Aluminium vs cast iron
Why aluminium.
A third of the weight, no rust, no seasoning, and every pot cast from pure virgin LM6 aluminium. Here is the honest case for cooking in cast aluminium.
Seven reasons to switch
Pick one and jump to it
LM6
Pure virgin aluminium
Cast from pure virgin LM BS 1490 LM6 (Special) ingots - the only metal that ever goes into a Potties pot.
For life
Hard to kill
Drop it and it dents instead of cracking, and there is no iron in it to rust. Every cast carries a lifetime warranty.
2.8x
Weight difference
A No. 3 potjie is 3.8 kg instead of 10.5 kg. One hand to the fire, not two.
0%
Rust free, for life
Rust needs iron. A Potties pot has none to give, so there is nothing in it that can rust.
No
Easy care
No curing, no seasoning, no oiling before it goes in the cupboard.
Any
Easy clean
Soap is fine. A soak is fine. Steel wool is fine. Nothing to undo afterwards.
3x
Heat conductivity
Heat spreads sideways instead of piling up in one spot, so nothing catches.
Pure virgin aluminium.
Every Potties pot is cast from pure virgin LM BS 1490 LM6 (Special) ingots. One metal, one standard, pour after pour.
What goes into
every pot.
01
Pure virgin ingots
Every pot starts as pure virgin LM BS 1490 LM6 (Special) aluminium ingots. That is the only metal we cast.
02
One trusted supplier
The same established supplier and the same grade of metal, every time we pour.
03
Cast at our foundry
One South African foundry, where every pour and every finish is checked by hand.
01 · The metal
It starts with the ingot
Every Potties pot begins as pure virgin aluminium - LM BS 1490 LM6 (Special) ingots from an established supplier we have poured with for years. The same metal, the same standard, every single pot.
02 · The pot
Hand-cast, hand-checked
Each pot is cast at our foundry in South Africa and finished by hand. If a pour is not perfect, it goes back into the furnace and starts again as the same pure metal. Only pots we would cook in ourselves leave the floor.
Getting the best from your pot
Like all quality cookware, your Potties pot rewards a little care. Give a new pot a first boil with water before its first meal, and rather cook acidic dishes fresh than store them in the pot for days. Do that, and this pot will outlast the two of us.
Our promise, plainly
We put our name on the lid, and we put our own family's food in these pots too. Pure metal, honest work, and a pot built to be handed down. That is the Potties standard.
Questions about our pots? We will gladly talk you through it.
Hard to kill.
Pots do not die of old age. They die when they crack, or when rust gets in. A Potties pot does neither.
Dropped on the stoep
A Potties pot
Aluminium gives instead of breaking - a dent at worst, and dinner carries on.
Cast iron
Brittle metal breaks before it bends. One bad drop can crack it, and a cracked pot is done.
Cold water in a hot pot
A Potties pot
No drama. Wash it when it suits you.
Cast iron
Sudden temperature swings are the classic way a pot splits.
Decades of hard use
A Potties pot
No rust to eat it and no coating to wear off. It just keeps cooking.
Cast iron
Rust never sleeps - miss the upkeep once and it starts.
Guaranteed for life
Every Potties pot carries a lifetime warranty on the cast. That is how sure we are that yours will outlive the both of us.
Lift the difference
Same size pot, same capacity. One you carry to the fire with one hand. The other needs both, and a straight back.
A No. 3 potjie · both hold the same 7.5 litres
One block = one kilogram
AL · Potties
3.8 kg
FE · Cast iron
10.5 kg
6.7 kg you never pick up
Kilograms
0
2
4
6
8
10
One hand to the fire
A full pot moves without a second person or a sore back.
It travels
Into the boot, onto the bakkie, off to a campsite in the middle of nowhere.
Anyone can use it
Not just whoever in the family can still lift ten kilos of iron.
Easy to store
Light enough to hang on a hook or stack in a cupboard.
This pot cannot rust. Not "won't". Cannot.
Rust needs iron. A Potties pot has none to give. That is not a promise of maintenance. It is chemistry.
AL · Potties
Nothing here can rust
Rust is iron oxide. No iron, no rust, and cast aluminium has none worth mentioning. What aluminium does instead is seal itself: the instant it meets air it forms a hard oxide skin thinner than a wavelength of light, and re-forms it the moment it is scratched. Leave it at the coast. Leave it in the shed. Leave it out in the rain. It cannot rust, because there is nothing in it that rusts.
Surface, magnified
Oxide skin, self-sealing
Metal, untouched
0% rust.Not this season. Not in thirty years. Not possible.
FE · Cast iron
Cast iron cannot stop
Iron meets air and makes rust, a skin that swells bigger than the metal it came from, so it lifts, flakes, and exposes fresh iron to start again. Oil it, season it, baby it: miss one season and the reaction picks up where it left off. Every flake leaves with a little of the pot.
Surface, magnified
Rust, lifting away
Metal, pitting
Every seasonthe oil coat wears thin, the pot gets thinner with it.
Rust-free is not a feature we added. It is the metal we chose.
Where the pot actually lives
Nobody stores a potjie in a display cabinet. Here is what the two metals do in the places pots really end up.
The situation
AL · Potties
FE · Cast iron
Washed and left on the rack
Nothing happens. Water is not its enemy.
Rust spots inside a day if it is not dried over heat.
Stored in a garage or shed
Comes out the same as it went in.
Damp air alone is enough to start it.
Kept at the coast
Salt air does not touch it.
Salt air is the fastest way to lose a pot.
Packed away for winter
No oil coat, no checking on it.
Needs oiling first, and a look at it now and then.
Forgotten for a season
Rinse it and cook.
Scour, boil, re-season, start again.
Easy care
A tale of two rituals
Cast iron asks for a lifetime of looking after. A Potties aluminium pot asks for almost nothing. Here’s the honest comparison.
Weight
1.4-6.4 kg
3.8-17.6 kg
Rust
Never
Always a risk
First use
Ready now
Hours of prep
Upkeep
Soap & water
Oil every time
Storage
Anywhere
Keep oiled
Cast-iron steps adapted from a 1987 “Voorbereiding van die Pot” care guide - the way our grandparents really had to look after their pots.
Wash it like a pot
No rules to remember and nothing to undo. Soap is fine, a soak is fine, and steel wool is fine. Cast iron forgives none of the three.
AL · Potties
Reach for whatever is in the sink
Dishwashing liquid, as much as you like.
Any sponge, brush or scourer, steel wool included.
A long soak in the sink to lift stuck-on food.
A towel dry, and straight into the cupboard.
No oil, no curing, no maintenance ritual afterwards.
FE · Cast iron
The list of things you may not do
No soap, it strips the seasoning you built up.
No soaking, that is how rust starts.
No steel wool, it takes the seasoning off.
No air drying, it has to be dried over heat.
No putting it away bare, it needs an oil coat first.
Heat that spreads, not sticks
Our cast aluminium moves heat nearly three times faster than cast iron, the difference between a pot that cooks evenly and a pot with a burnt ring in the middle.
AL · Potties
142
watts per metre kelvin
Heat across the base
EdgeCentreEdge
Levels out about three times faster
Heat arrives fast and travels sideways almost as fast, so the whole base sits at one temperature.
FE · Cast iron
52
watts per metre kelvin
Heat across the base
EdgeCentreEdge
Heat piles up over the flame and crawls outward
That is where a scorched middle and a cold rim come from.
The lid test
Lid on, the whole pot is one temperature
We put a Potties pot on full heat with the lid on and measured both. Three degrees between the pot and its lid. The lid is not sitting there getting cold while the base scorches, it is cooking too, which is exactly what a potjie needs.
Thick cast bases do the rest. Heat arrives quickly, spreads sideways, and leaves no ring of scorched onion in the middle of your bredie.
Now meet the pot
The metal is the easy part. The story is the reason people keep them for forty years.