(Prepping In Rural Iowa)

Dutch Oven Home

Dutch Oven Cooking

Dutch Oven Care

Dutch Oven Recipes

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Using your Dutch Oven

Nearly all dutch oven cooking will come out ok if your dutch oven is about 350 degrees. Some things should be cooked hotter and some cooler, but that's the temperature for all recipes that fail to include a temperature suggestion.

Counting Charcoal

Lots of dutch oven cookbooks tell you how many charcoal briquettes to put under and on top of the oven. This is the easiest way to cook since every coal is similar and consistent.

If you are like me and use real wood for your outdoor camp cooking coals, it doesn't help much. Also, different brands of charcoal give off different amounts of heat.

But, let's say you are going to use charcoal...
The normal formula for Baking is to use twice the number of briquettes as the diameter of the oven with 3/4 of them on the lid. For a 12 inch oven, you would use 24 briquettes with 18 on top and 6 underneath. For Frying, use the same number of coals as the diameter of the oven with all of them underneath. For a 12 inch oven, you would use 12 briquettes under it.

Here is a simple chart:

**Baking, Roasting**
More heat from top so bottom does not burn.
Place 3/4 coals on top and 1/4 underneath.
This provides a uniform heat to the contents.

**Frying, Simmering, Boiling**
All heat from bottom.
Place all coals underneath.
The lid may be on or off.

Rule of 3

This is a real simple estimate of briquettes. Take the dutch oven diameter and add 3 briquettes on top. Subtract 3 briquettes underneath. So, a 12 inch oven would have 12+3=15 on top and 12-3=9 underneath. This works for any size dutch oven. Then you need to adjust briquette placement depending on the type of cooking.

I feel this method puts too much heat under the dutch oven. Maybe a "Rule of 4" or "Rule of 5" would be closer to what I use. Fortunately, you can always move coals around as needed depending on what you like.