[HN Gopher] Chemisty of Cast-Iron Seasoning: A Science-Based How...
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Chemisty of Cast-Iron Seasoning: A Science-Based How-To (2010)
Author : Tomte
Score : 269 points
Date : 2021-01-10 15:44 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sherylcanter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (sherylcanter.com)
| krrrh wrote:
| Contra to what most are saying here, I went through this
| laborious and stinky process of taking my pans down to bare metal
| and building them back up with flax oil a couple of years ago and
| got great results.
|
| I did get poor performance after a few months and felt
| heartbroken over it, but fixed it with another approach that
| differs from received wisdom: use soap and a nylon scouring pad
| from time to time. That's never damaged the seasoning, but
| removes any caked on burned bits of food that dull the pan. I
| read on /r/castiron that the idea of soap being damaging is a
| hold over from when lye based soap was commonly used for dishes.
| Modern dish _detergent_ isn't going to cause the same damage. The
| other thing that helped was getting a straight metal spatula to
| really scrape the pan which has resulted in a smoother surface
| over time.
| stouset wrote:
| Nobody is saying you'll definitely get bad results from this,
| but it is a large waste of time. I say this as someone who did
| the same thing, always struggled to figure out why I had
| problems, and had better results when I simply _stopped babying
| it_.
|
| IMO your problem was likely the lack of washing. Soap and
| scrubbing _will not_ damage your patina in any meaningful way.
| What washing does do is removes the caked on, half-polymerized
| bits that causes food to stick (and which creates a negative
| feedback loop of problems).
|
| Your cast iron is not a precious flower. Your grandmother did
| not fret over the decision of which oil to use for optimal
| seasoning. Use it, abuse it, and clean it out like anything
| else when you're done (if there's visible residue). If you
| want, dry it out on the stove top afterward and wipe a thin
| layer of oil on to it.
| krrrh wrote:
| I agree, things improved when I liberally used soap,
| scrubbers, and sharp flat metal spatulas to scrape things
| clean.
|
| But I also haven't seen any flaking of the flax base
| seasoning like others have. With previous pans I have
| accidentally scrubbed down to bare metal. Maybe I was just
| starting with thrift store pans that had been too heavily
| babied, and the process of cooking off the layers of
| carbonized food and old seasoning and starting over helped
| regardless of which oil I used.
| 5ersi wrote:
| Well, linseed is the same thing as flax:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flax
|
| So linseed oil is flaxseed oil, the question is only if the
| process of extracting it is food-grade.
| vikramkr wrote:
| Mentioning a couple hypotheses (drying oils make for better
| seasonings) with a couple hypothesized mechanisms does not make
| this a science based approach. A science based approach (in this
| particular chemical context) would involve controlled experiments
| (off the top of my head, what about the roughness of the cast
| iron? Carbon content? Time to warm up the oven? Why six layers
| and not twelve? Etc etc). Claims like "youbneed to use 100% pure
| oil, I think that's why it might not be working for you" would
| not be present - science based involves testing that hypothesis
| and seeing if the purity or brand or whatever of the oil matters
| There! There would be some key metrics to measure, such as some
| molecular analysis of the residue, some test for non-stick
| ability, and perhaps a longevity test.
|
| It might seem like a bit much, but this is an article presenting
| the conclusions of "science" as recommendations to pursue in your
| every day life, and a lack of scientific rigor can create false
| confidence in false solutions. For something as complex as
| polymerization in the varied environment of home cast iron
| seasoning, there's an enormous amount of work and confounding
| factors you would need to sift through (seasoning on the stove vs
| oven?). Without that rigor, you might have stumbled into the best
| way of doing things, but as other comments suggest, its more
| likely your lack of rigor has led to missing things like the
| seasonings tendency to flake.
| ahepp wrote:
| Most popular "food science" falls into this trap, as far as
| I've seen. Even my preferred resources such as seriouseats or
| America's Test Kitchen.
|
| A teaspoon of vodka in the dough makes the pie crust flakier?
| At the very least it seems like one could say "we cooked 5 pies
| each way, and a blind taste test found that 4/5 tasters rated
| the batter with vodka as flakier".
|
| That seems like the minimum amount of effort to call something
| scientific. It doesn't require any specialized equipment or
| training. We're not even getting into detailed methodology, or
| significance testing. Yet still, even the best sources I see
| make completely opaque claims such as "we found reverse
| creaming makes the cake more dense and buttery, while
| traditional creaming results in a traditional fluffy cake".
| germinalphrase wrote:
| An aside: America's Test Kitchen "Best Recipes" book taught
| me how to cook in my early twenties. Having a page or two of
| "we tried this, hated this, liked this tweak, so that's why
| we do..." helped tremendously in learning how/why recipe
| design and cooking technique matter.
| smichel17 wrote:
| As I mentioned in my other comment in this thread, the linked
| article goes in the step in the right direction by _having
| hypotheses at all._ That 's why this article remains so
| influential despite its hypothesis (flax oil makes for better
| seasoning) having been disproved.
|
| If someone wants to dethrone this article, they need to do it
| with more/better science to support an alternative hypothesis
| (e.g. a recommendation for a different oil). Without this, it
| is impossible to establish the credibility of different
| recommendations.
| vikramkr wrote:
| It then takes a step in the wrong direction by presenting the
| hypothesis as a scientific conclusion. Everyone has a
| hypothesis. Having a hypothesis doesn't make it special or
| science based. Every anecdote driven article is presenting a
| hypothesis, and an awful lot of them Couch their anecdotes in
| potential scientific explanations to sound more credible.
| Theres not a need to do "more" science - there's a need to do
| basically _any_ science. I 'll grant that the societal
| context means that someone has to do more work and then
| present their findings in an equally engaging way (with the
| necessary anecdotes etc), but science based?
| jfoutz wrote:
| 2020 taught me a lot more about cooking than I ever would have
| gone out of my way to learn on my own.
|
| I've never cooked with what I imagine to be a perfect seasoning
| on my skillet. I just cook with it.
|
| I sorta wonder if there's a kind of placebo effect. When you
| really think about your tools, you notice lots of little things
| to do better (or I did anyway).
|
| Getting the pan hot enough, and being aware of what parts are
| hotter, like the ring where the burner heats the skillet, had a
| huge impact on stuff "sticking" I don't know if the heat helps
| seal up little micro holes and cracks, so food doesn't grab onto
| those edges. Or perhaps The moisture turns to steam and creates a
| little gap, letting food sort of float above the pan, never
| really making contact. Maybe both.
|
| Just a tiny bit of lubrication helps so much as well. A spray of
| pam or a few drops of oil work wonders.
|
| With a good understanding of heat and lubrication, I feel sorta
| like I could cook eggs on a pie pan over a burner, and they won't
| stick.
|
| I wonder how much is seasoning, and how much is understanding how
| the tools work, inside and out, to get desired outcomes.
| leetcrew wrote:
| the thing about cooking is there are often many different ways
| to achieve the same outcome. a cast iron skillet with an even
| layer of seasoning has noticeably better (to me, at least)
| nonstick properties than the same skillet with a half-assed
| seasoning on it. but the former takes a lot more time/effort
| and it really doesn't matter if you just add an extra pad of
| butter. with enough cooking fat, eggs will slide around any
| skillet as if it were an ice rink.
| hawktheslayer wrote:
| I'm halfway through a modified version of her method. Used her
| oven cleaner idea and just using the high heat sunflower oil I
| have on hand. Wish me luck!
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| You really shouldn't buy a special oil just got seasoning your
| cast iron and carbon steel. It's not necessary. Pick an oil with
| a high smoke point, a neutral taste, and plenty of easy
| availability. That's often peanut. Avocado is great if you're
| fancy.
|
| Keep a squirt bottle of oil on hand and make sure you're using
| enough. Using soap to clean your pans will make maintaining your
| seasoning easier, as you use less effort to clean them. See this
| if you're skeptical: https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/11/the-
| truth-about-cast-iro...
|
| I had friends dedicate years to flax seed oil. They're not happy
| about it, as they've got flaking to deal with. I also had friends
| disbelieve me that soap was okay, and they've mostly come around
| after hearing me swear by it for years.
| SoSoRoCoCo wrote:
| Peanut oil has a flavor. Safflower and sunflower oils have
| higher temperature and no flavor.
|
| Been using safflower for over 20 years on my day-use skillet.
| dunham wrote:
| Past the initial seasoning, I've found that just using the pan
| helps a lot. My problem has been that I've a lot of rough (and
| very hard) cruft built up on the outside and the upper part of
| inside of the pan.
|
| +1 on the squirt bottle of oil, I started doing that a few
| years ago and it was game-changing. Previously I'd just pour a
| little out of the original bottle when I was cooking, which was
| a lot less convenient than having something appropriately sized
| and within arms reach.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| >Pick an oil with a high smoke point
|
| This doesn't seem to agree with either experience or the
| scientific understanding of the polymerization process that
| needs to occur in a well seasoned cast iron pan.
| p1necone wrote:
| "Pick an oil with a high smoke point, a neutral taste"
|
| This sounds somewhat like "special" to me.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| You probably want a neutral oil for salad dressings, or
| mayonnaise. You want a high smoke point for any frying(deep,
| shallow, or stir) you'll do. Every grocery store I've been in
| has peanut, canola, or avocado, which will all do.
| bch wrote:
| > You really shouldn't buy a special oil just [for] seasoning
| your cast iron and carbon steel. It's not necessary. Pick an
| oil with a high smoke point, a neutral taste, and plenty of
| easy availability. That's often peanut. Avocado is great if
| you're fancy. Keep a squirt bottle of oil on hand and make sure
| you're using enough.
|
| > I had friends dedicate years to flax seed oil. They're not
| happy about it, as they've got flaking to deal with.
|
| I happen to have bought some flax oil specifically for
| seasoning my cast iron - you're saying it's _contraindicated_
| though? (So "you don't need special oil, but _especially_ not
| these" (leaving only peanut and avocado))?
|
| For the amount of times the word "science" is dropped there's
| still a good amount of myth and legend associated with owning
| cast iron. Short of having my own double blind statically
| significant study and perhaps a microscope to observe the
| polymerization effects, I'm still flopping back/forth a bit
| about what "the best" or at least not leaving a simple
| improvement on the table, is. What a journey.
|
| Still worth the trouble, though. Cooking is fun, and cast iron
| is a good cooking tool.
| nightski wrote:
| I interpreted what he said as you don't need a special oil,
| but here are some good options that do not have a strong
| flavor and will work well. But you could just as well use any
| other oil. I avoid nut based oils so I generally have olive
| and avacado around.
| bch wrote:
| I guess the best oil (olive or otherwise) is highly
| processed, to remove volatile (flavour and healthy)
| components, since it's essentially just being cooked into a
| polymer. Added bonus that these are probably cheapest - is
| that your experience?
| late2part wrote:
| Olive Oil's smoke point is not terribly high.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Smoke_point_of_coo
| kin...
| bch wrote:
| It looks to me like refined olive oil is in a range that
| puts it near the top. I guess the question though, is: is
| it sufficient?
| BikiniPrince wrote:
| I don't know if there was much interpretation. It broke
| down the science well enough or at least offered theories.
|
| Having some good success and failure I am willing to try a
| few ideas in the article.
|
| One variation a YouTuber offered was to heat the oil in the
| pan on the stove and then wipe the excess.
|
| So far I have duplicated a lot of points in the article
| with different success ratios. I do agree a long smoke
| rate, upside down and long cooling period is ideal.
|
| I use the grill so I don't worry about the smoke
| generation.
|
| More or less I've used this on the last successful project,
| but with corn oil. I went with a hybrid seasoning oil
| recently and I'm not impressed. I'll try flax next.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _You really shouldn 't buy a special oil just [for] seasoning
| your cast iron and carbon steel. It's not necessary._
|
| Source: lack of historic availability of avocado oil in the
| South
| smichel17 wrote:
| As someone relatively new to cast iron (around a year of
| cooking with it), I am inclined to believe the parts of this
| article that I cannot validate through my own experience,
| because the other parts match what I have learned through
| experimentation. However, I must point out that a year ago, I
| would have no way to recognize this. Whether or not this
| article is correct, it is at the same level of heresay as every
| other article, reddit comment, or youtube video out there (like
| the carbon steel video linked in the replies, which says never
| to use soap).
|
| Despite the flax oil article being bad science, it is still the
| _most_ science of any of the cast iron information out there,
| which is why it continues to enjoy such popularity. Even if it
| is bad science, it at least provides some hypotheses to test!
|
| Here's my hypotheses on soap (edit: rephrased to better reflect
| my meaning):
|
| 1) Soap is fine to use; it will not damage the seasoning.
|
| 2) Seasoning is often damaged (at least a little) while cooking
| and it is important to re-season regularly to keep the pan in
| good shape.
|
| 3) If you do not use soap, the amount of oil left on the
| surface is similar to the amount you would want to wipe on when
| re-seasoning.
|
| Basically, I think no soap + dry on stove is a shortcut to
| avoid the process/effort of reseasoning the pan (especially if
| you do the oil-and-salt-as-an-abrasive trick). Perhaps you'll
| get better results using soap and then wiping on oil, but it's
| more work and many people don't do the second part. Thus, they
| see better results when they don't use soap.
|
| This would explain why some people tell you you need to
| reseason after every use, while others say that's bubkis, and
| why the same is true of soap avoidance.
|
| To test: try all 4 combinations of soap/no-soap and
| reseasoning/just-drying (always dry the same way, on the
| stovetop).
| war1025 wrote:
| You asked if I could look at this in a different part of this
| comment thread.
|
| What you say seems more or less correct to me. I think if you
| approach cast iron that way, you will have good results.
|
| Basically, you don't want the pan to look "not-oiled", and
| how much effort you need to put into that depends on how much
| you are removing the existing oil during the cooking process.
|
| I think the "looks oily" test is the proper determinant for
| if the cast iron is in good shape. Trying to develop a
| "seasoning" layer is likely to just cause frustration.
| joshribakoff wrote:
| 1 and 2 are a contradiction
| smichel17 wrote:
| Hm, you're right, thanks for pointing this out. There was
| no contraction in what I _meant_ , but I didn't express
| what I meant correctly.
|
| They don't conflict if the seasoning is already damaged
| (during cooking) before cleaning it. Cleaning with soap
| would not repair it at all (thus, reseasoning is required),
| whereas if you don't use soap, the pan is reseasoned in the
| same step as drying it on the stove.
|
| Part of the problem was that I was overloading the word
| "reseasoning" to also refer to doing it in an explicit step
| (ie, the wiping on/off of oil) as well as the effect of
| rebuilding the layer of seasoning.
|
| I've edited my post to hopefully be more clear.
| ska wrote:
| As a data point, I use a little soap when it feels needed
| (every few times, usually) and add seasoning when it feels
| needed (less often). Seasoning remains great (fry eggs
| without sticking).
|
| These are my most often used pans, and have remained that way
| for many years.
|
| Fwiw I rarely need or use a scraper or salt while cleaning ,
| I'll "deglaze" if there is fond in the pan, even in the rare
| case that I'm not using the result for anything.
| fireattack wrote:
| Great article, just one thing I don't quite understand: vintage
| vs modern cast iron pans.
|
| I get his point about the older ones having smooth(er) finish
| due to production methods change, but what stops _SOME_ modern
| manufacturers to do the same? Surely for a community that is
| essentially a cult, there should be enough people buying it to
| worth the additional manufacturing cost?
| war1025 wrote:
| > what stops SOME modern manufacturers to do the same?
|
| I believe there are manufacturers filling that niche now.
| Field [0] is one that I'm aware of. I think there are four or
| five others.
|
| [0] https://fieldcompany.com/
| xKingfisher wrote:
| Butterpat Industries is another.
|
| I have one of their pans and it's excellent.
| cbsmith wrote:
| Turns out, there are some:
| https://www.foodandwine.com/lifestyle/kitchen/the-real-
| reaso...
| iamacyborg wrote:
| I'm a simple man, I see a post linking to a J. Kenji Lopez-Alt
| article, I upvote.
|
| Another good method is outlined in this America's Test Kitchen
| video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-suTmUX4Vbk
|
| If you have a friend who runs a Chinese restaurant, you could
| always try this, too
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGXGJD2xTzQ
|
| I do this regularly and always clean my pan with soap after
| use.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| That wok seasoning video is what I do! I also use soap on my
| pans, just not too much and with gentle scrubbing.
|
| The wok burner I have is this one:
| https://www.amazon.ca/Eastman-Outdoors-37212-Gourmet-
| Carbon/...
|
| It's a ton of fun to cook on, and useful for way more than
| just the wok. When I go diving and get crabs for example,
| this thing gets a huge pot of water boiling in no time and
| makes prepping a lot of crabs really easy.
|
| And yeah, it'll season any pan like nothing else. I was
| terrible at seasoning pans until I started throwing them on
| this thing.
| markgall wrote:
| Although Kenji: "Whenever someone asks me why their cast iron
| seasoning is weak or flaky, I ask if they followed that
| popular (but wrong!) flaxseed seasoning guide [i.e. the
| linked article]. The answer has been yes 100% of the time."
| war1025 wrote:
| As someone who owns more cast iron than is reasonable, I just
| wanted to go a step beyond upvoting this and acknowledge in
| writing that this is the correct view of things.
|
| You want oil soaked into the metal. This idea that you are
| trying to build a non-stick surface on top of the metal is just
| adding extra work that isn't needed.
|
| Wash with soap, dry of the stove top, put in some oil (I use
| peanut), then take a paper towel and rub the oil around over
| everything and at the end the metal should look shiny but there
| shouldn't be any pooled oil left anywhere.
|
| If you are cooking something that doesn't leave a residue or
| strong flavor, you can skip the washing all together and just
| leave it there to cook with next time.
|
| If you try to go the whole "never wash this" route, you end up
| with unhappy results going from cooking something with onions
| and garlic to cooking something more neutral flavored. No one
| wants onion flavored pancakes.
| klyrs wrote:
| > No one wants onion flavored pancakes.
|
| Somebody's never had latkes before.
| stouset wrote:
| Also, without washing, you end up with rough spots of non-
| sticky partially-polymerized bits. Wash it with soap and a
| scrub brush. Nothing short of steel wool is going to affect
| the patina.
|
| For proof of this, check out your aluminum baking sheets. If
| they've been used, they're almost certainly covered in a
| shiny black substance that's a complete pain in the ass to
| remove, even with abrasives. That's essentially what's on
| your cast iron.
| petre wrote:
| I wash it with water and scrub with scotch brite. Will try
| homemade soap.
| chipsa wrote:
| Do not use homemade soap. Homemade soap is made with lye,
| which is the entire reason why people said not to use
| soap, once upon a time. An unreacted lye will start to
| strip seasoning.
|
| Use dish detergent (commercial dish soap). It's made in a
| different way, so you can't get un-reacted lye.
| DanBC wrote:
| If you have unreacted lye in your soap you're going to
| have more problems than just stripping the seasoning off
| your pan.
| chipsa wrote:
| I mean, if you have a bunch, yeah, you're going to have
| more issue than just stripping seasoning off. But most of
| the problem is just the slightest hint excess from making
| sure the entire volume of oil is saponified.
|
| It's part of why you had the rubber dishwashing gloves
| get invented: soap used to be harsher, and one of the
| reasons why is the fact that soaps were made with lye.
| chongli wrote:
| _Nothing short of steel wool is going to affect the
| patina._
|
| Actually, if you throw it in the oven and set it to self-
| clean it'll strip the seasoning right off. I've done it
| with my cast iron pan before. Washes completely clean and
| ends up gun-metal grey; a non-oxidized pure iron surface.
| This is a great way to start over with the seasoning
| process if you're unhappy with it.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Apparently there is some controversy over whether the
| self-cleaning cycle is bad for ovens. [1] [2]
|
| 1: https://www.thekitchn.com/why-you-should-almost-never-
| use-th...
|
| 2: https://lifehacker.com/dont-use-your-ovens-self-
| cleaning-fun...
| mdtusz wrote:
| I've tried this a few times and none of the ovens I've
| had over the years have been successful in removing
| seasoning with their self-cleaning, so at this point I'm
| trying to find a machine shop that will be happy to bead
| blast it and mill the surface flat again. So far, most
| shops have given me quotes in the hundreds of dollars so
| I've been waiting until I meet someone that has the
| capability to just do it in their garage.
|
| Most new cast iron cookware now has a raw surface with
| lots of pits and bumps from the casting process as well,
| which doesn't seem to get nearly as smooth and non-stick
| as "vintage" cookware.
| BikiniPrince wrote:
| You can stick the pan in a bag, spray on some easy off
| and let it soak overnight.
| jnellis wrote:
| Our dog's food bowl is about the most mirror polished
| metal in the house. Free labor.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Just wait until you diamond-grit-coat Fluffy's tongue...
| slacka wrote:
| Since quarantine life, I've been cooking multiple times a
| day. My oven's self-clean makes my pans look exactly like
| new. Takes all of the black off leaving them with a
| shiny, silvery shine. I then have to season them to
| regain a nonstick coating as good as any Ceramic/Teflon
| pan that I've used.
|
| As far soap. My experience is that it definitely damages
| the nonstick coating, depending on how much you use. You
| can get by with a soapy sponge, but putting detergent
| directly on it and the nonstick coating will be lost.
|
| The best way to avoid need to avoid soap or scrubbing and
| re-seasoning is to put hot water in the pan while it's
| still hot and scrape. Meat is the worst for leaving a
| coating and this technique removes 99% of it.(If not
| blackened use that water for a delicious sauce with all
| the best flavors of your cooking). This routine allows me
| to use the same pan for months without a deep cleaning.
|
| I have tried to put cold oil on after heaving soaping,
| but I'm not happy with the pan until I season it with
| high heat. The only reason I'd do it for rust and still
| would pan on seasoning it properly later.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| The biggest difference I've found (moreso on stainless
| steel than cast iron) is food weight: which is to say,
| time food is left without moving.
|
| Which makes sense. Essentially burnt-to-pan bits are
| food-pan interface, as opposed to food-oil-pan interface.
|
| Give enough time, heavy food displaces oil and comes in
| direct contact with pan. Given enough movement, oil is
| able to reimpose itself between the two.
| captrb wrote:
| I used a propane grill and it was very, very effective. I
| removed the grates and (if I recall correctly) rested the
| pan on the heat deflection sheets. I left all burners on
| for about 2 1/2 hours. After cooling, the previous
| coating was reduced to a thin dust. After blowing it off,
| the pan was gun metal grey.
|
| I then used a cheap corded drill and inexpensive flap
| wheels and similar attachments from the hardware store to
| make it smooth, wearing an N95 mask to protect my lungs.
| chipsa wrote:
| Self cleaning should reach a high enough temp for it,
| because most of what you use the self-cleaning to take
| off is effectively seasoning. If it's not getting hot
| enough, use something else to get it hot enough
| (blowtorch, maybe).
|
| For smoothing out the surface, you could just use a
| flapwheel. You can get them for angle grinders. This will
| also take off seasoning if necessary (but it's a bit
| worse for the pan if you're not also trying to smooth it
| out). Be sure to wear a respirator and googles if you're
| doing this.
| im3w1l wrote:
| How does this work?
| sircastor wrote:
| Self cleaning ovens bake as hot as they can to vaporize
| material. After the cycle is complete, you take a brush
| and sweep out the ash.
| gambiting wrote:
| Yes, if you happen to own an oven that has this feature.
| It's not exactly common.
|
| Edit: because of course I triggered a storm. Maybe it's
| common elsewhere. I've lived in few EU countries, rented
| then owned a few houses, exactly only one of them had an
| oven with the self cleaning(by heating up to like 500C)
| feature, I don't think we ever used it. When we bought
| our current oven none of the ones we looked at had that
| function. A fancy Candy we looked at had a function where
| it cleans itself with steam(where you fill up a provided
| container with water and then it heats it up to fill the
| oven with steam and in theory that softens the gunk. No
| idea if that actually works).
|
| If it's common where you live, then my apologies for this
| comment.
| chipsa wrote:
| Mine doesn't, but that's because it's too fancy, and has
| a special coating on the inside that's supposed to make
| stuff just come off. Freaking Whirlpool. It doesn't work.
| philwelch wrote:
| I've never had a non-self-cleaning oven.
| BikiniPrince wrote:
| You can do it with a propane grill as the temperatures
| are hot enthused to carbonize any polymers.
|
| Or just use easy off which is a spray on acid.
| butterfi wrote:
| Really? I figured most ovens had a self-cleaning
| option... I did this trick to recondition several cast
| iron pans and it works great, but be prepared for massive
| amounts of greasy smoke.
| onli wrote:
| Afaik it's just not a thing in europe. Only high end
| models have it, and even then it's an optional feature
| that costs extra. Even in a kitchen I rented where just
| the sink faucet did cost 1000EUR the self-cleaning module
| of the oven was not installed.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| We tend to have pretty different ovens in Europe vs the
| US.
| ros86 wrote:
| Just a random thought (lived both in the US and in the
| EU): could it be that US ovens are more often gas ovens
| while in the EU it's mostly electric? (might be easier to
| get higher temperatures with gas).
|
| Couldn't find statistics on this with a quick search...
| iamacyborg wrote:
| I've lived in the US and EU too. My experience was we
| have fan assisted ovens in the EU whereas ones I saw in
| the US had a top and bottom element with no fan assist.
| astura wrote:
| Fan assisted ovens are also called "convection ovens."
| They certainly exist in the US, but I think they are more
| high end? I personally have one, it also has a self-clean
| function. The stove part is gas but I think (?) the oven
| is electric.
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| It's the opposite... my oven in the US doesn't have the
| cleaning thing, turns out it's because it's gas only. The
| gas stovetop + electric oven version of this model has
| it. Seems to be a thing even with other manufacturers and
| models.
| slavik81 wrote:
| I'm in Canada, but I don't think I've ever seen a gas
| oven. All my ovens have been electric, and nearly all of
| them had a self-clean option.
| xxs wrote:
| interesting - both electrolux ovens i have had in the
| last 10y do have self cleaning. that just - heat as much
| as possible mode.
| soperj wrote:
| I lived in some of the crappiest places, never had a
| fancy oven. Every single one had a self cleaning option.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Some wackos disable the safety latch and then cook pizza
| in their ovens on the self clean cycle:
|
| https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=268.0
| giardini wrote:
| Thank you for the most informative post on this HN
| discussion!
| nycticorax wrote:
| Not sure where you're writing from, but it's very common
| in the US. This article (https://www.thekitchn.com/why-
| you-should-almost-never-use-th...) quotes someone who
| works for an appliance store in Cincinnati who says it's
| difficult to sell an oven without that feature. And as
| others have said, every oven I have every owned (or that
| my parents owned when I was around and capable of forming
| memories) has been self-cleaning.
|
| Maybe it sounds fancier than it is? Is not like it has a
| little robot that cleans the oven. It's just a mode where
| the oven can get the internal temperature very high (up
| to 1000 degrees F according to that article) that just
| incinerates any organic material stuck to the oven walls.
| astura wrote:
| In my experience it was fairly uncommon 30+ years ago,
| but common today.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Its not fancy, but I guess it requires a bit more
| resilient engineering/materials than 250C ovens. Its
| definitely not a norm in budget/medium priced ovens in
| Europe, even for new. I mean brands like Bosch mostly
| don't have it here, I never had one (house, 2 apartments,
| couple of rental apartments all with full kitchen,
| kitchen < 10 years old).
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| Cooking anything acidic will strip all of the seasoning
| right off. I can easily keep a seasoning on my carbon steel
| woks, but it'll vanish if I cook one Pad Thai. For my cast
| iron I can keep it there until I want to cook anything with
| tomatoes.
| gilrain wrote:
| Incidentally, if your want your aluminum or stainless steel
| clean again with almost no effort, use Barkeeper's Friend.
| It's an oxalic acid product, and it wipes away stains with
| a sponge that you'd work hard to sand out.
|
| Obviously, do not use on cast iron or carbon steel.
| stouset wrote:
| I don't know about your experience, but even with BKF,
| the scrubby side of the sponge, and a _lot_ of elbow
| grease, it takes ages to get it off an aluminum pan. I
| did it once and it took two full hours, and gave me
| blisters on my hands from the sheer amount of scrubbing.
| cmckn wrote:
| Try oven cleaner! I leave it on sheet pans for about 15
| minutes; it's amazing what wipes away.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| I had similar issues with the AllClad pans I bought, so I
| called them out of frustration. They recommend Dobie
| sponges in addition to the Barkeeper's Friend. It seems
| to help.
|
| What also helps is simmering something acidic in the pan
| for about 10-15 minutes (wine, watered-down vinegar,
| etc). The base then cleans pretty easily. It's the burnt
| bits of fat that splatter up the walls of the pan that
| are murder to get out.
| mark-r wrote:
| Burnt bits of fat don't come off with acid, they need
| base. My wife pours ammonia into a baggie and leaves
| things in it.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Sponges come in all levels of abrasiveness.
|
| Here in the US at least, there tend to be scratch
| (yellow/green) and non-scratch (blue/darker-blue). Along
| with straight scratch pad (pure green) and steel wool
| (silver metal).
|
| You can grind all day with a non-scratch pad, and all
| you're really polishing with is the harder bits of gunk
| you've managed to take off.
|
| Same way you can sand with 220 grit all day and barely
| make a dent, but hit something with 60 grit and make
| progress in 5 minutes.
|
| Afaik, Barkeeper's Friend is essentially microgrit in
| some sort of liquid carrier. If you had the right shaped
| sand, you could probably add that to something and get a
| similar effect.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > Obviously, do not use on cast iron or carbon steel.
|
| Unless your seasoning is flaking off because you followed
| OP's instructions and you need to start again.
| cpascal wrote:
| Seconding this. Barkeeper's friend is like magic on
| aluminum. If you use it regularly you can keep your
| aluminum pots and pans looking like they're factory new.
| zelon88 wrote:
| I agree on 95% of this post. I think that's part of the
| allure of Cast Iron. It's a personal thing where people
| develop their own methods through experience.
|
| However I try to avoid using soapy chemicals on my cast iron.
| If I do use soap it's literally one drop onto the scrub brush
| instead of the pan. Although I'm sure that if you went
| heavier on the soap nothing would come of it anyway. Most of
| the time I use water and a scrub brush. I scrub with good
| speed and not a lot of pressure to break off lingering
| debris.
|
| And if I'm going to be using it the next day I'll leave it
| shiny, but if it's going to sit for a couple days I'll leave
| it on a little longer until it's a little more matte looking.
| Not 100% matte, but not "shiny" either. Just a sheen. That
| way it won't be sticky during storage where it will collect
| dust and contaminants.
| smichel17 wrote:
| Huh. That's not it at all for me. I like cast iron because:
| (1) It is extremely durable and can be repaired rather than
| replaced. (2) It is general purpose, reducing the number of
| pans I need to own. (3) It is well suited to cooking at low
| temperatures, which are much more forgiving (I can walk
| away and write a comment like this and come back to
| something other than a charred mess).
|
| edit: I discovered cast iron about a year ago and now I do
| roughly 90% of my cooking on it. If there were reliable,
| _science-based_ information about how to care for the pan
| best, it would have saved me a lot of trouble. As an
| example, a lot of people caution against seasoning with too
| much oil. They say that when you season your pan (e.g.
| initially, in the oven), you should wipe the oil off until
| the pan looks dry. I took this literally, and wiped until
| it looked the same as before I put on the oil. As a result,
| my seasoning had approximately no effect. After
| experimenting, I 've decided that the "looks dry" advice
| isn't _wrong_ exactly, but "dry" needs clarification. It
| should look more like how you would like it to look when it
| comes out of the oven -- dry, but darker and with more
| sheen.
| CBLT wrote:
| Have you tried carbon steel? In my opinion it is superior
| to cast iron in every way, especially durability.
| leetcrew wrote:
| as materials, carbon steel and cast iron are extremely
| similar, except that carbon steel can be stamped rather
| than cast. in practice, this means that carbon steel
| skillets tend to be much thinner than cast iron ones.
| durability would not be an advantage I would attribute to
| the typical carbon steel skillet. a cast iron skillet is
| pretty much indestructible; if you drop it from stove-
| height, it would be more likely to damage your floor than
| to shatter. a carbon steel skillet can easily warp if you
| heat it up too quickly, which is not nearly as great a
| concern with a heavy cast iron skillet.
| petre wrote:
| I like bith. Carboon steel for the pancake and omlet pan
| and cast iron for the steak pan. Cast iron has more
| thermal mass. I should probably also get a cast iron pot
| for cooking stew.
| smichel17 wrote:
| Not yet. I plan to at some point.
| zelon88 wrote:
| I have a Blackstone carbon steel griddle and it is very
| nice. A little uneven but it gives me areas to keep stuff
| warm around the outside.
| war1025 wrote:
| > If there were reliable, science-based information about
| how to care for the pan best, it would have saved me a
| lot of trouble
|
| I think the trouble here is that the people who best
| understand cast iron are probably also the least likely
| to care about the science of it.
|
| The main reason not to leave too much oil in the pan is
| that it will go rancid and get sticky and generally
| gross. That's not something you run up against if you use
| the pan several times a week, but if you have something
| like a dutch oven that you use maybe once or twice a
| month, you will come back to a mess that you have to deal
| with before you can cook in it.
|
| The whole "you're making a polymer coating that mimics a
| teflon pan" idea is something that sounds fancy, but is
| impractical and unnecessary in practice.
| smichel17 wrote:
| > I think the trouble here is that the people who best
| understand cast iron are probably also the least likely
| to care about the science of it.
|
| Hmm. Perhaps. I said _science-based information_ because
| while I find the science (chemistry, polymerization, etc)
| of cast iron interesting, I primarily care about the
| results. For example, knowing that flax oil gives the
| non-stickiest finish but is prone to flaking and thus
| high maintenance. Perhaps _empirical_ would have been a
| better word than _science-based_. I suspect there are a
| fair number of people like me, who would like to know
| more about the trade-offs involved in different oils and
| maintenance procedures. But perhaps these aren 't the
| people who _best_ understand cast iron, as you say.
|
| Two things of note:
|
| - The best answer in the FAQ in the top comment of this
| thread, _by FAR_ , is #2, about heat spreading. It gives
| numbers and additional information (about radiating the
| heat) that I didn't know before.
|
| - Flax is the only oil that I understand even some of the
| trade-offs of using. That is a direct result of the post
| linked in this thread publicly making a hypothesis and
| providing detailed-enough steps for (some people) to
| reproduce its results.
|
| Speaking of, as a cast iron enthusiast, would you be
| willing to share your experiences and/or do some
| experiments to help test my hypothesis on cleaning
| methods, here?
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25716850
| GordonS wrote:
| So I understand correctly, do you mean to wash it after every
| (most) uses, and apply a little oil after washing? No need to
| bake in the oven or anything like that?
| jasallen wrote:
| If you're trying to add a little more seasoning you will
| need to bake. You'd do this after a rough cleaning or
| cooking something watery or acidic. If you're just
| protecting it from ambient moisture just a teensy coat.
| war1025 wrote:
| > No need to bake in the oven or anything like that?
|
| Correct.
|
| I will sometimes do the oil and bake thing for our Dutch
| oven if it has been neglected a while and has bits of rust
| or other questionable-ness to it.
| blueline wrote:
| Totally agree except that onion flavored pancakes can be
| delicious.
|
| Scallion pancake with pork belly is one of my favorite combos
| :-)
| tharkun__ wrote:
| Absolutely correct. There are many usually sweet recipes
| that are actually great when done savoury instead. I
| personally like it when the last thing I made in the pan
| was something that had onion and then I gotta make
| pancakes, precisely because the first pancake will have
| that flavor. Then I put chorizo and cheese on it too and
| call it a day. Next pancake will be 'normal' again anyway.
| Win-Win!
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I'm a huge fan of savory fried any-cake (e.g. hoecakes,
| [0]). Just because something is normally made one way is
| no reason to limit ourselves.
|
| You can make sweet or savory crepes, so why not pancakes?
|
| But then, I'm not a big fan of actual-cake and don't have
| much of a sweet tooth.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnnycake
| blincoln wrote:
| > You want oil soaked into the metal.
|
| Is there solid evidence that this is actually possible, as
| opposed to creating a layer on top of it? The only people
| I've ever heard suggest that it's possible were talking about
| cast iron pans, and it's always struck me as the sort of
| thing that would have major implications for a lot of other
| fields.
|
| I tried some web searches before posting this, still not
| finding anything suggesting it's possible other than cast
| iron pan aficionados.
| BikiniPrince wrote:
| Yes, this isn't a mystery. There are lots of coated steel
| products that use the crudest of coatings that need grinder
| off. Unless the material is polished to a high shine it
| will absorb oil.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Yuan, Z., Xiao, J., Wang, C. et al. Preparation of a
| superamphiphobic surface on a common cast iron substrate. J
| Coat Technol Res 8, 773 (2011).
| https://doi.org/10.1007/s11998-011-9365-7
|
| I don't have a subscription or SciHub link to pull up the
| underlying, but it looks like there have been folks who did
| electron microscopy on seasoned cast iron. (Note: more
| relevant and profitable to study in the context of
| machinery / engine design)
| gorgoiler wrote:
| Tangential but related: Oilite:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oilite
| war1025 wrote:
| > Is there solid evidence that this is actually possible,
| as opposed to creating a layer on top of it?
|
| I doubt that's actually what happens, but if you think of
| it that way, you'll end up with the right result.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| "Soak into" is probably an engineering approximation
| converted to lay language.
|
| What we're really talking about is surface-gap-filling.
|
| So yes, "into" at some level of magnification. "Onto" at
| another.
| BikiniPrince wrote:
| Indeed! I was avoiding describing the surfaces at high
| detail .
| neild wrote:
| The main thing I've learned that most advice about seasoning
| pans doesn't tell you is that how you use the pan to cook
| matters more than how well seasoned it is. Cast iron is
| really forgiving of seasoning, you don't need the perfect job
| to cook with it.
|
| However, cast iron will never be as non-stick as a good non-
| stick pan, and if you treat it as one, you're going to have a
| bad time.
|
| Put bacon in a dry, hot pan, and it'll leave crispy fond
| stuck to the pan. (Nothing you do will ever create fond in a
| non-stick pan.) Cook bacon starting with a cold pan, and
| enough fat will render by the time it heats to keep it from
| sticking.
|
| Eggs will stick to cold, dry cast iron. Fry eggs in a
| moderately hot pan with plenty of grease. I had the devil of
| a time with fried eggs until I realized I wasn't letting the
| pan heat enough. Also, it's very easy to burn butter in a
| cast iron pan; use a more forgiving fat like bacon grease or
| a neutral oil.
|
| Cast iron behaves differently than non-stick or stainless
| steel. Different heat density, different emissivity. Just
| like any other cookware, you need to learn how to work with
| it; it's not just a matter of getting the magical perfect
| seasoning and pretending it's Teflon.
| sk5t wrote:
| While you can eventually develop a very non-stick surface
| with cast iron or carbon steel, there's also the option to
| make a "spanish egg" with a medium amount of hot oil; e.g.
| https://youtu.be/mL-w_OegewU?t=215
| captainredbeard wrote:
| Keeping an IR thermometer by the stovetop is handy if
| you're cooking with cast iron. It removes the guess work
| around things like "Am I going to burn this butter if I
| drop it in the pan?"
| colechristensen wrote:
| Putting a drop of water on the pan is a good indicator of
| temperature. It will either sit there in a small puddle,
| wander around a bit, or zoom around in a frenzy.
| lmeyerov wrote:
| for most medium/high, when an oiled pan, you can see the
| super faint smoke. for some oiled, even based on the
| viscosity from shaking the pan. water test is good for
| learning this point. but water in an oily pan can hurt
| later so good to learn to do without :)
|
| some startups have been experimenting with built-in
| thermometers, so I can imagine this classic design being
| different 10yr from now :)
| Yetanfou wrote:
| I use only cast iron, always cook on a wood-burning stove.
| The way I season pans is simple, I just put the thing on a
| medium fire, dab some canola oil on it, rub it in, wipe it
| off, repeat this once or twice after which I just use it with
| enough oil (canola or olive). I clean them by rinsing them
| while hot with cold water which starts boiling immediately,
| wipe them with some paper and put them away. As long as
| they're kept dry they don't need reseasoning. No fancy oils
| needed, no special rituals, just use them regularly and
| that's it.
| GordonS wrote:
| Forgot to ask in my other comment, does all this apply for
| carbon steel too?
| [deleted]
| atombender wrote:
| Pretty much, yes: https://www.seriouseats.com/2019/06/how-
| to-season-carbon-ste...
| leetcrew wrote:
| general consensus on reddit (and my personal experience)
| seems to be that seasoning on carbon steel is a bit more
| delicate than on cast iron, possibly because carbon steel
| skillets tend to have a much smoother surface.
|
| chemically, carbon steel is very similar to cast iron, so
| all the info regarding cleaning is still applicable. you
| should probably expect to do a little more work to maintain
| the seasoning on a carbon steel pan though.
| aksss wrote:
| > no one wants onion-flavoured pancakes
|
| :/
| axaxs wrote:
| Agree with everything except the oil. I use Avocado a lot for
| cooking but not on a brand new pan. I've certainly tried to
| season with it specifically when I was new, but find it flaky
| and cumbersome.
|
| I find fatty meats(bacon, sausage) or just canned lard to work
| absolutely best for seasoning. It's also what our ancestors
| used before they probably even knew what an avocado was. For a
| vegan, I'd assume shortening is ok as well, but I've never
| actually tested that.
| hedora wrote:
| Rather than soap, I use a pampered chef plastic scraper (It's
| for stone ware; don't know any other name for it), and a
| stainless steel scouring pad (not steel wool; instead it's
| coils of flat stainless steel tape or something). The scraper
| removes the bulk of stuff, keeping the scouring pad clean.
|
| This is less effort than using soap, and more effective. The
| stainless smooths out any imperfections that form in the
| seasoning over time, and cooking with oil continuously
| reseasons it.
|
| I found that I had to re-season my pans every 5-10 years if I
| used soap, and that the seasoning was an inferior cooking
| surface (more food stuck to it). With the technique I described
| above, I can cook eggs and they don't stick. (be sure to
| preheat, use plenty of oil, and then don't touch for a minute
| or two at the beginning of cooking)
| beervirus wrote:
| I did it once. Flaked like crazy. Never again.
| [deleted]
| war1025 wrote:
| I read somewhere a year or two ago that basically compared
| cast iron to wood, which has helped my intuition of things a
| lot.
|
| Here is a blog post [0] I read a few months ago about wood
| finishes. I think the following applies just as much to cast
| iron as to the wood he is talking about: So,
| when I choose a finish, I ignore the industry-standard
| scratch and adhesion tests. Instead, I separate finishes into
| two buckets: 1. Finishes that look incredible
| immediately but look like crap in 20 years (the short-run
| finishes) vs. finishes that look incredible when worn/abused
| (the long-run finishes). 2. Finishes that want
| me dead vs. finishes that I can apply while buck naked.
|
| Basically I would equate Polyurethane with Teflon, and
| furniture oil with cooking oil.
|
| Teflon will be great to cook on initially. As soon as it gets
| damaged, it will be hard to fix without stripping and redoing
| everything.
|
| Oil will take more maintenance over time, but if it starts
| looking bad, you just put a bit more on. That's exactly how
| you should treat cast iron as well.
|
| The trouble people run into is they try to use oil to create
| a teflon surface. That's not what it's for.
|
| [0] https://blog.lostartpress.com/2020/11/30/rip-the-
| anarchists-...
| idlewords wrote:
| Just here to give a shout-out to any other people on this site
| who scrub their cast iron with soap and water after each use and
| live their lives in peace. I'm a high-octane computer
| professional and I don't have the time or predisposition to
| coddle large lumps of metal in the pursuit of an effect ("it
| doesn't stick!") that can be achieved by using cooking oil.
| war1025 wrote:
| How to season cast iron:
|
| Cook with it. Use oil / fat.
|
| Honestly, cast iron is about the most forgiving cooking surface
| you will find. People love to make it more difficult than it is.
|
| Edit:
|
| Some additional tips on cast iron:
|
| Setting 4 / 10 (slightly below medium) is the default heat
| setting, and you have to really have something specific in mind
| to ever go above 5. I find that people who are used to teflon
| pans like to go up into the medium-high range. Things don't end
| well up there with cast iron.
|
| Also buy a metal spatula. You aren't going to hurt anything, and
| it will be a more satisfying cooking experience. Plastic + cast
| iron is just going to leave you with a melted spatula. There used
| to be a ubiquitous metal spatula design, but I can never find
| them anymore. I've found it is much better to use something small
| like a cake / bar server than something big like a grilling
| spatula.
|
| Don't cook on cold cast iron. The trick my mom showed me is you
| always wait until a splash of water (get your fingers wet and
| flick it on the pan) will start boiling on contact. If it boils
| into nothing immediately, you are too hot. If it just sits there
| and does nothing, you aren't hot enough yet.
| walshemj wrote:
| That my view - a quick dip in warm water with a bit of soap and
| lightly whip of any bits and let it dry.
|
| Ill try the water test next time
| SoSoRoCoCo wrote:
| > Also buy a metal spatula.
|
| Without sharp corners. You will cut the polymerization layer
| otherwise, if not careful.
|
| > Don't cook on cold cast iron.
|
| You literally can't cook on cold metal. :)
|
| Dancing water is too hot for some things, IMHO, like eggs. Once
| it is that hot I'm past the point of good eggs.
|
| I put the oil in and bring it up slowly until the oil runs
| faster than cold oil, but way, way, way before the smoke point.
| I like my eggs to have zero brown crisp, so I use low temps and
| a good olive oil. Also have to use fresh eggs so that the white
| doesn't spread more the 4-5". On a good day with good eggs if
| I'm paying attention, I get a perfecty-set white with no brown
| crisp, and a slow-run yolk with no cooked bits, and after one
| quick flip to the top to sear the yolk. Perfection.
| kova12 wrote:
| Dollar stores are still carrying metal spatulas
| hansthehorse wrote:
| My cast iron set is 20 years old now and used almost every day.
| One thing cast iron isn't good for is when you have to change
| temps mid cooking. If doing something that needs mid heat then
| going to low heat cast iron will fail you as it won't go to the
| lower heat easily.
|
| When oiling the pans take the time to try to wipe out all the
| oil you applied. This leaves just a tiny layer of oil and your
| pans won't get sticky. I clean with diluted Dawn and a sponge -
| dry on burner - then oil / wipe out each use.
| GordonS wrote:
| > Setting 4 / 10 (slightly below medium) is the default heat
| setting, and you have to really have something specific in mind
| to ever go above 5
|
| Do you do any chinese cooking with a carbon steel wok?
|
| For stir frying you _generally_ want things as hot as you can
| get them. I only have a Teflon wok, and my biggest problem with
| it is that it just doesn 't get hot enough. The other problem
| is that Teflon really doesn't like very high temperatures, so
| I'm lucky if a wok lasts a year before bits are peeling off.
| I've always been put off a carbon steel wok though, because of
| all the faffing about with seasoning, but reading some of the
| comments here it might be simpler just to wash and oil it after
| every use.
| adrianN wrote:
| Heating Teflon to high temperatures and preparing food on it
| is a good way to get Teflon into your bloodstream.
| robocat wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_fume_fever
| cbsmith wrote:
| You have to get to _really_ high temperatures though. Like
| over 300 Celsius.
| p1necone wrote:
| A stovetop cranked high should be able to achieve that
| though shouldn't it? Not something you can discount
| entirely.
| war1025 wrote:
| We have a Lodge cast iron wok [0].
|
| That said, I don't know that I'd recommend it to anyone as we
| rarely use it.
|
| I read somewhere that unless you have a commercial-grade gas
| range, you are unlikely to hit the temperatures needed to
| really properly cook with a thinner metal wok. Cast iron is
| supposed to be a bit of a compromise because it can hold the
| heat better, but you can't toss it around the way you would
| with a normal wok.
|
| As to carbon steel, I'd say go for it. I think you'll find it
| a lot less fussy than you have been told.
|
| Also, I'd say stir fry definitely qualifies under the
| "something specific" where you would want to use the high
| heat settings on the stove.
|
| [0] https://www.lodgecastiron.com/product/cast-iron-
| wok?sku=P14W...
| cascom wrote:
| Agreed, would add just don't scrub off your seasoning with
| soap/scouring pad.
| SteveNuts wrote:
| Soap is fine anytime, scouring pad is never fine unless
| you're deliberately trying to scrub off the seasoning for
| some reason.
| taeric wrote:
| Meanwhile, I have a chain cloth that I use when cleaning to
| make sure no food is left behind. Remarkably hard to actually
| get the seasoning off.
|
| Granted, if you still use soap that warrants the use of heavy
| plastic gloves, probably a bit easier.
| duxup wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| The advantage of cast iron is that you just cook on it and over
| time (if it isn't already seasoned) it seasons itself. That's
| all there has to be to it... fussing over how you season it and
| then throwing whatever food in there seems a little silly.
|
| I cook a great deal and once in a while it's time to scrape
| down (often because I made a big mess in the pan) the cast iron
| pan and 'start over'.
|
| My starting over just means ... I clean it thoroughly, oil it a
| bit when I cook on it the next time. That's it. Pretty quickly
| it will be plenty seasoned.
|
| If folks want to take a deep dive into seasoning their cast
| iron pan in a complicated fashion, awesome, but it's really not
| necessarily.
| grenoire wrote:
| Carbon steel gang here, I just cook with it, if the coat flakes
| then I just keep cooking with it. Run under hot water when I'm
| done, scraping with a dish brush.
|
| I don't see the point to the perfect coating; occasionally
| using it in the oven already gets you to the perfect slick
| season.
| RamRodification wrote:
| My dish brush gets really yucky with this method (not using
| dish soap). Greasy and soot:y. Do you just not care about
| this issue or do you spend some time cleaning it afterwards?
| chipsa wrote:
| I usually scrap my cast iron with a plastic scraper before
| I start with the dish brush. Soap and warm water help too,
| while you're doing the initial scrape.
| alliao wrote:
| i chuck it in the dishwasher, comes out brand new! try it.
| It'd even "reanneal" the plastic if that's the right term
| lol. The bent brushes will return to it's virgin position,
| try it!
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > If it boils into nothing immediately, you are too hot. If it
| just sits there and does nothing, you aren't hot enough yet.
|
| That is actually slightly misleading due to the Leidenfrost
| effect.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leidenfrost_effect
| war1025 wrote:
| It could be, but in practice I've found that you can tell the
| difference between "too hot" and "still cold" very easily.
| chipsa wrote:
| A drop of water affected by the Leidenfrost effect looks
| different from one in a too cold pan.
|
| If I'm doing something that requires a ripping hot pan, one
| that's actually hot enough for the Leidenfrost effect is
| where I am for. This usually requires that I use a high smoke
| point oil, like refined peanut oil.
| derekp7 wrote:
| I find that my skillet comes out really nice when I make a
| batch of cornbread. You grease it real good and get it hot
| before pouring in the batter, and during cooking the right
| amount is absorbed by the cornbread. This leaves behind a hard
| slick surface.
| mindcrime wrote:
| _Cook with it._
|
| Exactly. No reason at all for all of these crazy rituals
| involving 42 different kinds of oil (2 or 3 of which are made
| of Unobtanium anyway), ovens, salt, baking soda, owl urine,
| black cats, graveyard dirt, the Necronomicon, or whatever other
| weird shit people are throwing out there. Just cook with the
| darn thing. I don't know why people feel the need to
| overcomplicate this.
| Spinnaker_ wrote:
| It takes months of continuous use to develop a great seasoning
| by just cooking. Or you can accomplish the same in an
| afternoon.
| war1025 wrote:
| The youtube algorithm decided it needed to recommend a whole
| hose of cast iron videos to me over Christmas and they kept
| repeating this.
|
| So I went and washed my skillet down to a matte surface,
| rubbed oil into it, and cooked an egg. Worked perfectly fine.
|
| You won't ever get the "slippery" coating like with a teflon
| pan, but I also find cooking on that type of surface to be
| absolutely maddening since any time you try to chop or scoop
| in such a pan, the food just slides out from under you and
| you have to chase it about.
|
| I want my food to "not stick" in the same way that a book
| doesn't stick to a table. I don't want an ice rink.
| fideloper wrote:
| Completely agree. My "pre-seasoned" cast iron from Target was
| the best purchase I ever made.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| I've always wondered why other seasoned heavy metals aren't used
| in cookware? I know they would be ultra-expensive, but they would
| also be nearly invincible to daily wear and tear; and they should
| last for generations.
| travis_brooks wrote:
| Cheap cast iron pans are basically invincible and can last for
| generations
| bluedino wrote:
| Carbon steel is pretty popular
| bluedino wrote:
| This is a great example of a topic that has been taken over by
| "internet experts"
|
| Talk about over-complicating the treatment of cookware that has
| been around for hundreds of years.
|
| I have about 8 pieces of cast iron cookware, but I really only
| use one: my grandmothers pan. It's not a fancy brand, it's 65
| years old, and it just works.
|
| My mother never used it because "it was hard to clean and heavy".
|
| Use a little oil with it and stuff doesn't really stick. I can
| cook lbs of bacon, make steaks, bake a whole chicken, sliced
| potatoes, make gravy, put an apple cobbler in the oven...
|
| I use a metal spatula to scrape anything off (after boiling some
| water in it to loosen it up), or a lodge plastic scraper, and
| scrub it lightly with a sponge and a bit of dish soap. Don't put
| it away wet. It's simple.
| girzel wrote:
| > I use a metal spatula to scrape anything off (after boiling
| some water in it to loosen it up), or a lodge plastic scraper,
| and scrub it lightly with a sponge and a bit of dish soap.
| Don't put it away wet. It's simple.
|
| This is pretty much what I do, except I use a nylon brush
| instead of the scraper - same deal. I think the boiling water
| and brush are perfect because they leave just the right amount
| of oil still on the pan.
| niccl wrote:
| If you're interested in the science of cooking, I heartily
| recommend 'On Food and Cooking' by Harold McGee. Also his website
| https://www.curiouscook.com has interesting stuff
|
| The book changed the way I cook (for the better!)
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I find these how-tos boggling. It's not that difficult to season
| cast iron cookware. Just cook on it. Same thing with soldering -
| there are countless videos of people teaching others on how to
| solder. If you can wear clothes that morning, you can solder.
|
| Also, what if I told you its ok to use soap on cast iron pans?
| The hardened coating isn't prone to soap interaction. It removes
| all the grime and gives you a clean non-stick surface if you use
| soap.
|
| I blame all this on hipster culture which is based on nothing but
| making things more complicated than it should be, getting
| viewership and generally misleading people into thinking
| something is more difficult that it really is. In turn, making
| people spend more money on useless shit that they don't need.
| war1025 wrote:
| > If you can wear clothes that morning, you can solder.
|
| I got a good kick out of this.
| kemitchell wrote:
| I tried flax oil on some pans for a couple years. It didn't work
| out well. One cheap pan I gave away. All the rest I've stripped
| and reseasoned.
|
| Vegetable oil works fine. Shortening works fine. Don't overthink
| this.
| simonboulton wrote:
| Well, I bought a cast iron skillet about 40 years ago at a local
| department store (remember them?). Can't remember seasoning it,
| but probably did way back in the day. I just wash it out with hot
| water and a bit of liquid soap and a scourer to remove the
| occasional bits. As good as teflon, cheaper and less poisonous.
| My favourite pan. I think the main thing is to use it a lot, and
| don't overclean it. The type of oil seems not to have mattered
| much, but it's mainly olive, sunflower or rapeseed. As always
| YMMV.
| taivare wrote:
| I use a bamboo wok scrubber for cleaning built up debris on my
| carbon steel pan ( cowboy pan ) may be as old as late 1800's it's
| at least from the early 1900's. I can't find this type of wok
| scrubber anymore . . if anyone knows where they sell them?
| mod wrote:
| Can you take a picture of it?
| cascom wrote:
| Get a metal chain mail pot scrubber, it will change your life.
| Allows you to dislodge 95% of what's stuck to your pan quickly
| and without a super abrasive cleaner, the rest can usually be
| taken care of with a paper towel.
| gilrain wrote:
| "metal chain mail pot scrubber" ... "without a super abrasive
| cleaner"
|
| Um.
| smichel17 wrote:
| Chain mail scrubbers are not very abrasive. This is because
| the links are rounded. As an extreme example, imagine trying
| to scrape off gunk with the rounded back of a spoon. I've
| used mine (gently!!) on teflon with no damage.
| giardini wrote:
| Blog spam for cast iron cookware periodically appears here and on
| other forums. Following you will encounter (if you continue here)
| a seemingly-endless thread of posts from people claiming to have
| "no problem" with their cast-iron cookware (e.g., "Just rustled
| up a dozen eggs for my family using my granny's cast-iron skillet
| from Custer's cooking wagon at Little Big Horn. Wipes clean with
| a washrag!"). Best to ignore them. This posting pattern will
| repeat about twice each year.
|
| Buy a cheap teflon skillet at your local store. When it becomes
| worn and no longer operates flawlessly then buy a new one. Never
| pay $17 for 17 oz. of "flaxseed oil" that becomes rancid two
| months later. Save hours of time cooking and cleaning!
|
| Best of all, avoid buying a cast-iron boat anchor that you will
| endlessly _try_ to "season". "Try" is all you'll do, b/c
| _nobody_ knows really what a "properly seasoned* cast-iron pan
| is (i.e., there is no science here, folks). If you own cast-iron
| cookware, throw it away and move into the 21st century: get
| teflon pans.
|
| Cast-iron cookware is a sucker's purchase suitable for only one
| scenario: old cowboy movies depicting cattle drives.
| permo-w wrote:
| Seems like you're really quite desperate for people to buy pans
| covered in a probable carcinogen that, as you note, slowly rubs
| off into your food
|
| Rather like someone trying really hard to get me to fire-proof
| my house with asbestos
| vkou wrote:
| I can't disagree more strongly.
|
| I paid $40 for a cast iron pan a decade ago. I clean it with
| water, and scrubbing a metal spatula. I don't do any black
| magic to season it. I use it for cooking almost everything...
| And I'll never touch teflon, because of health concerns with
| it.
|
| The only stuff that sticks to my pan is food that I burned into
| it, because I had the heat too high. A sharp scrape with a
| metal spatula gets it off.
| na85 wrote:
| >Cast-iron cookware is a sucker's purchase
|
| Gotta disagree with you there. Cast iron is great for dishes
| that you want to sear, or that you want to finish in the oven
| or under a broiler. Searing on most stainless pans doesn't work
| nearly as well because the metal doesn't retain its heat as
| zealously, and if you whack your little teflon pan in the oven
| you'll ruin it.
|
| Sure, there's a lot of mythology around how to season the pans
| and how you need to baby them, etc. That's all BS. The "secret"
| is to cook on your pan regularly, using a little more
| oil/butter than you would on teflon, and don't let your pan
| soak in soapy water.
|
| If you scrape away the memes and the hype on blogs and on
| reddit from astroturfing accounts they're dependable, versatile
| cookware and they're not particularly expensive. What's not to
| like?
| xKingfisher wrote:
| A lodge cast iron pan will last forever and isn't that
| expensive. And maintenance isn't terribly hard. Just rub down
| with oil after using (I use plain canola) and keep it dry.
| Serious eats has a lot of information on this. Modern soaps
| make the whole thing much easier.
|
| For some people Teflon isn't an option. Bird owners for example
| can't use pans with PTFE coatings, cooking with them releases a
| compound that is toxic to parrots.
| giardini wrote:
| Pretty desperate move there, warning bird owners!
|
| OK, for the bird owners: buy a stainless steel skillet and
| use it until your bird dies. _Then_ buy a teflon skillet.
| kleinsch wrote:
| Blog spam for hammers appears here all the time. Best to ignore
| it.
|
| Buy a cheap screwdriver from Home Depot. If it breaks, buy
| another one.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| I've never quite understood how something that is supposed to be
| "don't give a shit", became something that hipsters/whoever gives
| many shits about.
| leetcrew wrote:
| it's important to understand that pretty much anything useful
| can also be someone's hobby. I don't really understand the
| pursuit of the perfect cast iron skillet either. I just want to
| cook some eggs. at the same time, I don't expect people to
| understand why I spend hours trying to find the lowest stable
| voltage for a 300 MHz overclock. if you just want to use the
| damn thing, ignore the hobbyists.
| mymythisisthis wrote:
| I never season my pans. Use soap, water, and aluminium foil (if
| food is baked on) to clean them. Dry in the oven to prevent rust.
|
| A couple of times after I made eggs, I let the water sit for too
| long, and the pan got a bit rusty. No problem with cast iron!
| Just a bit of steel wool and it was as good as new.
|
| A cast iron pan is the easiest pan you'll ever use.
| dang wrote:
| If curious see also
|
| 2017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15915502
|
| 2014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8611468
| joshribakoff wrote:
| Anecdotally I find soap strips the seasoning. When food gets
| stuck to the pan, it also technically becomes part of the pan in
| the sense the atoms of the food become bonded with the atoms of
| the pan, just like how seasoning technically becomes part of the
| pan.
|
| When you use soap and put copious amounts of oil, and wait for
| the heat to release the food, of course it's possible to cook,
| because the oil forms a barrier between the pan and food. You're
| basically creating a half assed seasoning layer
|
| However the notion that soap can unstick bonded food atoms but
| doesn't also unstick bonded polymers is an oxymoron. You can
| still use soap, just know it will strip food and seasoning both.
| Even using metal scrubbers and metal utensils can strip the
| seasoning, in my experience, which is why I re-season frequently.
| Anecdotally acidic foods strip large amounts of seasoning,
| happened just the other day with taco seasoning for me.
|
| I can definitely tell the difference between a good seasoning
| layer and a layer of oil simply poured. It's better for the
| cooking process and better for the flavor to "properly" season in
| my subjective experience
| chipsa wrote:
| You don't want bits of food stuck to the pan. Bits of food
| still stuck to the pan go bad. The oil that sticks as part of
| seasoning has much smaller molecules as it polymerizes, so you
| don't have bits of stuff that goes bad. If it comes up with
| soap, it's not bonded to the pan.
| [deleted]
| alliao wrote:
| Yeah it's not needed, here's what I do after watching Cantonese
| cooks treat theirs.
|
| Just buy this (obviously not at that price).
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Sunrise-Kitchen-Supply-SYNCHKG102693-...
|
| After cooking, while the cast iron is still hot, give it as
| little water as possible and just scrub all the food off.
|
| rinse with plenty of water, by the end of cleaning it'd still be
| warm.
|
| wipe dry then put it back on the stove I still use electric stove
| so it's still warm by then and residual heat will dry it.
|
| Never needed to season... I use mostly lard/olive oil. Vegetable
| oil tends to leave a really nasty sludge that's really hard to
| clean so I stopped using them.
| qpiox wrote:
| How is flaxseed oil different from linseed oil, when flax and lin
| seeds are in fact the same thing.
| nightfly wrote:
| > Some recommend bacon drippings since lard is no longer readily
| available
|
| Lard might not be _popular_ anymore, but it's definitely readily
| available (for cheap!).
| tedivm wrote:
| All of the castiron geeks say Flaxseed oil but from experience I
| can tell you it doesn't work great- eventually you get chipping
| in your seasoning. I ended up stripping my seasoning and redoing
| it using crisco which has given me the best results so far.
| Exuma wrote:
| This is wrong, as someone very heavily invested in carbon
| skillets and iron skillets, people in the "seasoning community"
| (lol) literally hate this article because it spreads so much
| disinformation about flaxseed oil.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| Seasoning seems to be the "all-natural" alternative for non-stick
| pans. However, have there been any studies on the substances
| typically produced and if they are dangerous long term?
|
| It seems like taking and bunch of long chain fats, heating them
| up to high temperatures in cycles and then cooking all sorts of
| foods in that has a chance of producing carcinogenic molecules.
|
| For the synthetic non-stick pans we have studies of their
| biological effects. I don't think we have any studies for the
| patina that results from seasoning.
| randallsquared wrote:
| I ruined the finish on a cast iron last year by burning some
| steak pretty badly. I spent a couple hours total mechanically
| stripping the char. I read this article. I bought the flax oil.
|
| I kept putting off actually doing it. Why?
|
| It's gonna smoke. I have a small one bedroom apartment.
|
| It's gonna take an hour of baking and two hours of cooling for
| each coat.
|
| It's gonna need at least six coats. Just the time investment
| seemed insane on a one-pan scale: 18 hours of oven use, plus
| applying the coats, plus a risk of starting over if something she
| thinks is obvious wasn't mentioned (this happens to me quite a
| lot, since "Reality Has a Surprising Amount of Detail"...).
|
| A pre-seasoned replacement cast iron pan is like $50.
|
| I bought a dutch oven cast iron set and donated the old pan to
| whomever picked it up in the waste room of my building, with a
| note on it.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| Just use a bit more oil next time you use it and let it soak in
| a bit.
|
| There is absolutely no reason to micro-optimize cast iron pans,
| they are great because they are pretty much indestructible.
| randallsquared wrote:
| I am skeptical that more oil would have taken out the burnt
| odor/flavor next time I used it, but I didn't try, for sure.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Why do mine never come out black?
| joshu wrote:
| I was under the impression that flaxseed oil for seasoning is a
| bit of a fashion thing and that it tends to chip easily. I use
| grapeseed oil.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| There's basically no science in this "science-based how-to".
|
| This was the article which started the flaxseed oil cast-iron
| fad. I think that has now faded: apparently flaxseed oil has a
| tendency to deteriorate and flake off over time.
| adamors wrote:
| I can confirm, I've tried flaxseed (based on this article and
| other ancedata) and while the seasoning came out really nice
| after 6 months or so it has started to flake and after a year
| it looks really bad.
| [deleted]
| markgall wrote:
| Agreed. This article started a fad when it came out 10 years
| ago, and now everybody agrees flaxseed oil is a bad choice,
| "science-based" as this may claim to be.
| mcguire wrote:
| How the heck do you get a thick enough layer to flake off?
| hindsightbias wrote:
| This seasoning fad is some post-teflon madness IMO, after weeks
| of trying a dozen odd formulas there was always someone with
| another oil or temperature setting. Might as well be working on
| inertial confinement.
| sk5t wrote:
| Indeed, no science at all here--only conjecture.
| macksd wrote:
| Yes it seems like a very flawed assumption to assume that the
| other uses of linseed oil would make flaxseed oil a perfect
| candidate. I've never tried it. Personally I just use canola
| oil but it can leave a sticky residue as the author says. It
| lessens if I heat it for a longer time, but I just store it
| wrapped in a cloth anyway.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| Agreed, please don't season with flaxseed oil -- it doesn't
| last. Obsession over the smoke point is unfounded, you just
| want polymerization and carbonization, which any unsaturated
| fat coated in a thin layer will do for your cast iron.
|
| I did the flaxseed thing when this blog post came out some
| years back and ended up having to redo my seasoning on the
| couple pans I tried it on. The seasoning easily flaked off.
| Just use canola oil and call it a day.
| smichel17 wrote:
| There's basically no science -- in the broad sense of
| hypothesis testing -- around cast iron _at all_. It 's all
| tribal knowledge. "I do it this way because that's how my
| grandma did it and it works for me." That's fine enough, but it
| makes for a frustrating experience as a newcomer with no way to
| evaluate the credibility of different sources; it's just
| everyone's word against everyone else.
|
| This is especially confusing given how long cast iron has been
| around; you'd think that someone would have taken an interest
| in cataloguing what actually works, by now.
|
| So while this post may not be good science, or very much of it,
| I still appreciate that it exists.
| taeric wrote:
| I think the confounder is that cast iron is just rather
| resilient and cooking is dominated by other choices and
| technologies. Such that much of what folks think were needed
| just didn't matter.
|
| The page linked in another top comment is worth reading in
| full.
| iratewizard wrote:
| > I followed your directions to the letter using flak-seed oil
| and several coats done in the oven and yesterday when attempting
| to cook eggs, they stuck terribly. Please advise.
|
| Does anyone successfully cook eggs in cast iron?
| kd0amg wrote:
| After trying this flaxseed thing, I could get an egg to skate
| around in the pan while frying in a small amount of oil. In the
| long term, it's still more hassle than I want with all the
| flaking.
| mod wrote:
| I cook eggs most every day in cast iron without it sticking.
|
| It's a vintage Wagner pan, from when they used to mill flat the
| cooking surface. Modern lodge has a porous surface from the
| cast.
|
| Anyway I just cook them in butter, they basically float. I
| think they would slide across the pan if I tilted it. I'm
| cooking them fried/"over medium"
| xenocyon wrote:
| Yes. A well-used pan is quite non-stick. In my anecdotal
| experience, immediately after stripping/seasoning is not the
| best time; it gets better after a few weeks of use as more
| oil/fat bonds to the surface after repeated use.
|
| If you find your pan is too sticky: use lots of oil/fat, cook
| at medium temperature (not too cool nor too hot), and be
| patient for a couple weeks; the problem will sort itself out,
| and eventually you'll be able to cook eggs with just a little
| oil.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Yes with plenty of oil
| chipsa wrote:
| I have a little square lodge cast iron pan. Fits two egss
| perfectly, and makes the perfect shape to fit onto regular
| sandwich bread. Works great.
| markgall wrote:
| I do it every day. Another tip maybe not mentioned yet is to
| make sure you get it good and hot before you put in the egg. I
| usually leave it on the burner for five minutes or so to
| preheat.
| krrrh wrote:
| Yes. I just cooked some eggs in my pan which I reseasoned using
| this method a couple of years ago. I added a teaspoon or two of
| butter and got it hot first. After cooking the eggs and
| hashbrowns I barely need to clean it because nothing sticks.
| mynameisash wrote:
| There's something amusing about cast iron lore that scares so
| many people away. So many folks - myself included before I
| actually started using it - think that you _must_ properly season
| it or it 'll rust up, and you'll never get it back. And that it
| takes so much effort to do just right. Honestly, it seems pretty
| hard to get wrong. My ~$20 Lodge skillet from Target has lasted
| eight years in the kitchen and camping, taking tons of abuse
| without any apparent wear.
|
| I have a friend who literally didn't even scrape food off his pan
| when we was done cooking - just let it cool and put it away. When
| he took it out weeks later, it was green and fuzzy, and he just
| cranked up the heat until it smoked, and _then_ scraped it clean.
| That 's more than a bit extreme for me, but perhaps an example of
| how rugged it is.
|
| I also really like my De Buyer high carbon steel skillet, but if
| I leave it out for 15 minutes without thoroughly drying it, it
| starts turning orange from rust. It's a bit finicky for me now
| that I've come to love my cast iron.
| giardini wrote:
| says _> There's something amusing about cast iron lore that
| scares so many people away.<_
|
| No, it is simply a major PITA in the kitchen and no match
| whatsoever for teflon. It is such a PITA that the cast-iron
| venders are marketing "enameled cast-iron" which, of course,
| has a coating of enamel atop the cast-iron.
|
| And get this: there are beaucoup WWW posts on "seasoning" the
| enamel!
| war1025 wrote:
| > if I leave it out for 15 minutes without thoroughly drying
| it, it starts turning orange from rust
|
| The thing cast iron has going for it is that it's black, and
| black hides a multitude of sins. I'd guess the orange isn't a
| huge deal, maybe it is though.
| [deleted]
| joshu wrote:
| Anyone tried carbon-steel pans? They're smooth like glass instead
| of the pebbled Lodge surface. Alternatively, older cast-iron pans
| are smooth as well.
|
| I quite like my carbon-steel pan but the seasoning instructions
| (salt, oil, and potato peels?) left a mess, and instead I used
| the normal cast-iron method.
| grzm wrote:
| Could you link to the carbon steel pan you have? I like my
| carbon steel pan, but it's not that much smoother than cast
| iron (both Lodge). The only "smooth like glass" ones I've used
| are ceramic, which haven't weathered as well.
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| So isn't the coating basically
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycyclic_aromatic_hydrocarbo... ?
| Are we sure that's such a good thing to be cooking with?
| travis_brooks wrote:
| Special $17 oil to season a pan, a multi day oven drying process,
| wtf?? I'm sort of baffled by this because I can buy a perfectly
| usable Lodge cast iron skillet for about $20 and not go through
| any of this nonsense. Is the inefficient recycling of old pans a
| thing now?
| traviskeens wrote:
| at the risk of polluting the conversation with my $0.02 ... but
| maybe someone will find this useful:
|
| I have a (found) cast-iron pan I'd basically given up on: thick,
| cracked, chipped coating. With a tiny kitchen, I'd stored it in
| my oven, and after baking a dozen or so loaves of bread while it
| was in there I discovered that the coating had almost completely
| burned off. I obsessively researched cast-iron seasoning
| (included Sheryl Canter's article), heard about the flaking
| flaxseed oil (not to mention the insane price of the stuff), and
| ultimately opted for high smoke-point grape seed oil ($4 @ Trader
| Joe's), the science-y logic being the goal of exceeding the smoke
| point at the highest possible temp, and indulged in $6 worth of
| lint-free (blue) shop towels (hardware store), and then:
|
| 1. preheat oven to ~ 200deg F; 2. give pan a vinegar/water bath
| (~50/50) for 30 minutes, then steel-wooled it for a minute to
| ensure it was down to the bone; 3. thoroughly dry ... and crank
| the oven to 450+; 4. using lint-free towel: thoroughly apply a
| coat of oil to the warmed pan, then wipe almost completely dry,
| then bake for about an hour; 5. apply another coat (yeah,
| silicone oven mitts), another wipe-off, another hour ... at most
| 3x;
|
| The thing is now the gem I always wanted it to be; eggs slide
| around like on teflon. I wash after use in hottest water using a
| chainmail scrubber for any tiny stuck bits (almost none ever),
| and don't mind if there's a drop or two of dish soap. Dry
| thoroughly, on the fire for a minute to be sure, and then a quick
| wipe of oil - no re-seasoning, just protection. So the cleanup
| and maintenance is a bit of a ritual but for me it's well worth
| the performance.
| mcguire wrote:
| Having a big thermal mass in the oven doesn't hurt, either.
| jarenmf wrote:
| I don't really think the science is that conclusive on seasoning.
| I haven't been able to find any publications to support this
| opinion that flax seed oil or any other oil is the best for
| seasoning. It seems also that the health effects of ingesting
| parts of the patina is not fully understood
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