Cast iron skillet seasoning advise

I've had one for @ 12 years now, bought it new. Seasoned it w/ vegetable oil. Always had problems with it seeming to loose it's seasoning in the middle where it's the hottest. I've tried to "re-season" it several times, but each time the same problem occurs. I don't want to put the oil on too thick and ruin it. Your advise? It also occured to me to use lard instead. I need help.

How do you clean the pan? That can have an effect on it.

CW

granny said fry a pound of bacon,,wipe out with paper towels,,put on shelf

granny is always right,,,,right?

There is seasoning advice on the internet. My pans are all older than I am (I am 68). To clean, I spray them with oven cleaner and put them in grocery store bags. Twist tie the bags and let sit for a week. It make take several applications of oven cleaner (over several weeks, but I got down to grey cast iron only.

Place the skillet in the pre-heated 125 oven and leave it for 15 minutes. Remove the skillet with an oven mitt and place it on a heat-resistant surface such as a hot pad.

Dip a clean cloth into a can of Crisco shortening and gather some of the shortening on the cloth. With your fingers underneath the cloth, scoop up approximately 1 tbsp. of shortening.

Coat the inside of the skillet with Crisco. Ensure that you have an even coating of shortening and no thick globs. Place the skillet back in the oven and raise the oven's temperature from 125 degrees to 225 degrees. Leave the skillet in the oven for 30 minutes.

Remove the skillet from the oven with an oven mitt and wipe away any shortening that has pooled. The inside of the skillet should still be wet. Place the skillet back in the oven for 30 minutes.

Remove the skillet with an oven mitt, allow to cool for 10 to 15 minutes and then wipe the inside surface of the pan with a dish cloth to remove the excess shortening and bring the pan to a dull shine.

Once seasoned, I never wash my pans with soapy water. After I am done using them I put water in them and let them set on the oven for while. Then I dump the water and scrape out any residue. I then rinse the pan and using a kitchen sink brush I wash it in hot tap water only and dry it with a paper towel.

Seasoning a cast iron pan is very simple.
Here is the easiest as well as the least messy and the same way the Chinese have been seasoning their woks for thousands of years.
Get to a butcher and get some pork fat back,spark up the grill to the highest temperature it gets to, place fat into pan and place on center of grill, close cover and walk away for 30/45 minutes.....take that time to phone the neighbors to apologize for all the smoke.
Repeat as necessary and never use soap to wash your pan,wipe with a rag,scour tough residue with course salt and store with a thin layer of neutral oil until fully seasoned.
Good luck.

If you've gotten it really hot, you may have to clean it back down to grey metal. If you don't have access to a bead blast cabinet use a wire brush that's made to chuck in an electric drill. After cleaning lightly wipe it with Crisco or bacon grease. Twenty minutes in a gas grill at 400-425 (it going to smoke bad, so I would not try this in your house oven). Repeat the light greasing and 2 more 20 minute heatings. It will be slick as a baby's rear end

Dueeast, you've gotten some good advice here.

As you can see, there are a lot of ways to season cast iron. As tork'd alluded, your grandmother never really worried too much about seasoning. She'd just fry up a bunch of bacon and call it good. There's an old, old song entitled, "Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy." And that's exactly what they used to do.

Years ago, I was cowboying on a ranch where the cook used almost nothing but cast iron. On the big Wolf range there in the kitchen, there were always at least two big skillets there, each with about a ¼-inch of grease in them. And that grease pretty much stayed there from one meal to the next. Oh, she'd wipe them down occasionally, but there was always a layer of grease on the bottom of those big skillets.

When I season my cast iron skillets and Dutch ovens, I try to stay away from cooking oil simply because it has a tendency to smoke and then turn into a gummy lacquer. I always use Crisco. When the skillet is relatively warm, I just wipe it down with a paper towel and Crisco. I do that each time I'm ready to put the skillet away.

Grandma didn't have to do that, however, because she used her skillets everyday and, like the song said, they were always "good and greasy."

Another solution is to first clean any baked on food. Then, pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees and pour a little peanut oil into the pan. (Peanut oil has a very high heat capacity.) Shut off your oven and leave the pan in until it has cooled. Do a good job in wiping all of the oil from the pan with paper towels. Sometimes I may have to re-apply oil, but that is done on the range top. That worked for me for many years.

Heat it up red hot and when your hubby comes home hit over the head with it. I had a girl friend years ago that said that she did that to her ex. She scared me off.

All these methods will work. If you must use veg oil, peanut or coconut is best. Lard, bacon grease, or Crisco is better.

Gramma, is that you!!!!!!

Most of my newer cast iron is Lodge. Everything else is, well, OLD. AND it works better than ANY coated non-stick, ... The only non-stick I use is a 6-8 inch for 2-3 eggs over easy! The cast iron is just too heavy for the "flip"!

See Refurbish Your Finish here
Lodge - Seasoned Cast Iron

duppie said:

Seasoning a cast iron pan is very simple.
Here is the easiest as well as the least messy and the same way the Chinese have been seasoning their woks for thousands of years.
Get to a butcher and get some pork fat back,spark up the grill to the highest temperature it gets to, place fat into pan and place on center of grill, close cover and walk away for 30/45 minutes.....take that time to phone the neighbors to apologize for all the smoke.
Repeat as necessary and never use soap to wash your pan,wipe with a rag,scour tough residue with course salt and store with a thin layer of neutral oil until fully seasoned.
Good luck.

Click to expand...

Wh..What's cast iron!?

Some hits from Lodge Cast Iron..

Lodge - Seasoned Cast Iron

Like Mule Packer, my approach to my wok and cast iron is to leave 'em with a little grease/oil. They season up over time, I scrub them if I get an uneven spot, and they work fine.

When I buy a pan at auction I almost always take it down to the metal and start fresh. Here's what I do:

If you need to get it down to the metal again to re season, all the above will work but I'll offer one other option: Phosphoric acid. Phosphoric acid will take the finish off metal and if you have rust on anything it converts brown rust Fe203 to Fe2O4 (ferric phosphate). It's commonly sold (and recommended here for gun rust removal) as naval jelly, but you can get it at Home Depot as metal and concrete etcher for cheap in a gallon container. Put some in and swish it around a while, scrub a bit and it will get you down to the metal quickly, and the metal will be etched a little to hold the oil and give you a nice finish.

Oil wise put a thin coat on it, heat it to 400-500 on a grill as has been said (b/c you do not want to do this inside without a commercial grade hood), cook it off for an hour or so, let it cool, repeat several times.

"Seasoning" is just a polymerization of the oil. In the old days lard was so good b/c it polymerized well, though I've seen debate about this in modern times as the makeup of crisco isn't the same as old timey lard and even pig fat isn't quite the same as pigs now are fed a more grain based diet.

Probably the best oil to put on a finish is linseed oil or tung oil, but they're not edible so I wouldn't do it. I learned about them when I was restoring my home, linseed oil in particular can do amazing things and b/c it polymerizes well it would be great, but I'd worry about eating off it. An oil that is cheap, easy and edible that is still a good polymerizer is soybean oil. Flaxseed oil would also be a great choice, but it's a specialty item. Flax oil is the edible version of linseed oil, should polymerize great and give a good finish. I've just never bothered with it.

If you are getting uneven spots or it isn't holding my bet is either too much oil when seasoning it or the metal isn't good and clean for the initial mechanical bond. The Phosphoric acid will give you the good clean surface, then just use a thin wipe of oil and repeat the process a half dozen times and don't try to rush it.

Honestly the cast iron I've done hasn't been picky once I used the acid wash. I've used canola oil (moderate at best as a polymerizer) and cooked it off on the stove (I do have a commercial grade hood) and it has done fine. get that good first bond and you'll be fine IMO. I'm also not super picky about it, grandma's pans weren't perfectly smooth either.

Oh, after I scrub out with the acid I do neutralize it with a little baking or washing soda and rinse really well then heat it a bit to get it good and dry before applying oil, just not hot enough to burn me.

Straightshooter2 said:

How do you clean the pan? That can have an effect on it.

CW

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Just wipe it out not using much water. That's what we do and once in a great while gets a solid cleaning but re-oiling to get the coating on again. Then spending a few hrs in the oven to bake the coating back on. However, its just best to wipe clean-at least that worked in my household well.

Do not bead blast a cast iron skillet. It increases the surface area and makes it harder to season. It also makes it more susceptible to rust. I made that mistake once. It ruined the skillet.

Mine are about 50+ years old.

I just run them under hot water and gently/lightly rub the surface with with a Scotch Brite non scratch scour pad, about a 2 inch square piece.

Pat dry with a paper towel and put a light coating of vegetable oil on the surface of the pan. Then lightly wipe with another paper towel. This has worked well over the years.

Good luck with yours, they are the best for cooking.

I got my wife a Lodge Dutch oven for Christmas last year and after reading about all the different seasoning methods online, went with Crisco low and slow at first and building up to 450 degrees. The pot went in the oven upside down with a drip pan below to avoid pooling and you want to start low and slow to get the fat/oil working its way into the iron rather than immediately burning it off in a very hot oven.

Another trick is to cook some fatty/oily dishes the first few times and avoid tomato-based stuff at first, as the tomato acid will retard the seasoning process and strip the oil until you get a full good seasoning on the pot.

CAst Iron

I lived with a bachelor uncle at one time, he lived in the woods....farmed for a living, ate what he raised, shot, trapped or caught on a line.....everything he cooked in a skillet was in lard....he kept a metal can of it by the stove.....his skillets always had a layer of congealed lard in them.....when they got too "dirty"...he scraped them into the coon hound's bowls and then got a fresh dollop out of the lard can....he is in his late 80's now and is in a health care facility due to alziehimers......he was always lean, and had virtually no body fat.....he worked like a mule.....I have those skillets in my camp box, with a film of lard in them and still cook on them....they are older than I am....

Lard's the best.

Just picked up some the other day at the supermarket, lard for $2.29 a pound, no after open refrigeration required. You may have to ask the manager where to find it, but it's usually in all supermarkets hidden somewhere near the oils. It's the only thing my grandmother and mother ever used for everyday cooking. Non of the other oils even compare.

I used to collect cast iron-
Wagner
Griswold
Favorite
Puritan
and some brands few of you have ever heard of.
Had about 100 pieces.
Cleaned and seasoned every one of them.
Because the older brands like this had really smooth finishes, NO wire brushes, NO acids, NO bead blasting.
Oven cleaner is OK. Red Devil Lye is better.
After cleaning the gunk off, buy cheap vinegar in gallons, soak them in it to turn rust into a wipe away brown scum. Rinse, dry, and oil quickly!

Oil in thin coats, almost wiped dry. Put the heat to it- around 350-400 is enough. Heat slow and cool slow or learn to say warped or cracked.

Corn oil gives the prettiest color, but you must go slow with THIN coats so they don't gum.

The trouble with lard, fat, and grease is possible salt content. Not good to have salt crystals imbedded in your seasoning. It never mattered in the old days when Granny cranked it every day, but you once-a-monthers will get some rust under your pretty seasoning.

DO use linseed oil on pieces you don't cook with like doorstops and such. Baked/burned linseed oil is the "japanned" finish found on old tools. Black and very pretty and extremely durable.