New to Outdoor Dutch Oven Cooking

ppine wrote:
What do you do when you run out of charcoal?

Cast iron is forgiving. I can get a rough idea of the temperature with my hand. You want 350 I can give it to you.

A number of cgs including state parks won't let you bring in your own firewood (disease and insect precautions). Hardwoods are best for DO cooking but some parks just don't have that lying around. You end up buying small log packs that are more expensive than charcoal plus you cannot be sure that hardwood logs are included. This is where charcoal becomes important.

A 20 lb bag of Kingsford Original (what most cast iron chefs prefer to use) goes on sale in the autumn and can be bought for less than fifty cents per lb. The 20 lb bag will last through a number of cooking sessions where that small bag of wood bought from the cg store won't.

You're right that cast iron is forgiving. But some of us like a little more precision for some of our upscale dishes. The fact of the matter is, the cast iron chef community is also quite forgiving and amenable to differences between cooking styles. Most of us don't get worked up over which "style" is better (unless you have a competition with rules). If it tastes good we'll applaud the chef.