Unseasonable cast iron?

[nduran]

My grandmother recently gave me an old cast iron skillet that belonged to my great grandfather. It's a good, solid hunk of metal, but it's been sitting in a box unused for decades. When I first tried it out it did nothing but shed giant black flakes, so I sanded it down to the bare metal and re-seasoned it. It seemed OK, but food still stuck to it like there was no tomorrow, and within a couple of uses the new seasoning had begun to flake off, too.

At this point I've sanded and seasoned this thing at least four times, and it simply will not take. Fearing my technique to be faulty, I repeated the same process on a newer pan, and it worked beautifully--rich brown surface, eggs slid around like they were on top of a block of ice, and a gentle salt scrubbing cleaned off all the gunk without damaging the seasoning.

I don't want to throw this pan out as it is something of an heirloom, but it really is unusable in its current condition, and I have no idea what else to do to it.

My method is:

1. Coat the pan with a very thin layer of fat (tried peanut oil, Crisco and Wesson so far)

2. Wrap loosely in aluminum foil and place upside-down in a 300 degree oven for 3-4 hours

3. Open all the windows and hope nobody in the building calls the fire department

Anything else I should try before I pitch it?

[Amy Eber]

Cast iron should be seasoned with an animal fat. Cook up lots of bacon or use lard. Vegetable-based oils often leave pans sticky and are not as effective a seaoning agent. I inherited a set of very old cast iron pots and pans that were rusty. I ended up shipping them from N.J. down to Cajun country in Louisiana to an iron monger who sanded them down, filled them with hog fat and stuck them in a bonfire he built. They came back soot-covered but amazing. You could heat them in the oven or on the stove top.

If there is a residual flavor when using lard, heat up vegetable oil in the pan and fry potatoes until they do not have a funky taste anymore.

My grandmother recently gave me an old cast iron skillet that belonged to my great grandfather. It's a good, solid hunk of metal, but it's been sitting in a box unused for decades. When I first tried it out it did nothing but shed giant black flakes, so I sanded it down to the bare metal and re-seasoned it. It seemed OK, but food still stuck to it like there was no tomorrow, and within a couple of uses the new seasoning had begun to flake off, too.

At this point I've sanded and seasoned this thing at least four times, and it simply will not take. Fearing my technique to be faulty, I repeated the same process on a newer pan, and it worked beautifully--rich brown surface, eggs slid around like they were on top of a block of ice, and a gentle salt scrubbing cleaned off all the gunk without damaging the seasoning.

I don't want to throw this pan out as it is something of an heirloom, but it really is unusable in its current condition, and I have no idea what else to do to it.

My method is:

1. Coat the pan with a very thin layer of fat (tried peanut oil, Crisco and Wesson so far)

2. Wrap loosely in aluminum foil and place upside-down in a 300 degree oven for 3-4 hours

3. Open all the windows and hope nobody in the building calls the fire department

Anything else I should try before I pitch it?

←

[joiei]

Try cooking a lot of nice fatty bacon in it. Then when the leftover bacon grease has cooled in the pan, just wipe it out and use it again maybe for a second batch of bacon, let cool wipe out and then use it for other purposes. Cooking the bacon should start a nice season. Just never wash it in the dishwasher. After cleaning, reseason with a little oil so it is ready to go the next time you use it.

[Fat Guy]

Yes, I would suggest that you resign yourself to eating a lot of bacon for the next few days. It's a great seasoning tool.

My concern, however, is that there may be something else going on here. But, assuming you've got a piece of cast iron there with no visible rust and a freshly sanded surface, I can't quite figure out the problem. Your method should have worked. Not necessarily all that well -- the oven-baking method of seasoning has never been particularly effective for me -- but well enough. I guess I can't figure out what's causing the flaking you've described.

It may be that the newer pan was already seasoned well enough and that you were really just shoring up the seasoning not actually doing it from scratch (so to speak) on a freshly sanded pan. It may also be that you're not cleaning the pan thoroughly enough after each use (I find that a lot of people take the "never wash cast iron pans" thing to an extreme that causes all the food cooked in the pan to taste terrible and have carbonized spots of gunk on it). Or maybe you just need to repeat the seasnoning process over and over until it takes (without any sanding between attempts).

[Toliver]

Some past discussions that may be of help:

"Cast iron, seasoning and restoring, Preserve your treasure (merged topics)"

"Cast Iron Seasoning --- Veg Oil or Lard?, To Lard or not to Lard?"

[sheetz]

I have the same problem as nduran, and it isn't that I don't know how to season cast iron--I have another skillet that is beautifully seasoned. It's this particular skillet that I have that just doesn't seem to hold the seasoninng for some reason. It starts off ok, then after awhile it starts to crack and flake.

[Octaveman]

Don't confuse seasoning with burnt on "food". When the pan is heated up, the pores in the metal expand allowing for oil/bacon grease to be abosrbed. Over time, the pan becomes saturated with this burnt on "oil/grease" that it becomes slick and non-stick whenever the pan is reheated. Burnt on food will flake off but oil does not flake. I've never had a problem with flaking on any of my 5 cast iron pans/woks.

Based on what you've said, the original seasoning is now gone due to it being sanded down. Seasoning a cast iron pan is a long process...not something that you do once or twice when you buy the pan and forget about it. Even the "pre-seasoned" pans by Lodge are nowhere near properly seasoned. It's just seasoned to get you started.

To season a new pan I 1) use a lot of oil, 2) cook a lot of bacon or use plenty of leftover bacon grease and cook a pile of onions or Chinese chives, 3) let the pan get real hot before using, 4) lightly scrub with a bamboo wok brush under hot water when I'm done cooking, 5) put the pan back on the stove, heat it up, coat it with oil, cook some of the oil back into the pan, turn burner off and let it sit until cool. I do this every time I cook with it. Even the pans with water beading up on them. Eventually, that pan will work as you expect it to.

Fat guy is right, the oven method is not that permanent. It might give you one or two uses without the oil being used up. Like I said, it's a long process to get a CI pan properly seasoned. Get a bamboo wok brush and use that to clean...don't use a sponge or the scrubby side of one. For the burnt on food spots in your pan, poor some kosher salt on it and lightly scrub the spot with a paper towel. Dry it and put it back on the stove to re-season and do so after every time you use it. It won't take long before you start to notice your progress. Make sure you let the pan heat up well enough as a hot pan helps with the non-stick issue too.

[nduran]

It may be that the newer pan was already seasoned well enough and that you were really just shoring up the seasoning not actually doing it from scratch (so to speak) on a freshly sanded pan.

←

Nope, I sanded it down, too.

I'm sure the oven is not the greatest method in the world but it's all I have at my disposal. I've heard just as many people lambast lard as praise it, and I did use it to cook a ton of extremely greasy pork sausage with the surface temp reading a little over 500--it stuck like glue, charred and took the seasoning with it when I scraped it off with a plastic spatula.

Again, I've worked with other pans without problems, so I know not to put it in the dishwasher etc.

[sheetz]

I wonder if it's possible to have a defective cast iron pan. My good skillet has been building its seasoning for years and has developed a nice mirror finish. My bad skillet is unusable and just sits in my oven for thermal mass.

[larrylee]

I use the oven method with Crisco, but at 500 degrees. I start off with the skillet upside down on the top rack with aluminum foil underneath. Flip it after 25-30 minutes, give it another half hour or so and it comes out black as night. We clean and reason in much the same way as Octaveman's recent post.

When I first got my skillet I tried the lower temp baking method but it just resulted in a caramel-colored tacky (in all senses of the word) coating. It eventually turned black but the seasoning kept flaking off. Eventually I took it all off with a flat head screwdriver and started from scratch with the higher oven temp.

Edit: There was a post some time last year in the Yahoo "Good Eats" group where a poster tried accelerating the aging process on his skillet. As part of this process he sanded his skillet down but the action did not appear to have any detrimental effects to the seasoning process.

Another mistake I made in my earlier baking-seasoning attempts was to use too much Crisco. I use a really light coat now, and the side benefit is very little smoking. The skillet actually has not been fully re-seasoned in about 2 years because it's held up well and gets a decent amount of use.

Edited March 7, 2007 by larrylee (log)

[Marc Olson]

As a side effect of making Gumbo last weekend I remembered that cooking a roux had a very positive effect on the seasoning of my primary cast iron skillet.

This time I did 1/3 duck fat and 2/3 safflower oil, heated the oil until shimmering and then added the flour (carefully) to avoid the boilover as the moisture in the flour cooked off. By the time the roux was done the pan had absorbed more oil than during a normal seasoning.

This pan gets used regularly and is seasoned similar to Octaveman's suggestion after use.

[maggiethecat]

One: Even the most perfectly seasoned cast iron pan will never be non-stick. If you need completely non-stick, buy another pan.

Two: I echo the bacon solution. Don't sweat it and please stop sanding it -- just cook some bacon. This pan has been around for a long time, so relax, have fun, and take the long view.

[nduran]

One: Even the most perfectly seasoned cast iron pan will never be non-stick. If you need completely non-stick, buy another pan.

I'm not looking for non-stick, I'm looking for a usable cooking surface that does not render everything it touches an inedible mess. I know what cast iron is. I know how it behaves. I know how to clean it. I know all of the rudimentary care procedures and employ them successfully on three other pans on a near-daily basis. What I apparently don't know is how to convince anyone else that I know these things.

Two: I echo the bacon solution. Don't sweat it and please stop sanding it -- just cook some bacon. This pan has been around for a long time, so relax, have fun, and take the long view.

←

Unless there's some magic fat contained in bacon that the several pounds worth of pork sausage I already ran through it lacked, I'm not convinced this oft-repeated suggestion is the panacea it's being made out to be.

Something about this thread seems to be lowering the collective reading comprehension level to the point where I'm beginning to feel like I'm talking to myself so I'll just thank the folks who seem to have experienced a similar problem for commiserating and let it bury itself quietly. Thanks kids!

[piperdown]

It might not work, but the worst thing that comes out of it is that you have Bacon, and a non-seasoned pan, so it's worth a shot just for that. That being said, I've done the criscco method in the oven, and never really had a problem, so it really is a mystery as to why it's not working.

[eje]

I've used peanut oil to season my two cast iron pans and spun steel wok.

Never had a problem like this.

You have my sympathy!

I did once use some sort of organic cold press oil, (Safflower? Canola? Sunflower? I forget.) on my skillet, which was a huge mistake. Ended up tacky as all get out. Had to scour it off, and start all over with the process. I have stuck with peanut, ever since.

If you really want to use it, maybe take it to an autobody place and have them clean it. I think they have sandblasting (or similar) that might be more thorough than simply sanding.

That's the only thing I can really think of to suggest.

Good luck!

[Octaveman]

Something about this thread seems to be lowering the collective reading comprehension level to the point where I'm beginning to feel like I'm talking to myself so I'll just thank the folks who seem to have experienced a similar problem for commiserating and let it bury itself quietly. Thanks kids!

Wow, that wasn't very nice at all. I don't think it has anything to do with the collective reading comprehension of the members here. We don't know why you can't season the pan...or why the pan can't be seasoned however you choose to look at it. We gave suggestions and ideas that we thought would work based on our experiences. Sorry you didn't get the answer you were looking for. Yes, you are looking for a non-stick surface because without it your food would turn into a inedible mess. Maybe you'd be better off looking on the internet in places that are specific to cast iron care and usage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasoning_%28...on%29#Seasoning

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron_cookware

"Bare cast iron cookware requires seasoning—impregnation of the cooking surface with oil—to prevent rusting, and to create a non-stick surface."

"A new cast iron pan will not be 100% seasoned after a single treatment. It takes repeated use for the pan to develop a seasoned, non-stick surface".

http://whatscookingamerica.net/Information/CastIronPans.htm

http://whatscookingamerica.net/Information...ingCastIron.htm

http://www.cyberbilly.com/meathenge/archives/001138.html

Includes an email link at the bottom to ask directly what the problem is and how to fix it.

http://www.panman.com/cleaning.html

A forum specifically for cast iron pans

http://www.griswoldandwagner.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl

Please let us know what you find out to be the problem and how it's to be fixed. I'm sure we'd all like to know.

Edited March 8, 2007 by Octaveman (log)

[ray goud]

I use the oven method with Crisco, but at 500 degrees. I start off with the skillet upside down on the top rack with aluminum foil underneath. Flip it after 25-30 minutes, give it another half hour or so and it comes out black as night. We clean and reason in much the same way as Octaveman's recent post.

When I first got my skillet I tried the lower temp baking method but it just resulted in a caramel-colored tacky (in all senses of the word) coating. It eventually turned black but the seasoning kept flaking off. Eventually I took it all off with a flat head screwdriver and started from scratch with the higher oven temp.

Edit: There was a post some time last year in the Yahoo "Good Eats" group where a poster tried accelerating the aging process on his skillet. As part of this process he sanded his skillet down but the action did not appear to have any detrimental effects to the seasoning process.

Another mistake I made in my earlier baking-seasoning attempts was to use too much Crisco. I use a really light coat now, and the side benefit is very little smoking. The skillet actually has not been fully re-seasoned in about 2 years because it's held up well and gets a decent amount of use.

←

Larrylee is correct about not needing animal fat; vegetable oil of almost any type (but not olive oil-it smokes too easily) will work fine. His high temperature of 500 degrees may be a little too high, but nduran's low temp. of 300 is way too low, and too low is the wrong direction to be in when one is seasoning a pan.

I have used both Pam (!) and canola oil to season cast iron, at about 400 degrees. Both result in a surface more slippery than the old-style teflon, but not quite as good as the new super-hard coatings. Also, I didn't bother to turn my pans upside down; that way they didn't drip in the oven.

Ray

[larrylee]

Larrylee is correct about not needing animal fat; vegetable oil of almost any type (but not olive oil-it smokes too easily) will work fine. His high temperature of 500 degrees may be a little too high, but nduran's low temp. of 300 is way too low, and too low is the wrong direction to be in when one is seasoning a pan.

I have used both Pam (!) and canola oil to season cast iron, at about 400 degrees. Both result in a surface more slippery than the old-style teflon, but not quite as good as the new super-hard coatings. Also, I didn't bother to turn my pans upside down; that way they didn't drip in the oven.

Ray

←

Ray,

You're right, 500 is probably too high. I chose it because I used a low temp (can't recall exactly) and that contributed to the caramel/tacky coating. I got impatient. :-)

A side note - after that first disastrous attempt I tried reseasoning the skillet... I got a black surface but it kept flaking off. I put up with it for a while and then resorted to the flathead screwdriver method.

Regarding the upside-down skillet... after the first few smokey tries I put aluminum foil underneath to catch the drippings.

[jsmith]

Is it possible to have a cast iron frying pan that is too smooth? I got a tiny frying pan at the local goodwill that I basically use for frying garlic in butter. When I got it, it was the mess that used frying pans typically are, so I sanded the crap out of it. When I finished the bumps had all sanded off, and it was as smooth as can be. It hasn't taken a seasoning, though for frying garlic this doesn't really matter. My girlfriend has a steel wok (not cast iron). The surface is super smooth as well. I tried seasoning it the way I seasoned my large cast iron frying pan, but the seasoning just flakes off. It seems like you need a little roughness, but then weren't machined cast iron frying pans extremly smooth as well? Anyway if smoothness is an issue, maybe all the sanding on your frying pan made it too smooth.

While we're talking about seasoning, has there ever been a scientific examination/explanation of what actually happens when frying pans are seasoned? I hear a lot of theories, but it all sounds like educated guesses to me.

Some people say the pores are opening and absorbing oil, I've heard others say this is not true. If it is true, why not fill the frying pan with a centimetre of oil and heat it on an element? Surely this would saturate it. Also, it's not like metal absorbs a lot of oil anyway. Surely any oil absorbed would be released when it was heated again?

I've also read that seasoning is just oil burned on the surface. This makes more sense to me as frying pans that are too smooth wouln't have anything for the oil to grip to, but then why does cooking at too high of a tempurature burn off the seasoning? And what tempurature is right? Do you want if above or below the smoking point of the oil to season properly? Will an oil with a low smoking point season at a lower temperature than a high smoke point oil? Will this the low smoke point oil seasoning burn off at a lower tempurature than a high smoke point seasoning? Is a thin layer of oil neccesary to burn it on, or can you just dump a cup of oil in the frying pan and let it cook for 6 hours?

[ray goud]

Is it possible to have a cast iron frying pan that is too smooth?  I got a tiny frying pan at the local goodwill that I basically use for frying garlic in butter.  When I got it, it was the mess that used frying pans typically are, so I sanded the crap out of it.  When I finished the bumps had all sanded off, and it was as smooth as can be.  It hasn't taken a seasoning, though for frying garlic this doesn't really matter.  My girlfriend has a steel wok (not cast iron).  The surface is super smooth as well.  I tried seasoning it the way I seasoned my large cast iron frying pan, but the seasoning just flakes off.  It seems like you need  a little roughness, but then weren't machined cast iron frying pans extremly smooth as well?  Anyway if smoothness is an issue, maybe all the sanding on your frying pan made it too smooth.

While we're talking about seasoning, has there ever been a scientific examination/explanation of what actually happens when frying pans are seasoned?  I hear a lot of theories, but it all sounds like educated guesses to me. 

Some people say the pores are opening and absorbing oil, I've heard others say this is not true.  If it is true, why not fill the frying pan with a centimetre of oil and heat it on an element?  Surely this would saturate it.  Also, it's not like metal absorbs a lot of oil anyway.  Surely any oil absorbed would be released when it was heated again?

I've also read that seasoning is just oil burned on the surface.  This makes more sense to me as frying pans that are too smooth wouln't have anything for the oil to grip to, but then why does cooking at too high of a tempurature burn off the seasoning?  And what tempurature is right?  Do you want if above or below the smoking point of the oil to season properly?  Will an oil with a low smoking point season at a lower temperature than a high smoke point oil?  Will this the low smoke point oil seasoning burn off at a lower tempurature than a high smoke point seasoning?  Is a thin layer of oil neccesary to burn it on, or can you just dump a cup of oil in the frying pan and let it cook for 6 hours?

←

Although many have seen the info on the following site, others may glean some knowledge from it. It is not the last word; there isn't one. However, these guys make the utensils:

www.lodgemfg.com/useandcare.asp

Also, I'm not home right now, but there may be some more info in Harold McGee's book on food science. I'll check when I return.

Ray

[sheetz]

Is it possible to have a cast iron frying pan that is too smooth?

←

This had occurred to me as well. It's been awhile since I saw them bare and unseasoned, but I think my problematic cast iron skillet is quite a bit smoother than my good one, so perhaps the smoother pans are more difficult to season properly?

Edited March 10, 2007 by sheetz (log)

[Jan Primus]

So when I'm done using my cast iron and want to clean out the animal fat, it seems a real chore. I put it under warm ater and use a brush to clean it, but there seems to be no end to the animal fat. Should I leave some of this fat in and cook it after cleaning? I'm getting close to giving up on cast iron, might repace it with a nice all-clad skillet.

[larrylee]

So when I'm done using my cast iron and want to clean out the animal fat, it seems a real chore. I put it under warm ater and use a brush to clean it, but there seems to be no end to the animal fat. Should I leave some of this fat in and cook it after cleaning? I'm getting close to giving up on cast iron, might repace it with a nice all-clad skillet.

←

The first thing you should do is probably take some paper towels and soak up/throw out most of that grease to keep it from clogging up your drain. Once you do that, you should have very little fat left in the pan and it should brush out easily under hot water.

Generally speaking, I think the "danger" of cast iron is that people think about it too much. Back in the day, I bet people just wiped out their skillets (at best) and didn't bother much with "cleaning." Leaving a little fat in the pan (and using it several times a day, every day) is what got the skillets as dark and smooth as an oil slick. This is supposed to be think-free cookware! :-)

[Octaveman]

You are correct Larry, people think about it too much. If I have any bacon grease left over I put it in a coffee cup and throw it in the fridge. Great for Potatoes O'Brien and coating potatoes for baking. Rinse under hot water, using a wok brush to lightly scrub stuck on stuff and wipe dry with a paper towel. No big deal. I NEVER clean my CI pans as thoroughly as I do the others. Water beads up on all my skillets and wok.

Another trick that someone told me to clean stuck on bits is to heat up the pan (after excess grease/oil taken out) real hot then add water as if your deglazing the pan. Use a wooden spoon to scrape the stuck stuff and you're good to go.

[johnnyd]

I picked up a never-been-used deep Lodge with top at a yard sale. I scrubbed it pretty well and oven-heated it to dry thoroughly. There is still a faint rust issue, especially on the top.

Best tool to get rid of it once and for all so I can season this thing and get going?

If I use a steel brush (it's in the raised logo and crease, a ring about 3mm deep around the top's top) will I damage it? Am I thinking about it too much??? This unit has to be 20yrs old and I'm certain it's never been heated.