interesting read on seasoning cast iron

Nope. Lard, beef tallow, or other animal fat, only

Pitbull said:

Found this also. Trying it now on my worst skillet..

http://dutchovendoctor.com/CastIronSeasoning.htm

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Well, this sorta worked. I started with a raw cast iron skillet and followed the instructions. It came out brown, not black. He says to kill the heat after 30 minutes, but the brown to me means it should have been more like 1.5 hours. I'll try it again..

That was an interesting read (obsessively anal but a good read).

I read this years ago and seasoned a few pans with this method. I cook 90% with cast iron. Just my personal experience, but the pans seasoned with flax all flaked and were difficult to maintain. I just stripped and reseasoned those pans with grapeseed (my former standby). IMHO, proper maintenance is as important as initial seasoning. Maybe more.

bradymartin said:

i did a ton of research on this i decided on seasoning with crisco instead of flaxseed. it works great

supposedly seasoning with flaxseed it will flake off.

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I've heard the same thing and also use crisco. All of my cast iron is full on teflon (or close enough) non stick, so why bother with anything more complicated or expensive?

To strip a pan I stick it on my gasser for about 2hr on high, gets to 650F plus, and all but the toughest burnt on bits turn to ash. For the rest, if I'm restoring an old abused pan, it may take several soaks of easy off. The last pan I did had a few stubborn spots I burned off with a propane torch.

Then clean, clean, clean... green scotchbrite pads, warm soapy water- dry thoroughly, warm on the stove top, and wipe on a THIN layer of crisco. Then wipe as much off as I can with a dry paper towel- put in a 400F oven for an hour. You can repeat if you want, but that does the trick. For the magic non-stick performance, deep fry something. Make a batch of fries, hot wings, whatever. Then when you clean the pan it'll be super awesome non stick- at least until you cook something acidic, but that's what the ss pans are for.

I think too many people try to over think things. And I wash my pans regularly with dish DETERGENT and suffer no ill effects. It is my belief that the "don't wash your cast iron" old wive's tale came from back in the days when cast iron was the standard cookware, and people still washed with SOAP (soap != detergent). One of the main ingredients and soap is lye, and lye eats off the seasoning. Modern detergents are all synthesized in the lab and have no damaging effects on your cast iron (don't quote me, my unproven opinions from my limited experience).

BM

Well, gave it another try. I got to thinking about something said in the article about carbon and I got an idea and tried it. I lightly coated the skillet and lid in lard and proceeded to to do a normal seasoning; preheat oven to 300 and cure for 1 1/2 hours (30 minutes for the iron to come to temp and 1 hour at temp). Then I raised the temperature on the oven to 425. When it got to temp, I set the oven timer for 1 hour. When the hour was up, I just turned the oven off and let it all cool down. They came out black as coal. It was a real flat finish, so I repeated the normal seasoning. Here's what I got! This is going to be my my method from now on for new cast iron, or stuff thats not dark enough:thumb:

Edit: Bye the way, this is smokey, so if you do it, open the windows.

I do have one issue with my cast iron for which I have not yet found a solution.

When deep frying, esp. for long frying sessions, oil inevitably splashes down the sides of the pan, and forms drips on the bottom of the pan (gas range), and after cooking is done I end up with gummy messy bits on the bottom of the pan. I have not found a good way to clean that off. The stuff stands up to hard scrubbing sessions with the scotch brite pad. I know it's mostly an aesthetic thing but it really annoys me.

Does anyone else have this issue? How do you clean it off? It got so bad on one of my pans I just stripped it and re-seasoned it.

BM

b.m. said:

I do have one issue with my cast iron for which I have not yet found a solution.

When deep frying, esp. for long frying sessions, oil inevitably splashes down the sides of the pan, and forms drips on the bottom of the pan (gas range), and after cooking is done I end up with gummy messy bits on the bottom of the pan. I have not found a good way to clean that off. The stuff stands up to hard scrubbing sessions with the scotch brite pad. I know it's mostly an aesthetic thing but it really annoys me.

Does anyone else have this issue? How do you clean it off? It got so bad on one of my pans I just stripped it and re-seasoned it.

BM

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Have you tried heating the pan or pot back up and wiping or scrubbing it off? I usually have a hand towel at the stove and wipe it off the sides when it splatters out, trying to not give it a chance to do that.

I use the same method for all my cast iron, stumbled on that article a few years ago when i bought my Griswold griddle. When we moved into our new house a few months back I finally caved to my wife and hired a cleaning lady to come twice a month (part of my bargaining that got me a Shirley :thumb. Anyway, last week the cleaning lady soaked my cast iron griddle and skillet in soapy water and farked em all up. Gots to start all over now....oh well.

Sounds like time for a new cleaning lady!

Omar

tgstrang said:

When we moved into our new house a few months back I finally caved to my wife and hired a cleaning lady to come twice a month (part of my bargaining that got me a Shirley :thumb. Anyway, last week the cleaning lady soaked my cast iron griddle and skillet in soapy water and farked em all up. Gots to start all over now....oh well.

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Brutal, though I know that feeling well. That's happened to me twice. Two different cleaners. It's now the first thing I warn my cleaners never to do , and even still, I hide my pans in the oven on cleaning day. The only good is that I've got my seasoning technique down pretty good from all the practice!

tgstrang said:

I use the same method for all my cast iron, stumbled on that article a few years ago when i bought my Griswold griddle. When we moved into our new house a few months back I finally caved to my wife and hired a cleaning lady to come twice a month (part of my bargaining that got me a Shirley :thumb. Anyway, last week the cleaning lady soaked my cast iron griddle and skillet in soapy water and farked em all up. Gots to start all over now....oh well.

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Which one? There are three st play now... You talking about the last one I posted?

Well after a week of oven time all of the cast iron is restored. They came out perfect. Hate to see what this has done to my electric bill though..

Edit: I used the method that I came up with, not the flaxseed oil. Didn't want to take the chance in the flaking that was mentioned.

That's a great collection of cast iron. I'm very jealous. I've got one pan! I need to add on.

wayne77 said:

That's a great collection of cast iron. I'm very jealous. I've got one pan! I need to add on.

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Headed to the flee market in a couple of weeks to see if I can find something interesting (more). I love cast iron. Nothing cooks better.