# Can I put my cast iron in the fridge?



## Lucky Charm (Nov 8, 2002)

Hi Mama's,

I have to work tomorrow and wanted to make a pot roast, but not in my crock pot. I love my cast iron dutch oven, it makes the roast sooo good.

**BUT** I have to be at work by no later than 9am (I work in an ER) and I have to take my kids to school (at 2 different times) and do crossing guard to boot. What I want to do is brown the roast, put lots of onion and garlic and a bit of beef broth in the dutch oven tonight in the fridge, so my 18 yr old daughter could put it in the oven early afternoon.

Can I do this? Does the cold do something to the iron? Would the liquid rust the iron?


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## Lucky Charm (Nov 8, 2002)




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## momto l&a (Jul 31, 2002)

I would be concerned about the cast iron cooling down too fast and heating up too fast causing a crack.

Could you store it in a bowl and your dd could dump the bowl into the room temp cast iron and start cooking.


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## carriedaway (Mar 25, 2005)

nooooooooooooooooo!!!!! please don't store anything in cast iron







my DH *just* had a coworker get e coli from eating a stew that he'd stored in a cast iron pan. cast iron is so pourous and food from who knows how many years is stored in that stuff... i don't cook in it, but even if i *had* to cook in it i would definitely not store anything in it


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## Lucky Charm (Nov 8, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *momto l&a*
I would be concerned about the cast iron cooling down too fast and heating up too fast causing a crack.

Could you store it in a bowl and your dd could dump the bowl into the room temp cast iron and start cooking.

I have already browned the meat, and put it in a glass dish with a cover (with tons of onions and garlic and some broth) for my daughter to put in the dutch oven tomorrow afternoon.

carriedaway, dont worry









Thanks mamas for taking the time to answer my question.


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## shanagirl (Oct 24, 2005)

carriedaway-- Have you read Fast Food Nation? I would suspect the meat before I would blame the pan. How on earth did they determine it was the pan? I've cooked in cast iron for many years and never had a problem.


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## Lucky Charm (Nov 8, 2002)

I love my cast iron. I have no problem with getting the browned bits off the bottom and it cooks like a dream.

I have only done roasts in the dutch oven and sliced potatoes in the frying pan (but I also brown meat in it for the crock pot).


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## momto l&a (Jul 31, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *carriedaway*
nooooooooooooooooo!!!!! please don't store anything in cast iron








my DH *just* had a coworker get e coli from eating a stew that he'd stored in a cast iron pan. cast iron is so pourous and food from who knows how many years is stored in that stuff... i don't cook in it, but even if i *had* to cook in it i would definitely not store anything in it









I also find that hard to believe. For one if there are any bits stuck to the pan they would be cooked.

Cast iron pans arent pourous when seasoned, all the holes are filled with baked on oil/grease.

People have been cooking in cast iron for years like hundreds. How long has cast iron be around









Sweetbaby, what time is dinner


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## carriedaway (Mar 25, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *shanagirl*
carriedaway-- Have you read Fast Food Nation? I would suspect the meat before I would blame the pan. How on earth did they determine it was the pan? I've cooked in cast iron for many years and never had a problem.

no, i haven't read it but i'd like to







while i would still never cook in cast iron, i believe the problem with the person that got e coli was that he stored it in the pan. i would imagine it had some sort of tomato in it, and the acid caused the seasoning to break down. here's a quote from a website:

"Never store food in the cast iron pan as the acid in the food will breakdown the seasoning and take on a metallic flavor."

http://whatscookingamerica.net/Infor...stIronPans.htm


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## shanagirl (Oct 24, 2005)

carriedaway--yes that's true, food will take on a metallic flavor in a newer cast iron pan (it is iron, just like some people get in their drinking water in certain parts of the country), but cast iron does not absorb and preserve old food bacteria. It's not the same thing. The reason I'm being a little heavy on this is that there is a LOT of marginal meat sold to the public and there are vested interests, when people get sick, in blaming anything but the meat. I had severe food poisoning when I was young and it changed my immune system for life. This is what he talks about in Fast Food Nation-- that there is so much low-grade food poisoning that people don't realize is food poisoning, and that it has longer-term effects than just getting that bout out of our system. There is very little accountability in the mass meat production industry and most commercial meat is produced under horrid conditions.

There was a great story on NPR about 2 years ago about a chicken farmer who had grown up on his father's farm, rejected farming, then came back to it but did it organic. He talked about how there is a room where the chickens are gathered just before slaughter and how he was able to reduce bacteria in his chickens by cleaning and hosing the room out every week because they got all the blood and feces off the floor and the birds didn't have that on their bodies when they were slaughtered. The reporter asked him, well how often is a room like this typically cleaned on a nonorganic farm, and he said, "Two or three times a year."


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## beanma (Jan 6, 2002)

yeah, cast iron is absolutely wonderful to cook in, but not for storage. yes, if you leave something juicy and moist in cast iron it can cause it to rust. i have two cast iron loaf pans and i once didn't take the bread i baked out promptly and the moisture from the bread cooling in the pans made the pans start to rust.

carriedaway, if the guy in the story got food poisoning from improper food storage i'm sure it had less to do with the cast iron than the pan not being clean. if it was a ceramic pan or a plastic container if it wasn't clean and had held raw meat before or something else yucky then he could have certainly gotten food poisoning from that, too. if you're using teflon you might like to do a search on the evils of _that_.

sweetbaby3, hope your roast turned out scrumptious!


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