. They're like, nah, no, duck's weird, and then I'm like, fine, more for me. Last time I smoked a duck breast, I took half of it and sliced it up and I made a a duck a la ranch.

Flatbread pizza with brie and I smoked it on my Traeger. I was happy to have that bad boy to myself. Absolutely.

Nick Otto: Nobody to share at that point. Shoot. That's awesome. That's awesome. So flavor profile of an ostrich. What are we looking at? Is it poultry forward or is it definitely got, it's got some funk to it.

Kyle Seip: It's got, it had no funk to it. It tasted like almost like a sirloin how sirloins not fatty, but it's also not chewy. Yeah. A properly done sirloin cooks pretty good. It wasn't soft as a fillet, but it wasn't hard as London broil. Definitely knew it wasn't beef, but you would be really hard [01:00:00] pressed to have a blind taste test with it and tell somebody that it was poultry.

And I'm not even sure if ostrich, would you consider that would be considered poultry,

Nick Otto: correct? I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say, yeah, just cause it's part of our feathered friends. It's a land bird. It is upland, but man, it definitely blows.

Kyle Seip: Dude, that's how the politicians do it.

They look at each other, go, Hey, you thinking what I'm thinking?

Nick Otto: I love it. I love it. So yes, ostrich is in the poultry family. I love it. I love it. Yeah.

Kyle Seip: Yeah. I've seen some chefs, some of the chefs I've collaborated with and, talk to on the backend and done projects with, I've seen one or two of them do ostrich before and, it was always something I wanted to take a stab at.

Nick Otto: Did any of them do the drumstick? Like just pull out the two foot drumstick and be like, all right, snack down on that.

Kyle Seip: That's a really good idea. No, I have not seen that, but there's this chef I really like from Australia. His name is Andy Herndon, his name is Andy cooks [01:01:00] on Instagram.

I could see him doing that. I don't know why, but I could just picture him doing it. Like he does really fun stuff like that. Cool guy. I should propose that to him. Maybe if he wants to make his way to the States, we could do that together. We'll smoke one. Yes,

Nick Otto: that would be epic. I'm a shank guy.

I love shanks, whether it's beef, whether it's Venny, whether shoot, whether it's off poultry, give me the drumstick, that dark meat sinew doesn't turn me off. Like I'm eating an animal. I know what I'm getting into. And the fact that's the hardest worked muscle also provides there's a flavor profile that you get in something that's been low smoke. There's a velvety NIS once it falls apart, but even to sit there and just chew on something and Oh, you got a little bit of like tendon in your tooth. I don't care, man. I knew what I'm getting myself into. So that would just be a righteous thing to see.

Yeah, a good 18 inch long drumstick would be, Oh my God.

Kyle Seip: I'm a big fan of, get to know your butcher. If [01:02:00] don't have the luxury of having a local butcher shop, even at the grocery store, get to know the guy, talk to him. And every once in a while, I'll take a cut of meat.

Like I'll take a short ribs and say, Hey, can you just. Can you pull the bones off like of this? Can you butcher it this way? Can they'll cut stuff up for you. If you want to make a good stew, get a lamb shank and have them slice it up for you. Oh my God. I'm all about that, dude.

Nick Otto: That relationships are huge. Relationships are huge. Oh God. Yeah. Kyle, this has just been an epic hour and I don't want to keep you too late. We got to keep on doing the rest of our lives here, even though we could sit here and talk all night. But where can my folks jump in on your action?

Where can we find out more about you? When can we find about the products you're pushing that you've really come alongside with and the people that you associate with where can we follow along?

Kyle Seip: Everything I do is really concentrated into my Instagram page. I've tried TikTok thing, didn't like it.

Tried the Facebook thing. It's too many political arguments. I'm not for that.[01:03:00] And I try to keep everything on Instagram. I have a link tree with everything in it, like the links to podcast iron, the links to full slice podcast, the podcast I do with my brother and my two friends if you want to see everything that I'm doing and what my current projects are you could really sum that up by my bio and Instagram.

If you want to learn a little bit more about, my background, you can, go on YouTube and watch. I did an episode with Brad Leone for his new show, Local Legends, and we really dive deep into my past and why this came to be. And I think that anybody that's new to myself and the world of cast iron should start there with why this is important.

And also if you want, I did an article about carbon steel stuff with food 52. If you want to look that up, that was a fun article. But yeah, everything really is on my Instagram page or castironkyle. com. And that's mostly

Nick Otto: it. Awesome. Awesome. Kyle, go ahead and hold on for just a second.

I'm going to let [01:04:00] our listeners on out folks. I hope you enjoyed. This episode and this conversation, because yeah we've talked cast iron before, and we've talked a little bit about seasoning and, like some of the basics do's and don'ts like not using soap, but at the same time, like we got to go a little bit deeper here and ask some deep questions of stuff that we're being bombarded with is.

Is really pricey cast iron legit? And we're finding out that there's a reason why it's so expensive. But at the same time we're finding people trying to manipulate and change the way cast iron is being used and processed and how it's presented and it doesn't feel right and there's reasons why it shouldn't feel right.

The way things should be done is looking back into the past and not necessarily looking forward when it comes to food and when it comes to using cast iron. But folks, whether it's going to be getting [01:05:00] you a pricey piece of cast iron or if you're going to end up trying to bring one to life and get it in the oven and start it out, make sure That you're keeping that thing all seasoned up.

And the knife that you're going to process the rest of your stuff with is very sharp.

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