The Gun Counter

We're having our first big yard sale in more than 12 years. In our storage locker we found some items my in laws gave us when they moved to a smaller house in '97 or so. In the camping gear, which we never opened, there sat a Griswold 10" skillet. The outside is all crusty and ash covered, probably used directly in the coals. The inside is a nearly perfect satin black seasoning.

I've never had a Griswold before; we have a Wagner chicken frier and a Lodge 13.5" skillet, and the difference in the surface finish, and the thickness is surprising.

Is it worth cleaning up the crusty exterior? There's no rust, just chunky carbon that didn't want to come off with a nylon bristle brush; it'll take metal bristles, or a coarse scotchbrite pad, probaby. The interior is too good to mess with.

I'd either use it as is (I have a pan that looks like that and the inside works great) or look into putting it in a fire to pop all of that stuff off. Seems we had a thread that discussed this within recent memory.

Might have been Becoming A Better Cook

Thanks. I'm going to try using it as-is. The flat part is smooth but the sloped edges of the skillet also have some baked on grunge. The outside is pretty cruddy; some is coming off with a good brass bristle scrubbing, but if the remainder won't affect the cooking qualities I'll leave it alone one the loose stuff is gone.

This is going to be fun; I like my Lodge skillet but I can tell this Griswold is like an Imperial compared to a fleet equipped Valiant taxi.