For cast iron ovens, the cleaning process is in two steps. First, you remove all traces of food and second, you maintain the coating.

To remove stuck-on food: put  1 to 2 inches of clean water into the oven.  Put the oven on the fire heat it with the lid on until it is almost boiling.  Let the water steam for awhile and loosen everything up for you.  It's a lot less work than scrubbing!  (If your coals are too weak to do this, use your stove).

Pour out all but about 1 inch of the water. Use a PLASTIC mesh scrubber, scraper or bristle brush to gently break the food loose (keep your Dutch oven scrubber separate in your Patrol Box and NEVER use it with soap to clean other pots or dishes).   Do not use Brillo pads, steel wool, wadded up aluminum foil or any other metal object to clean inside the oven.

Pour out the remaining water and wipe out any loose food remaining in the oven with a paper towel.  If food remains stuck to the Dutch oven, repeat the steaming process.

Usually, a single cleaning will do the job, but if food particles remain after steaming the oven twice, you will need to dry it out and put three Tablespoons of salt in the Dutch oven.  Using a paper towel, scour the food particles away.  The salt acts like sandpaper, so be careful not to remove the seasoning by scrubbing too hard.

After all food traces are removed, rinse with clean water.  Let the Dutch oven air dry … it should be warm enough that this happens quickly.

Put the Dutch oven back on the heat (either the coals or your stove) and reheat it until it is just hot to the touch.  Oil the interior with 1 Tablespoon of vegetable oil, same for the lid.  Use another clean paper towel to wipe off excess oil.  You want a thin, even coat of oil on the interior of the oven.  Place a folded clean paper towel inside the Dutch oven.   After cleaning, do not put the lid back on until the oven has cooled completely. This prevents condensation from forming as the oven cools.

Place a couple of paper towels inside the oven so they hang out a little. Then place the lid on the oven and put it away. The paper helps keep the lid slightly ajar for air movement.  It also collects moisture to keep the oven dry.

The outside needs little attention other than a good wipe down and an occasional oiling.  If you see ANY sign of rust forming, lightly oil the entire oven exterior.

No-No's

• NEVER allow cast iron to sit in water or allow water to stand in or on it. It will rust. Period. End of subject.
• NEVER use soap in a cast iron Dutch oven. The soap will get into the pores of the metal and won't come out, but will return to taint all the food that oven cooks. If soap is used accidentally, the oven must have the interior seasoning removed down to bare metal, it must be thoroughly cleaned and then the oven must be re-seasoned.
• NEVER use metal objects to scrape the inside of your oven.
• NEVER place an empty cast iron oven over a hot fire. Your oven will crack or warp, ruining it.
• NEVER get in a hurry to heat cast iron, you will end up with burned food or a damaged oven.
• NEVER put cold liquid into a very hot oven. It WILL crack!

A Dutch oven needs to be seasoned before its first use, and again if it is damaged in cleaning.  You might want to season (or cure) your Dutch oven on a nice day when you can open windows and doors to air out your house as this process generates smoke and odors as the seasoning bakes on.  With just a little care, a single seasoning can last a lifetime and just keep getting better with age.

Before starting on the Dutch oven, prepare your kitchen oven by lining the bottom with aluminum foil to catch any excess oil that drains off the oven later.  Then,  pre-heat your kitchen oven to 150 F.

Wash a new Dutch oven in hot, soapy water to wash off the clear, food-grade protective wax coating the factory applies to prevent rusting. A steel wool scrub pad or a green 3M scrub pad works well to get down to the bare metal and remove any rust.  Do not be bashful about scrubbing the oven ... inside and out ... you must remove ALL of the wax!

If you are reconditioning a used Dutch oven, after cleaning it with soap and water, get some fine grit sandpaper (400 or so) and sand all the metal, inside and out, legs and handle, too.  You want to remove as much of the old seasoning as is reasonable (a rotary wire brush on a drill works, too).  Wash the oven again with soap and water to get all traces of metal particles and oils off the metal.

Immediately after washing, dry the oven thoroughly by putting it in the 150 degree F oven for 10 minutes.  Don't let the oven sit around after washing.  It will start to rust in minutes.  Remove the oven and let it cool a few minutes until it is just warm enough to handle without burning yourself.

Use a good grade of olive or vegetable oil.  Canola work very well.  [Some people use lard or another shortening.  In fact, Lodge recommends lard and both does produce superior coatings.  We strongly suggest Scouts and Scouters use oil instead as lard and shortening become rancid over time if the oven is not used often enough.  Do not use butter or margarine!

Soak a paper towel with oil and spread it all over the inside and outside of the entire Dutch Oven, including the lid, legs and corners.  Place the lid and oven inside your kitchen oven, with the Dutch oven base upside down.  Close the kitchen oven door.  Raise the oven's temperature to 350 degrees F.

Let the Dutch oven bake for at least an hour (and hour and a half is perfect)..  Reduce the temperature to 200 F and bake another hour.  Turn off the oven and let everything cool back down to room temperature with the oven door closed (if you open the oven door, you'll just fill your house with smoke).  It takes a couple hours for the Dutch oven to cool down enough to remove from the oven.

Your Dutch oven is now seasoned and ready for use.  Place a couple folded paper towels inside the Dutch oven with just a little sticking out to raise the lid just a hair so air can circulate..

A few Dutch oven owners are a bit more fanatical about seasoning their Dutch ovens and repeat the seasoning process (recoating with oil and baking) two more times to give the Dutch oven an extra thick first coating.  Oven given this treatment seem to hold up better in the outdoor environment.  It's not really necessary, however, as the seasoned coating will naturally build over time with use.  

There are several ways to test the temperature of your Dutch oven.  I will go over some of these ways, but the one main way to test the temperature is to lift the lid.  If the food is not cooking enough add some heat.  If it's cooking too fast take off some heat.  Remember, it's much easier to raise the temperature of cast iron than to lower it.

Here is one way to test the temperature of a heated oven:

1. Place a teaspoonful of flour in a small pie pan and put the pan inside a hot Dutch oven. 
2. Place the lid on the oven and leave it for 5 minutes.

• If the flour has not turned brown the oven is less than 300 degrees.
• If the flour is light brown, the oven is about 350 degrees.
• If the flour is dark brown, the oven is about 450 degrees.
  Note:  If the flour is dark brown after 3 minutes, reduce the heat, the oven is too hot to cook with.

There is another good way to test the temperature. It could be called the 2-3 briquette rule.  Using this rule, you take the size of the oven and place that amount of briquettes on the lid and place that amount under the oven.

Then take 2-3 briquettes from the bottom and move them to the top. This technique will maintain a temperature of 325 to 350 degrees.  Refer to the table below for common oven sizes.  For every 2 briquettes added or subtracted to/from this the net change is about 25 degrees.

These temperature changes are for the Rocky Mountain area, where the cooking altitude is about 4000-6000 ft.  If you live in lower or higher area, check these settings with an oven thermometer to make sure they are OK.  I mention this because temperatures inside a Dutch oven are effected by altitude.

There are a couple of other things to remember about temperature control.  The first is that you should rotate your oven a third of a turn every ten minutes.  And then rotate the lid a third of a turn the other direction.  Next if you are baking bread, rolls, or cake remove the bottom heat after two thirds of the cooking time. It will finish cooking from the top heat. This will keep it from burning on the bottom.

Use this chart as a starting point and adjust from there!
Oven  size	Briquettes on top	Briquettes on bottom
8"	8 - 10	6 - 8
10"	10 - 12	8 - 10
12"	12 - 14	10 - 12
14"	14 - 16	12 - 14
16"	16 - 18	14 - 16

Boy Scout units store Dutch Ovens for extended periods of time.  Unlike an oven kept and used at home, our Dutch ovens can be affected by long-term storage.

No matter how a Dutch oven is cured, with lard, shortening or an oil (vegetable, canola, corn, etc.), the seasoning is organic.

All organic substances degrade over time (ok ... honey is an exception).  Given enough time, a Dutch oven's seasoning will become rancid.

If you can, store your ovens in a climate controlled place (air conditioned in summer and heated in winter with an average temperature around 78 F or cooler).  In those conditions, your Dutch ovens will last for longer storage times  If you keep your ovens in a trailer during the summer, you probably already know how quickly an oven gets stinky when it's warm out!

Lard and animal fats spoil the fastest, sometimes as quickly as in two weeks in some climates.  If you've used lard or animal fat to season (which we strongly recommend Scout units do not do), you have an oven that produces the best tasting food, but you have to use it weekly to keep the seasoning from going bad.

Seasoning done with shortening lasts longer, but may start to spoil after four or five weeks.  At the same time, some people have reported their ovens have never gotten rancid after curing with shortening.  You should check your oven before each use, just to make sure it's okay.

From practical experience in our unit, vegetable oils consistently seem to last upwards of eight weeks.  Twelve weeks is outside the comfort zone.  The other benefit is that ovens cured with oils almost always just require a good cleaning to get the oven back into use.  The only drawback to using a vegetable-based oil is that the seasoning sometimes gets a little tacky, or sticky.  This isn't problem inside the oven, but can make the exterior collect dirt quicker.

So what do you do if you need to store your Dutch oven for six months and have it ready to go when you pull it out again?  Buy some light-weight, food-grade Mineral Oil and coat the oven, inside and out.  It's cheap and effective.  Once you've sealed the oven with mineral oil, no oxygen can reach the seasoning and it will last many months.

What do you do if your Dutch oven smells nasty?  You'll want to try cleaning it extra well.  If you are moderately lucky, when you dump out the water and dry the oven, you'll be rid of the smell.  Heat up the oven to force out all the moisture, recoat it with oil and go on your merry way.

If your luck is running against you and the oven still stinks, you can try boiling water in it at a hard roll for 10-15 minutes.  If that doesn't work, you need to re-season the oven.  

If food from your oven ever tastes metallic, rust has set in and your Dutch oven must be cleaned and seasoned.