how beat up is your Le Crueset dutch oven?

mine is maybe 12 years old. got it for myself, when i decided to start my own personal slow cooked food movement. i punted my slow cooker, crock pot to the donation bin when i discovered enamel dutch oven cooking.
it is my go-to pot that wins my kitchen's swissarmy knife/multi-use award. i have done it all with this pot; from frying french fries to baking bread in it. it looks the part. in the beginning, i went to great lengths to preserve that pristine offwhite interior...slowly but surely, i was losing the fight. each and every use left me with a new unremovable stain. it is getting rough!! i just did a slow cooked, el paso style mole..braised some turkey thighs and some wings (wings for my wife). i am letting it all cool and the fat to congeal before i finish the dish off in some awesome burritos. i give up..nothing less than sand blasting and new enamel will bring this thing back to it's original glory.

what does your's look like? mine looks really really bad.

That's not stains, that's patina. Mine looks about the same. I've had mine about the same amount of time too. I tried BKF and it lightened the discoloration a bit, but it's always going to be that way. I had a complete set until I got divorced and my ex wanted the two smallest ones.

Why worry about it? There cookware will perform as usual.

I think I bought mine in 2002 - probably the same time as you, though I still think of it as 'new'. I just went for the plain iron kind, however, with no enamel. Let me see - got it in Spain and it has moved with me to 5 other countries since. Whether 'patina-ed' enamel or plain iron like mine, it ends up being a bit dark down there and so I tend to use my stainless pot more these days.

I BKF mine regularly it is 5 years old and looks almost new. But I saw it start to look like that before I started cleaning with BKF. I dont mind either way as long as it works.

I've had mine since the early 90's and it was looking rough (although not this bad - LOL). An LC rep (at a factory discount store) turned me onto this stuff and my pots came back to new instantly. I'll caution you to wear gloves when using this stuff - it'll dry out your hands like acid - you've been warned.

I've seen that stuff. Unfortunately, a bit expensive.

Old rule from chemistry class - if base won't do it - try with acid.

I doubt that there is anything on the enamel that could not be cleaned with NaOH or HCL

Dave Martell said:

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I'm going to stop by the outlet store today and pick some of this up. I'm curious to see if this is able to make a difference with my pots.

Don't know the cost if ordered from LC, but didn't seem very expensive. It's also available from Amazon -- as are other supposed solutions, including one by Siege, which may in fact make the LC product.

BTW, does it require to season? I notice that Staub cast iron is required.

LC doesn't need to be seasoned, it's enameled on the inside. Staub doesn't need seasoning either. I have two pieces and both have some kind of coating.

I went by my local LC outlet to pickup some cleaner and the sales clerk told me to save my money and not get the cleaner. She said that if you had new/newer pieces it would help keep the interior looking good, but for my 15 y.o. pot it wouldn't do anything. I kinda figured that was the case since I've used BKF which cleans up most every thing I've used it on and it didn't do anything for my pot. The bottle of cleaner that I had picked up was $15, but the store had some at the register and it was $17.

99Limited said:

LC doesn't need to be seasoned, it's enameled on the inside. Staub doesn't need seasoning either. I have two pieces and both have some kind of coating.

I went by my local LC outlet to pickup some cleaner and the sales clerk told me to save my money and not get the cleaner. She said that if you had new/newer pieces it would help keep the interior looking good, but for my 15 y.o. pot it wouldn't do anything. I kinda figured that was the case since I've used BKF which cleans up most every thing I've used it on and it didn't do anything for my pot. The bottle of cleaner that I had picked up was $15, but the store had some at the register and it was $17.

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thanks for passing on the tip. i'll save my money.

honesty, for braising meals for big groups, i've been using some big huge steamer table tray. i lay down some parchment paper and cover with foil..the results are exactly the same as the smaller version from the LC. it's all good..

you pros need to share more tips that we can translate for home use..Steamer table trays..what a great vessel!!

Slightly off topic - but in terms of beat up dutch ovens - mine took a fall off the counter 7 or 8 years ago. The cast iron cracked from the upper rim to halfway down the side. The outer enamel chipped, but the inner enamel remained intact. And it still works fine.

My big LC dutch oven is ~20 years old now. About a dozen years ago my then-MIL came over and made a big batch of baked beans while I was out. She burned the crap out of the beans, and then tried frantically to clean up the pot before I got home and scraped the heck out of it... But it's been performing just fine ever since.

after seeing your pot, I feel a bit better about mine. My lid handle is cracked/loose.
My pan was my wife's Puerto Rican grandma's. The family got it for her to make Arroz con Gandules but she didn't like it. She was used to the thick aluminum (probably alzheimers causing) pan.
I commented on the pan one day and she said 'here'.

I slow roasted a pork shoulder in the oven with it the other day. Great pans.

My big LC is stained tan on the inside, but the blue exterior is in great shape for its age. My smaller Staub is still nice on the interior and excellent on the exterior.

Oaken said:

She was used to the thick aluminum (probably alzheimers causing) pan.

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There is no reputable evidence that aluminum is an Alzheimer's causative agent. At most, the dysfunctional brains of those that have Alzheimer's have a tendency to retain aluminum. Not a big surprise, if you look at the biomechanics of how the brain clears biochemical debris.

On topic, all of my enameled cast iron is brown on the inside. I have found no particular way of cleaning it (I've tried boiling both acids and bases, some quite noxious), and I've found no particular practical downside to the discoloration.

EdipisReks said:

There is no reputable evidence that aluminum is an Alzheimer's causative agent. At most, the dysfunctional brains of those that have Alzheimer's have a tendency to retain aluminum. Not a big surprise, if you look at the biomechanics of how the brain clears biochemical debris.

On topic, all of my enameled cast iron is brown on the inside. I have found no particular way of cleaning it (I've tried boiling both acids and bases, some quite noxious), and I've found no particular practical downside to the discoloration.

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i'm letting the color develop. been baking veggie beans lately. black beans for the added depth of color.

and alum? i use so much foil, i should forget...waaa..what were we talking about?

i got one as a wedding present a year and a half ago and absolutely love it. still looks pristine.

my mom has had one for 45 years. hers has a light brown patina on the bottom, but nothing like OP's.

we both use them primarily for meat.

I used to have kitchen aid cast iron with enamel coated inside. The coating crack after several used, maybe 1 yr later. Not sure because of the paste or what causing that. Now I am more careful of using the LC.

Inherited three such beasts a couple of years ago from my wife's grandmother. No one else wanted them. They needed some TLC as they were all rusty. These are solid cast iron with no enamel or maker's mark, just different sizes: 7, 8 and an oval one that's 12. Have really gotten into long, slow cooking of cheaper cuts such as beef shin, oxtail, pork cheeks, confit duck legs etc using these bad boys.

I assume any such oven would work just as well but these must be a minimum of 60 years-old and are still going strong. Unlike some of the Le Creuset stuff, the handle on the lid is welded on and cast iron also. It does heat up but a dry tea-towel deals with that.

Mine looks like new after 3 years of usage.

mine has a light brown on the interior base. wondering if anyone tried bleach?

Jagjit said:

mine has a light brown on the interior base. wondering if anyone tried bleach?

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The clerk at the Le Crueset outlet suggested Soft Scrub. I gave up trying to return the interior back to new. The only time I saw the bottom was when I set it on the stove to start cooking or when I was washing it. I now see it as a patina that I want to nurture.