Cast Iron Dutch Oven Seasoning

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I don’t think it’s supposed to be built up to the point of falling off.

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I agree. This pot is probably 10 years old and I've never been happy with how it was seasoned. Just want to do it right this time but it needs to be able to handle the high heat.

I highly recommend flax seed oil.

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I've been using it for seasoning, but I feel like it gives off a weird fishy/salmon smell after i use it and when i heat the pan back up

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It definitely does when you're seasoning it but I haven't noticed that when cooking with it. Anyway, I sort of like that smell.

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When I'm making pancakes I don't want a fishy aroma anywhere near it.

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For sure.

Maybe you're using too much oil when you season it. You should wipe as much off as possible before sticking it in the oven. Or maybe you're not getting it hot enough. I go 550°F for an hour and then let it cool in the oven for another hour.

Pour a little onto your fingertips, and use your fingers to oil the pot. You can tell exactly how much you've rubbed in, and you won't be using excess since you can feel it. If you pour a bunch in & try to wipe out w/rag or paper towel, you'll end up w/too much.

I bake weekly in a Lodge combo cooker (for 3+ years), and I haven't had to re-season. Of course, the combo cooker is used solely for bread, so it's not being scrubbed w/soap/water, but merely rinsed/dusted. I also put the loaves on round parchment circles to transfer into the heated pot....I'm sure that saves the finish a little. The parchment makes life way easier; you turn the loaf onto the parchment, score, then pick up the edges of the circle and place into the pot. Way easier than trying to invert the loaf & score inside of a hot pot.

Please educate me on making bread in a Dutch oven? I just looked online and a little intrigued. Thx

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Please educate me on making bread in a Dutch oven? I just looked online and a little intrigued. Thx

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For lean breads to develop excellent crust, steam is introduced into the oven during the first minutes of baking. In industrial ovens, special water reservoirs & piping allow the baker to inject steam with the push of a button. In a wood-burning oven, a baker will spray the oven walls with water before sealing the oven for baking.

In a home oven, it is difficult to produce sufficient steam without resorting to pans of lava rocks, boiling water, hot towels, etc. In a gas oven, it's virtually impossible to trap sufficient steam to make an impact on the loaf (gas ovens are vented to allow for complete combustion of the fuel).

So putting a higher-hydration lump of lean dough into a tightly closed vessel (cast iron pot, terra cotta bread cloche, steel graniteware pan, etc) creates a "mini-oven" within the larger oven. The resulting loaves will have awesome oven spring, well-developed crusts, and overall better texture and appearance than a loaf baked without steam.

Note that I said lean dough--you can get lovely crust & oven spring in brioche, American style sandwich loaves, challah, and other enriched doughs without using steam. But lean breads (aka "rustic", "european" style loaves, or baugettes) that are merely flour/water/yeast/salt will only develop their full potential when baked w/steam.

Thank you, going to look up some recipes.

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What does then??

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External application of steam (water vapor) doesn't cause bread to rise.

Dough rises because the growing/reproducing yeast in the dough exhales carbon dioxide, which is trapped in pockets by the dough (gluten gives the dough sufficient strength to keep the gases trapped). Those CO2 gas bubbles trapped inside the dough expand in the oven's heat. Voila, the loaf expands (rises).

Another way to think about it: if steam made bread rise, you wouldn't need yeast. You could simply mix flour & water, knead to develop gluten, and bake it. You can indeed do this, but you will get dense, flattish pancakes rather than rounded loaves. Some pita recipes are unyeasted; those tend to puff like pillows, with one central hollow chamber, rather than a network of holes. Or you'll get something very cracker-like.