And this post will be exhibit A in the divorce proceedings
I knew nothing about cast iron pan care when I met my SO and I did his dishes for him one day and washed it with soap and water. I still hate the damn things and think they’re filthy and nasty.
It’s fine to wash them with modern dish soaps. The reason people say not to is because dish soaps used to have lye in them, which would destroy the seasoning. Just make sure you wipe the water off instead of letting it air dry or it can rust.
I just put it back on the stove on full heat for a minute to dry off the water.
I keep reading the word seasoning, and for non native speakers this is hard. What are you all meaning? You put some garlic, salt and pepper on the pan and let it be?
English is dumb. We got the term “seasoned” to mean like a veteran fighter, something aging properly and using salt and spice from the French “assaisoner” which means “to ripen / to improve with time” which we expanded upon by being like “when things become tastier” which is how we started applying it to using spices and salt…
In this case it means sort of speed running getting the oil sheen a cast iron cooking implement used to naturally get by just using it over and over when cooking over wood or peat hence “ripening” the pan. Way back in the day in England and France they didn’t really use soap for dishes. You washed them with water and left them outside in UV light to sterilize them so all iron cooking things tended to naturally develop that nice carbon coat. Time and use made them better hence “seasoned”.
Relevent XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1905/
god damn i love relevant xkcds
So how’s the divorce going?
Scrolled past this before reality set in after a few seconds
coat that sucker with avocado oil and bring it up to 200°C for a few minutes. Allow it to cool, repeat until the sides don’t hold any oil, then switch to crisco solid shortening for a few rounds.
I love that everyone is showing up to give real advice to this post.
What does the avocado oil base do? I’ve never seasoned a cast iron pan from scratch before.
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Did you mean to say avocado oil there? I love the stuff.
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The best thing to season a cast iron pan with is blood.
I’ve got one that I need someone to do this to so I can start over. It’s older than I am and was poorly taken care of for several years before I got it.
The cast iron I bought for myself is all in good condition. That one means a lot because of where it comes from but I don’t have the patience to scrape all that shit off. I wish someone would do it for me so I could enjoy the pan my grandaddy cooked me bacon in.
Drill with an abrasive scubbing pad on it will sort it out real quick.
That really depends on the condition of the pan. I’ve had some where power tools were insufficient.
I have yet to see any kind of powered abrasive that WON"T get to the bare metal in a right quick manor. It’s kind of what the stuff is made for…
Right, that is your experience. And I’m telling you that there are cast iron fry pans that can defeat wire brushes, both manual and ones you attach to your power drill. (Of course it’s up to you if you want to believe me. There’s no particular reason to believe some random stranger online, but then again, there’s no obvious benefit for me to lie about it.)
Just put it in the oven on cleaning mode if you have a self cleaning oven
My oven uses some weird “eco-friendly” self-cleaning process that involves pouring water into it and steaming the dirt off, which doesn’t sound like it would be good for the pan. Got any alternatives? I found a Griswold at the thrift store a few years back and I’d like to be able to restore it without damaging it.
First of all a properly seasoned cast iron pan can and should be washed with modern dishwashing liquid. If the seasoning comes off with 'hand friendly ’ soap it was garbage seasoning anyway.
Second, this looks perfectly ready for seasoning. Nothing wrong with that. Just get the outdoor grill going grab some short chain oil and get to work.
Short chain oil!? At first I thought you were bs’ing about seasoning a pan with gear oil.
That sent me down a novel rabbit hole. Thanks for your input!
I don’t get the joke. I just tried Google and it had nothing for seasoning cast iron with chain or gear oil. Is this a thing?
Are you sure, I thought if a single molecule of soap touches my pan it would instantly look like this?
I only go to Reddit for two things: cast iron and pf2e. Slidey eggs never gets old
I only go to lemmy for two things. Tasty memes and to see people talk about Reddit.
And Linux
And people informing me they use arch btw
I use mint btw
I use arch BTW!
