Irons Reviews

Cast iron and coffee go hand-in-hand. Coffee has been roasted in cast iron pans over hot coals or fire for over 600 years and in some parts of the world is still carried out today.

This pan is perfect for pan roasting coffee. This pan is heavy and extremely durable, no doubt this roasting pan will be something I hand down to my children (I'm only 25 now!). This pan while being very inexpensive is well made. I did notice some VERY MINOR surface imperfections, but that will be the case on most cast iron pans, especially in this price range.

This pan heats up wonderfully even and stays hot. This alone makes for terrific coffee roasting. This pan is also the perfect size and has the best dimensions for roasting coffee. I prefer this pan's more narrow bottom and higher sides to the more flatter and broader skillet style pans.

This pan will need to be seasoned before it is used, but that is very easy to do. Instructions can be found on the Internet easily by using a search engine like google, just search for "curing cast iron." Once cured this pan should last a lifetime, heck maybe a hundred lifetimes! The walls of this pan are thick and the pan has no weak spots that I can see.

To sum it up get cast iron to roast coffee, and for this price there is no reason why you can't have a wonderful pan to last forever! A terrific value on a surprising nice pan! For more on pan roasting coffee see this site: www "dot" angelfire "dot" com/pro2/panroastingcoffee/index "dot" html

I like this spatula for the following reasons:

1. Excellent shape...it scrapes really well.
2. Holds up to heat really well.
3. I love the bright red color.

I don't like it for the following reasons:

1. The wooden handle is very cheap, I don't like that it can not go into the dishwasher.
2. The slots are a terrible idea, food just gets stuck in there.

This would be the perfect spatula if it did not have slots, or a wooden handle. A nice looking handle that is connected to the top of the spatula would be perfect. (P.S. for anyone with small children, the removable top part of the spatula is a great teether for babies! I pulled it off one day to give my 8 month old something to play with in the kitchen, and he loves it to soothe his gums!)

WE HAVE AN ASSORTMENT OF LE CREUSET SPATULAS...PERHAPS A DOZEN. THIS SLOTTED MODEL MAKES THE LEAST SENSE. A METAL SLOTTED SPOON MAKES SENSE. A FLEXIBLE SILICONE SCRAPER OR SPATULA MAKES SENSE. A SPATULA WITH SLOTS JUST BECOMES A NUISANCE AS EACH SLOT MUST BE CLEANED OUT. IT DOES SCRAPE OUT THINGS WELL BUT WOULD BE BETTER WITHOUT THE SLOTS. I CANNOT THINK OF A SPECIFIC USE THIS SLOTTED TOOL WOULD BE BEST FOR...WHAT WERE THE LE CREUSET DESIGNERS THINKING OF?

This spatula (or spoonula, whatever you want to call it) works pretty well. I've left it sitting in the pan over high heat for a few minutes before, and it does not melt, so that's great. It's very flexible. The wooden handle has been getting bad reviews, but this is the feature I like the most. At first, though, I hated it. Then I realized that Le Creuset really did put a lot of thought into this. When using their cookware, you should not bang utensils on the side of the pan because it could chip it. Even plastic will chip it. This is a very hard habit to break. After stirring your food, you bang the excess off on the side of the pan. Well, with the wood handle, you can still do that and not chip the pan because it is a softer, shock absorbing, material. No, you should not put wood into the dishwasher. I don't put my Le Creuset pots and pans in the dishwasher, either, so it doesn't take anything extra for me to hand-wash this. The only complaint I have is that the slots are too small. Food gets trapped inside the slots easily and is a pain to get out. And they're too small to let any significant amount of liquid drain. All in all, it's a pretty good spatula. Next time, though, I'll get an unslotted one.