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I've recently discovered cast iron cookware and I'm a little bit in love! I have a couple of questions for experienced cast iron users.

I've done lots of reading and it looks like acidic cooking isn't great for cast iron. You can do a bit in a well seasoned pan, but too much will affect the seasoning and/or affect the flavour of the food. I confirmed this the hard way when I forgot a marinade had lemon juice in it and totally destroyed the patina I'd built up.

I do lots of acidic cooking, as I love tomatoes and lemons!

So my question is, why are cast iron BBQ plates able to handle anything, including acidic marinades and being left out in the weather. What's the difference?

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  • Please limit questions to one question at a time. Our format doesn't work well with multi-question questions where the questions aren't very related.
    – Catija
    Commented Oct 10, 2016 at 12:27
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    Hello Nomic, you had two questions, but one of them was a typical poll question, asking different people to share what they do personally. This is a type of question we don't take, and it would have been closed. Because your second question is on topic, I removed the first and changed the title to match the remaining one.
    – rumtscho ♦
    Commented Oct 11, 2016 at 20:05
  • Please define cast iron BBQ plate. And are you sure it can handle anything?
    – paparazzo
    Commented Oct 14, 2016 at 17:22
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    I have some nice ceramic coated cast iron pans just for this. You get all the goodness of that wonderful heat distribution and holding, and none of the issues of reactive metals.
    – user293
    Commented Oct 15, 2016 at 16:23

1 Answer 1

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Iron is a very reactive metal, responding to many different influences. Heat, acidity, moisture, even the oxygen content of its environs cause reactions. Barbecue plates are manufactured with enough other metals (zinc, aluminium, etc.) and via a tempering process that keeps the metal chemically stable in reactive environments. Cast iron is usually pure iron, and it just follows its nature when provided with a reactive environment.

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