Cast Iron Seasoning

Hi all. Over the holidays I decided to de-rust and re-season a old cast iron skillet, not the one I used to melt lead mentioned in a previous post.
I followed some rust removing instructions from a cast saucepan I recently purchased but also used a copper wire brush in a drill to really get in the little pits in the metal. Then again following the instructions from the saucepan I attempted to re-season, washed out all traces of rust, dried, coated entirely with vegetable oil (all I had), placed in oven for a hour, allowed to cool a bit, 2nd coat of oil and back in oven for another hour. The inner sides and outside developed that nice black finish but there a lot grey areas in the bottom (seen in photos). I've only used it twice, once to cook eggs and the other to reheat leftover roast meat. The first side of the eggs cooked nicely but I like me eggs over-easy and the other side had a lot of blacks spot.
Fells like I've done something wrong?
Attachment 242015

Maybe the copper wire brush has left some residue behind?
Nice skillet though.
I recently bought my first...a Lodge 12".
Does a nice job when the kitchen overseer allows me to use it!

you burnt the eggs :P

Get some lard from butcher or bludge lamb fat from round kidney of sheep. Same stuff as I understand. Melt and spread, let cool. Repeat.

Black spots will be the season coating lifting possibly.
When you coat with oil you want to wipe out as much as humanly possible, there should only be a micro film of oil which bakes and becomes the hard non stick coating. The uneven layer is normally because there is too much oil prior to baking.
Try scour out the cooking surface again with a scourer then just re season. Or just keep cooking with it, it’ll season itself eventually.

Proper seasoning takes quite a few repeats to build up those micro layers of baked oil.

Yep. Animal fat is the trick.
But also, the bottom looks a lot rougher than my cast iron pans. It possibly needs some sand paper love first, then season it

The grey areas are just in need of more seasoning.
Repeat the heat and oil process again, several times if you want to.
Some of my camps ovens have been seasoned 4 or more times over the period of a week or so to get a good black layer of seasoning.
Light coats of oil are the key. Too thick and the reult is disappointing

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Originally Posted by Three O'Three

Hi all. Over the holidays I decided to de-rust and re-season a old cast iron skillet, not the one I used to melt lead mentioned in a previous post.
I followed some rust removing instructions from a cast saucepan I recently purchased but also used a copper wire brush in a drill to really get in the little pits in the metal. Then again following the instructions from the saucepan I attempted to re-season, washed out all traces of rust, dried, coated entirely with vegetable oil (all I had), placed in oven for a hour, allowed to cool a bit, 2nd coat of oil and back in oven for another hour. The inner sides and outside developed that nice black finish but there a lot grey areas in the bottom (seen in photos). I've only used it twice, once to cook eggs and the other to reheat leftover roast meat. The first side of the eggs cooked nicely but I like me eggs over-easy and the other side had a lot of blacks spot.
Fells like I've done something wrong?
Attachment 242015

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yes - not cured properly- needs more - well traditionally bacon fat was the go to -vege oil personally I would steer clear -modern stuff who knows what is in it - my Chinese chef mate told me to cure new woks they use peanut oil so that could be a go -- but cast camp ovens are a pain - hard to look after -they were only ever wiped out or at worst some boiling water and season again with bacon fat - Ingrid 51 is onto it and lard pure lard would be good - super heat and apply bacon fat or lard - do not allow anyone near it with dish washing liquid - if you are rescuing a rusty one take it to a place that does it and have it sand blasted - straight home hot open fire and bacon fat or lard - repeat that again and again - then for cleaning only ever wipe it out - I use an alloy camp oven ( allumask ) its what we used culling - much easier to look after - I cook 3-5 times a week in it - good roast I dont clean and chuck in the pork chops two days later - nose first though if the fat residue in it smells okay I am cooking -your cast will take some time to cure well - real fat bacon or mutton and keep using it - but no bloody dish washing liquid or any cleaning compound natural fat only

The wire brush may have effected it as it may have taken the top seasoning layer off.
Frying up bacon or any fatty meat is a great way to season.
I would do a couple more re-seasoning and see if it helps

Fill it up with a cm or two of oil and leave in over at 180 for and hour or two might force they oil in faster

hope your not a vegeterian....

I agree with the comment of "just keep using it, it will season itself" I generally cook with tallow or lard or butter. If not then it's coconut or sunflower oil but I would stick to the animal fats for seasoning a pan.

To clean and i guess re-season, cast iron:
while it's hot, the crud gets scraped out with a putty trowel (a la bunnings hardware), scrubbed with half a cut onion and oil, mopped with scrunched newspaper.

If I want to be really fussy then it gets paper-toweled, then oiled and used again. Sometimes takes a couple of onions if it is particularly filthy or I want it specially clean.

And never clean with a dishwash just scrub and dry out on stove and lightly oil

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Originally Posted by 25/08 IMP

And never clean with a dishwash just scrub and dry out on stove and lightly oil

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If you’ve got it seasoned properly dishwashing liquid won’t do shit to it. It was the older dish soaps with lye that would wreck the seasoning. The dish soap these days is good as gold.

You’re never going to hurt the layer of carbonised oil/fat with a nylon dish brush and dish soap. Just don’t use a metal scourer.
I’ve got a couple Griswold fry pans from the 1940s and regularly use soap. They’re still black and shiney and as non stick as they always were. The older pans were hand poured and finished and the cooking surfaces were polished like glass.

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Originally Posted by McNotty

If you’ve got it seasoned properly dishwashing liquid won’t do shit to it. It was the older dish soaps with lye that would wreck the seasoning. The dish soap these days is good as gold.

You’re never going to hurt the layer of carbonised oil/fat with a nylon dish brush and dish soap. Just don’t use a metal scourer.
I’ve got a couple Griswold fry pans from the 1940s and regularly use soap. They’re still black and shiney and as non stick as they always were. The older pans were hand poured and finished and the cooking surfaces were polished like glass.

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Well I've learnt something tonight.
My were all hand poured by myself I guess I need to season them betterhttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...5907d63453.jpg

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Cook bacon in it, lots of bacon. Bacon fat with the brine residue does a good job, a couple of kg over breakfast should do it. Once you've finished the bacon, plonk the thing in the oven and let it season or if you have a chimera or outside fire that works too. Vege oil is a little hard to correctly polymerise into the carbon coating that while it isn't 'non-stick' requires you to get the stuff you want cooked quite a bit over normal cooking temperatures to make it fuse to the carbon in the steel. There is already a lot of carbon in the cast iron, so provided it's clean and you don't have a lot of the 'grey' areas you can just keep cooking on it until it self seasons. You just have a few 'stickier' areas. It's a similar sort of thing to the stainless steel frypan polished finish, if you've used one of those where you put olive oil in the frypan and it just seems to make the food stick more!

It's still too clean.keep cooking and it will come right.fatty sausages,bacon,eggs and you be away laughing

Acidic foods like tomato based sauces will strip the black ‘seasoning’. Don’t get hung up on the seasoning though either as there is a learning curve, just use and abuse it.
You can’t really mess it up. Grape, and I think flax seed are popular oils to use. There are almost as many YouTube tutorials seasoning cast iron as there are are on barrel cleaning.
Not to recommend it, but even chucked our pan in the log burner over red hot coals once. Burnt off all the crusty crap off that builds up the base and sides, came out like brand new ready to start from scratch again.

Get one of these, they are magic:

https://thermomix.co.nz/products/cast-iron-scrubber

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Originally Posted by Moutere

Acidic foods like tomato based sauces will strip the black ‘seasoning’. Don’t get hung up on the seasoning though either as there is a learning curve, just use and abuse it.
You can’t really mess it up. Grape, and I think flax seed are popular oils to use. There are almost as many YouTube tutorials seasoning cast iron as there are are on barrel cleaning.
Not to recommend it, but even chucked our pan in the log burner over red hot coals once. Burnt off all the crusty crap off that builds up the base and sides, came out like brand new ready to start from scratch again.

Get one of these, they are magic:

https://thermomix.co.nz/products/cast-iron-scrubber

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Would a copper scouring steel wool type pad do the same job?

Oils with high burning temps, animal fats, sunflower, peanut oils. I always put salt in the oil when seasoning. Only because I was told to, not sure of the logic behind it.

Once seasoned was with dish detergents seems fine. I wipe with a bit of oil before storing.


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Originally Posted by Three O'Three

Would a copper scouring steel wool type pad do the same job?

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Pass?
That linked one is awesome for the occasional stubborn cooking residues. Abrasive, but doesn’t harm the seasoning like a scouring pad. I think the it’s the chain link rather than the metal it’s made of. Less surface contact than a scourer, but far more purchase because of the rubber block inside it if that makes sense.
I find oiling the pan between use the most important maintenance thing and to echo the others, dish soap won’t harm it.

Also, the smoother the cooking surface the better. Break out the wet and dry if need be.
Took a few years of metal utensils to smooth our cheap one out. I would hit it with some emery paper next time.

Use an oil with a high smoke point, rice bran oil works for me. When you coat it with oil, try and wipe it all off. Then the oven at 400 for an hour, let it cool, repeat.
Essentially you are trying to turn the oil into a hardened residue (polymerisation?) that is bonded to the metal. Too much and it will clump into spotty lumps as it bonds to itself, not the pan. Thats also why the heat is important, you dont want it to still be oily.

Having said that I have also had good results from deep frying stuff in cast iron and getting some sort of seasoning from that - it just doesn't last as long. Be wary of the "just leave the grease in the pan" approach, that can go bad sometimes and give you plenty of time on the bog to reflect on your learnings.

All the fats and oils mentioned work but olive oil doesn’t. It a reaction between iron oxide (rust) and burnt oil that forms the black layer we’re looking for so don’t scrub it just use it. Mine gets scrubbed by someone in my house and I can get it back to useful in 15min. Get it hot and wipe oil or fat on the surface and let it smoke off, repeat as required.
Always get it hot before putting food in it.
I have decided it’s better to reseason it than do all the cooking.

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Originally Posted by 2post

All the fats and oils mentioned work but olive oil doesn’t. It a reaction between iron oxide (rust) and burnt oil that forms the black layer we’re looking for so don’t scrub it just use it. Mine gets scrubbed by someone in my house and I can get it back to useful in 15min. Get it hot and wipe oil or fat on the surface and let it smoke off, repeat as required.
Always get it hot before putting food in it.
I have decided it’s better to reseason it than do all the cooking.

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yup thats all good advice reseason again and again - leaving oil fat in okay as long as its fresh and one has a good nose - but again I am aghast people use bloody dish washing liquid in cast iron camp ovens heathens

There is a hilarious fb group on cast iron frypans and seasoning them. Total waste of time for advice but amusing in small doses

Found the fix.....

Attachment 245647

I use beef fat for seasoning, you may just need to season the pan again or spend a bit of time cooking in it. In between cooking, I find hot water and a scrubber works great, no need for dishwashing liquid to clean. A quick dry off with a paper towel or similar and a thin layer of beef fat before heating the skillet and then it's ready. I have heard of using rock salt to scrub it clean, maybe give that a try?