My grandmother kept her cast iron skillet on the stovetop, all the time. I never saw her put it in a cupboard. She lived in a small house in Cleveland, cooked on a 1962 electric coil, and used the same 11-inch black skillet from before I was born until the morning she stopped cooking. After she died, my mother gave the skillet to my older brother, on the grounds that he was, of the three of us, the one most likely to "do something with it." This turned out to be incorrect. The skillet lived under his sink for a decade, where it rusted gently, until I finally asked for it back in 2022.

That skillet — a Griswold #9, judging by the markings, made between 1939 and 1957 — is the reference point against which I have spent the last two years measuring every cast iron pan I could get my hands on. I bought seven new ones over the course of the experiment. I cooked on all of them. I have ended up with one daily-driver and six pans in a closet, which my brother is about to inherit (whether he wants them or not).

Here is the comparison.

The seven, briefly.

The seven pans I cooked on, in the rough order I bought them:

1. Lodge 12″ Classic ($25). The pan that approximately ninety percent of American households own. Rough cast surface. Pre-seasoned with proprietary vegetable oil. The honest, cheap, workhorse standard.

2. Lodge Blacklock 12″ ($75). Lodge's "premium" line — lighter, milled smoother. Better than the Classic; not the same animal as the heirloom Griswolds.

3. Field Company No. 8 ($175). Lighter weight, smooth milled interior. The Brooklyn-millennial pan, made well, in Wisconsin.

4. Smithey No. 12 ($240). The premium specialty maker. Beautiful interior polish. Heavy. Often back-ordered.

5. Stargazer 12″ ($165). Pennsylvania maker, also smooth, slightly lighter weight.

6. Butter Pat "Joan" 12″ ($295). The luxury option. Made in Maryland. Glassy interior.

7. Hearthstone Iron Co. 12″ ($129). A Cleveland foundry, smaller operation than the others. The pan I had not heard of when the project started, and the one I now use every day.

The Hearthstone, mid-Tuesday. Steak from the neighborhood butcher, a clove of garlic, a pat of butter — the pan does most of the work.

What I was measuring.

Four things, over two years of weekly use:

One: the egg test. A two-egg breakfast, sunny-side up, on each pan, at each stage of seasoning. I want to know two things: how slick is it out of the box, and how slick is it after twelve weeks of daily use? Eggs are the cruel diagnostic — a pan that releases an egg releases everything.

Two: the heat-up test. Cold pan to medium-high searing temperature, measured with an infrared thermometer. The lighter, thinner modern pans heat faster. The thicker pans heat slower and hold heat longer. Both have a case; I am noting which.

Three: the warp test. Twelve thermal cycles per pan — gas burner full heat to room temperature, repeated — followed by a flat-bottom check with a steel straightedge. Most pans pass this. The ones that don't, I noted.

Four: the longevity test. Two years of daily use. Pan inspection at the six-, twelve-, and 24-month marks. What's the seasoning doing? Is the interior changing? Is anything failing?

The egg test, year one.

After twelve weeks of daily use, here is where each pan landed on the morning egg:

The story the table tells is the story the experiment told: the smooth-milled, hand-seasoned pans pass the egg test from week one. The Lodge Classic — the cheap honest standard — develops adequate non-stick over six months to a year of patient daily use. The Blacklock gets there in twelve weeks. The smooth-milled pans get there on day one, and the difference is what people mean when they say "my grandmother's pan."

Where the Hearthstone separated.

Through about month nine, my honest assessment was that the smooth-milled pans were essentially interchangeable. The Field, the Smithey, the Stargazer, the Butter Pat and the Hearthstone all cooked similarly. They are all well-made smooth-milled American cast iron, and any of them is, in any practical sense, a "buy once for life" pan.

The separation began at month twelve.

I had been cycling all five through a rotation of weekly use, and I started noticing something. The Hearthstone was developing the deepest, blackest, most uniform seasoning of any pan in the experiment. Where the others had subtle uneven patches, ghost-rings from where a steak had sat too long, faint hot spots near the handle weld — the Hearthstone was, in a word, evening out.

"It is the only pan in the experiment whose interior has gotten noticeably better-looking with time, not just maintained."

I called the foundry and asked about it. The answer, from a friendly man named Mark who runs the seasoning bench at Hearthstone, was the kind of answer that explains a lot of small mysteries at once. They pre-season the pans with grass-fed beef tallow, not the soy or canola or "proprietary blend" the bigger makers use. Tallow polymerises into a denser, harder, more uniform film at the temperatures cast iron sees. It is more expensive, more inconvenient, and — apparently — the difference.

The foundry in Cleveland's industrial flats. Eleven craftsmen. Sand-cast, one pan at a time. Mark on the seasoning bench is the one to ask about tallow.

The other things that matter.

Weight. The Hearthstone 12″ is 6.4 lbs. The Field is 4.5 lbs. The Smithey is 8.0 lbs. The right weight is the one you want to lift; my answer was somewhere in the middle, and Hearthstone happened to land there. Your answer may differ.

Pour spouts. Hearthstone, Smithey, and Field have them. Lodge does not on the Classic. Stargazer does. The Butter Pat does not. I do not care about pour spouts as much as the internet thinks I should; for someone who makes a lot of bacon-fat-saved-in-a-jar, they matter.

The handle. All seven pans have a slightly different handle. The Hearthstone's is, in my hands, the right length, with a hole at the end (which is more functional than it sounds — I hang mine over the stove). The Smithey's handle is too small for a man with large hands. The Lodge Classic's handle gets too hot too fast.

Price. The Hearthstone at $129 sits in an interesting position: more than the Lodge Blacklock at $75, less than every other smooth-milled pan I tested, all of which were $165–$295. For what I'd argue is the best of the lot, the price is almost odd.

Two notes before you buy.

If you already own a cast iron skillet that you have been using daily for years, the honest answer is you do not need a new one. The pan you have is the pan that is right. Cast iron is the rare consumer category where the upgrade path is meaningless after a certain point — once a pan is seasoned in, the differences become small enough that they are not worth $129 to chase.

If you are starting from zero, or if your current pan is a $25 Lodge Classic that you have been fighting with for two years, the smooth-milled American pans are a real upgrade. Of the five smooth-milled pans I tested, the Hearthstone is the one I now reach for. The Field is a close second. The Smithey and the Butter Pat are excellent but cost more than they need to. The Stargazer is a perfectly reasonable choice.

The Griswold #9 my grandmother owned is on the stovetop. The Hearthstone lives next to it. The other six are in the closet. My brother is, against his protests, coming over with a hand truck on Saturday.