Dutch-Oven Fears and Gear for the Zombiepocalypse

Dutch oven fears

Q: I just bought my wife a Lodge Dutch oven. At first I was excited, but now I am afraid we may crack the enamel by just using it normally. Can the Dutch oven be used to sear, or does the searing have to be done in another pan and the food transferred to the Dutch oven? Also, the instructions warn against heating an empty pot. Does that mean empty of food—does heating oil in the bottom for caramelizing onions or searing meat count as being empty? I appreciate your article on Dutch ovens and I am glad that I bought the one you recommended. However, I am worried that we will crack it after a month or two of use and turn what I thought was a nice surprise for my wife into a huge disappointment.

A: You can definitely heat the pot empty to sear meats with no risk of the enamel cracking or popping off. Generally, those warnings are more about heating the Dutch oven empty for a longer period of time (like a couple minutes or more with absolutely nothing inside it). In my experience, heating the oil/butter or other fat to sear meats in the pot should take only a minute or so, and that’s not going to damage the pot. You should also have no problem caramelizing onions and other veggies.

But if you do find that sections of enamel pop off the pot, you should call Lodge for a refund—if you haven’t heated the pot excessively while empty, it really shouldn’t do that.

Send us some orangettes

Q: I just read your excellent review of citrus juicers, but I have a question for your reviewers based on their extensive research on the wide variety of products tested.

I am more interested in what the juicer does to the peel than what kind of juice it produces. You see, I use the citrus peels to make candied citrus peels. I use a variety of citrus fruits, including oranges, Eureka and Meyer lemons, tangerines, and grapefruit. Therefore, I am looking for a machine that can accommodate different-size citrus and will keep the peel intact after pressing the fruit (some of the manual presses tend to crush the peels). It should also be able to process a lot of peels. I am leaning toward the Breville 800 steel cast juicer but am open to your suggestion.

A: Sounds like you want to preserve a lot of the pith for your candied peels. I think our citrus juicer pick, the Proctor Silex, would be good for you because it’s just a spinning reamer, so it won’t crush the outside of the peel and pith the way that a manual juicer would, and you can control how far down you want it to go. We tested different-size citrus with each one and found that the different reamers could accommodate limes and grapefruits.

The Breville we tested was very similar to the 800CPXL with a lever and motorized reamer and, as we said in the piece, “The Breville Citrus Press can scrape into the pith if you’re not careful. The white patch on the right is pith, and in some parts of both peels, the reamer ground all the way down to the peel itself.”

Hope that helps!

A good herb grinder

Q: I tend to use coffee grinders for stuff other than coffee. (Sorry, I don’t drink coffee.) What would be your suggestion as to the best grinder for herbs, roots, and seeds? Does the Baratza Virtuoso do herbs and roots?

A: I wouldn’t recommend the Baratza Virtuoso for herbs and roots because uniformity of grind isn’t as important for things other than coffee. Are you using it for tea? Is it important that you be able to clean out the flavors between herbs? I’d probably just get a simple blade grinder.

Gear for the Zombiepocalypse

Q: I went to your website to see if I could find any gift guides for the paranoid or for the urban doomsday prepper, but the closest I could find was one for outdoor adventurers, which was close but still not quite there.

So, if you’re looking for blog ideas, I’d love your gadget enthusiasts’ perspective on what to pack for a disaster/apocalypse/invasion. I just found your post on emergency preparedness, and it’s very good. (Okay, fine, it’s perfect.) But I still want to know what hatchet I should purchase to fend off zombies.

A: The truth is that we actually do have a hatchet rec (sorta, it’s in one of our gift guides). It’s the Hardcore Hammers Naturalist (curved handle). At its current price of $45 it’s priced really well, especially considering the tool’s excellent quality. Hatchets that are 100 percent machine-made, like Estwing’s, are currently in the mid- to high-$30 range and they don’t have anything near the look and feel of the handmade Naturalist. I heat with a lot of wood and, because of my endless need for kindling, I use hatchets all the time. I have four or five and I’m constantly reaching for the Naturalist over the others. Also, if you’re really concerned about the impending zombie apocalypse, you can get a Naturalist with custom zombie artwork (no joke).

Another option is to really make an investment and get a Granfors Bruk Hatchet (the Mercedes-Benz of the ax world), but they’re costly, and I think the Naturalist will get the job done just fine.

Hope this helps!

Have a question? Ask Wirecutter. Our editors answer reader questions all the time. Send an email to [email protected], or talk to us on Twitter and Facebook. Published questions were edited for space and clarity.