I have two Finex pieces. Awesome things!
A carbon steel frying pan.
I bought one recently, a little omelet pan, because my husband didn’t really want more frying pans around, and I was willing to move the anodized aluminum one to the basement while I tried this. I ordered it online. When it arrived, I was surprised at how heavy it was – nearly as heavy as a cast iron pan that size might be. I was also impressed at how silky smooth it was out of the box. I have given it a couple of seasoning cycles in the oven, and used it a few times. And OMG it blows the old aluminum one away. It’s really the first time that it’s been easy for me to make a fried egg over easy. But everything just slides right out of the pan. And I can use my nice stainless steel spatula with it.
So far I’ve used it for eggs a few times, and for a couple sausage links. That may be it. But it’s awesome. It cooks like cast iron, only better, imo. Well, it might not hold as much heat for an initial sear, but it does so better than most of my other pans. And like the cast iron pan, it’s perfectly safe to pop it in the oven, even under the broiler. (check before you buy – some brands are not broiler safe, due to the handle or the finish. I bought one that is.)
If you’re willing to fiddle a little bit with maintaining seasoning, which I am, high carbon steel pans are great bang for the buck. The only time I reach for cast-iron these days is when I make corn bread.
This is the pan I purchased, mostly because of the ones I randomly found by looking for reviews, it looked pretty and was about the shape I wanted for eggs. Oh, and it is broiler-safe. There was another with good reviews that had some weirdly low temp it was safe at.
So, I certainly endorse this particular pan, but I honestly have no idea how it stacks up against other carbon steel pans.
I’d bet that adding a step to mill the skillets would probably significantly increase the cost of such a basic, super low tech sand-cast item.
That said, I am surprised that Lodge hasn’t come out with some kind of higher end line called something like “Lodge Elite” where they might mill the top and bottom to be smooth, even and a specific thickness. It seems to me that in these days of absurdly expensive $200 Finex and other $100+ cast iron skillets there’d be a lot of room for a $60 Lodge skillet that’s basically the same $25 Lodge skillet with $5 of milling to smooth out and level out the top and bottom sides.
nods I know, right? They’re missing a bet. And now other manufacturers are stepping in and doing it since Lodge isn’t.
I got a “Greater Goods” smooth-milled Cast iron from Amazon a couple weeks ago. I figured at $50 (10 inch) the price point was right to give it a try. So far I haven’t used it too much, only Hamburgers, which aren’t a particularly sticky food. So I can only give a review of seems better that Lodge on a tiny test set.
I do have a carbon steel frying pan I love as well. It’s the simple kind with a handle that looks like something made in 7th grade shop class. I love it, but the seasoning is no where near as tough as Cast iron seasoning. Got distracted and put some lemon juice in to start a sauce, then noticed I didn’t have the stock as handy as I thought, so I picked up the pan and swirled it. In the 10 seconds it took me to get the stock and put it in, the seasoning disappeared in the acid and heat, straight back to bare metal.
Lodge has owned Finex for almost three years.
I have two cast iron pans. One is a Lodge. I like my other iron pan better but the Lodge has done fine. It’s freaking cast iron. Near indestructible. Season it yourself. Works fine and it’s cheap.
I’d agree that the factory “seasoning” is kinda crap. Better to do it yourself.
If you want to spend time roaming flea markets and garage sales for a pan that will be cheaper then fine. Trading your time vs money. To each their own on that.
The problem with that is that Lodge has already positioned themselves as the standard for cast iron. They wouldn’t want to come out with an “elite” product because that makes all their normal stuff look sub-standard.
I find this thread a little interesting. I’m not a gourmand or even a particularly good chef…but some years ago I was in a Kroger and saw some lodge cast iron marked down for really cheap, and I had been wanting to cook on cast iron, so I bought a skillet. I use it for various things and it seems to work well. I believe I seasoned it myself the week I bought it because I had read to do that, but this was probably 2006 or so, and I haven’t done much to it sense. I typically clean it by getting it smoking hot and running a moist rag to get all the gunk out, I’ll occasionally run it under water after that.
The surface definitely is not mirror smooth, but I’ve never had issues cooking eggs or other things on it. I definitely knew lodge was lower end, but I don’t really know what I’d be getting out of a more expensive piece vs what I experience now.
As I noted, they bought Finex which is a high-end product. Many companies have flanker brands in different price tiers to cover the whole market. Finex makes Lodge look cheap, but most people want to buy something cheap.
That’s pretty much all there is to it.
Season it when you buy it.
Then…just use it and give it a good wipe with hot water and a rag. The seasoning should naturally grow over time.