I had been coveting one of these Lodge Grills for quite awhile, when I finally received one as a gift a few months ago. I had pretty high expectations and for the most part, I haven’t been disappointed.

For those who aren’t familiar with these heavy duty cast iron grills, they don’t look like a convention grill pan per se - in that it doesn’t have a circular or square shape, and it doesn’t have a standard pan handle. It does have two carrying handles on both long ends of the grill. This is a rather heavy pan and you should definitely be careful handling it, especially when hot.

It is a double sided cast iron piece with grill bars on one side to mimic a BBQ grill and a flat surface on the other to turn it into something like a diner cooking surface. The grill is very large - 20 inches by 11 inches. It is actually meant to stand over TWO burners. There are no attachments to secure it to your burners - it just sits right on top. Since it’s double sided, I had some doubts about whether or not having fire directly on the reverse side would damage that finish - but so far I haven’t seen any thing out of the ordinary.

Above is a picture of the griddle side being used to grill up some thin steak and onions for some steak sandwiches.

I have to confess that I wanted this grill for the flat side. I just had visions of cooking massive multitasked breakfasts on it - you know, where they cook the pancakes, eggs, home fries and bacon all at the same time. I’ve tried two at once on this pan, but for the most part I think I’ll stick with that instead of trying for more. One of the reasons is that because of the configuration of most people’s burners (two burners vertically close together on the right and two burners vertically close together on the left), you need to use this grill VERTICALLY. This actually became an issue when flipping things over. The way you stand in front of the stove - you’d like to flip things over horizontally - but since the pan is vertical, you either need to twist your arm to flip or stand parallel to the stove. And when you have more items on the grill, even though it is a rather large one, space does become an issue.

But other than that, the flat griddle side of the Lodge is great. There’s a rather nice grease gutter where you can just direct excess oil with a spatula. The surface of the Lodge, like many of their products, is pre-seasoned. But I found that it was still helpful to either wipe the surface with some vegetable oil or spray before using. Also, even though it’s cast iron, I found using sharp metal spatulas on the surface tended to scrape a bit of the pre-season off… so I’d be a little careful.

I have mixed results with the grill side. The worst thing, for me, was the cleanup of this side. As with most grill pans, cleanup of greasy or oily foods is somewhat of a chore because all the gunk gets inbetween the bars. I’ve taken to trying to clean it off while it’s still warm - that’s much easier. The flat griddle side is much easier to clean. Also, it seemed to me that food tended to stick more on the grill side, even if the pan was smokin’ hot. That’s because if you lubricate the grill side with oil, it tends to pool in between the bars, instead of staying on the tops.

Also, a quick note: if you haven’t used cast iron before - you don’t want to wash it with soap. Doing that eventually will remove the pre-seasoning. You’ll have to wipe it off with a non-soapy sponge with water. Heating up the grill for a few minutes everytime you use it is also helpful in case you’re a stickler for disninfecting.

In general, I was pleased with the overall heating of both sides. The pan is cast iron so everything heats more uniformly. But since you’re using two separate burners to heat it up, there are some definitely changes along the length of the pan. This may not be a problem for foods like the steak and onions where you’re going to move them around to cook. But for grilling foods where you just put it on and leave it, you may have to compensate or adjust times along the length of the grill. As expected, foods directly underneath the burners cook a little quicker than the parts between the burners.

Overall, I’m very pleased with this new toy. Some folks may find it hard to store this large item. I actually would recommend not trying to put it in the cupboard or cabinets (unless you’ve got a large vertical space, say, where you put your sheet pans). I store it in the box actually, behind the fridge or door so that it can be pulled out at a moment’s notice.