Reseasoning cast iron, flaxseed v. grapeseed oil

[ScottyBoy]

Whoa, that article... Maybe over thinking seasoning a pan?

Every place I've worked including a few michelin starred spots have seasoned with grapeseed oil. Maybe because it was what was readily on hand but it works like a charm in my opinion.

[Martin Fisher]

The higher the iodine value of an oil, the better seasoning it'll produce.

The iodine value of grapeseed oil is fairly high, but not as high as flaxseed oil.

~Martin

[gfweb]

Fry some chicken in the pan...seasoned!

[ScottyBoy]

SCIENCE!

[Syzygies]

Whoa, that article... Maybe over thinking seasoning a pan?

This is egullet. It isn't a crime to over think something here! And I'm so glad I found this thread, I really learned something from it.

I'm reminded of wood working. They know what drying oils are, and elaborate discussions of esoteric wood finishes are routine. Along the same lines, one uses the same stones and skills to sharpen Japanese cooking knifes as Japanese woodworking tools, but the kitchen is considered the less critical application.

I used to think the same thing, until I tried the drying oils.

Thank you! Anyone can say their favorite method works well, and it probably does. One can only make a comparison if one has tried both ways.

Pictured is a brand new 14" flat-bottomed wok from the Wok Shop:

http://wokshop.store...casthaw2me.html

It arrived silver as shown in the link. I stripped any possible residue, then applied twelve coats of flaxseed oil. If one attempts to remove all oil from such a smooth surface, one leaves very little oil. Twelve coats (twice what the blog post recommends) seemed about right. I'm now deep-frying in it, the second phase to seasoning a wok.

I have tried many approaches over the years. My Thai teacher swears by lard, which had been my favorite. I've never seen a finish like I obtained by this blog method. It got me excited enough to remember that my French teacher swore by carbon steel fry pans, and I have some on order:

http://www.cooksdire...-steel-fry-pans

(I'm aware that cast iron can be cheaper than the best carbon steel; it's a more primitive technology. I wanted the best carbon steel, and it came down to these pans or de Buyer.)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I may have ruined the finish on my Lodge pan by baking cheese bread in the CSO...

 

 

 

It looked real nice before.  I had originally seasoned with grapeseed oil several times over the Lodge factory finish.  Many, many boules had baked in this pan without mishap.

 

Can I pretend this didn't happen or should I just hit the amazon buy button now?

 

[gfweb]

12 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

I may have ruined the finish on my Lodge pan by baking cheese bread in the CSO...

 

 

 

It looked real nice before.  I had originally seasoned with grapeseed oil several times over the Lodge factory finish.  Many, many boules had baked in this pan without mishap.

 

Can I pretend this didn't happen or should I just hit the amazon buy button now?

 

 

I've banged-up and re-seasoned many pans and they all still work great. Maybe not as pretty for a while, but eventually. Steel seems to take the longest to get back to pretty. But even if ugly t hey still work great after reseasoning

 

 

 

[kayb]

Stick it in the oven on the "clean" cycle. When it comes out, wipe it out, and season again. My Lodge carbon steel pans didn't season "pretty" --- but they don't stick, either. 

 

I've seasoned with everything from flaxseed oil to bacon grease. I'm about to be of the mind bacon grease is as good as anything.

 

[gfweb]

41 minutes ago, kayb said:

 I'm about to be of the mind bacon grease is as good as anything.

 

 

I agree.  Or doing a batch of fried chicken.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Do I need to try to remove the rest of the old finish first?  If so I'd just as soon pitch it and pay another $14.  I use the pan only for bread, so non-stick or not is not an issue.

 

[gfweb]

I just season right over the old imperfect finish.

 

@Porthos has talked about massive refinishes for hideous pans, but this ain't that.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

4 minutes ago, gfweb said:

I just season right over the old imperfect finish.

 

@Porthos has talked about massive refinishes for hideous pans, but this ain't that.

 

Thanks!

 

[paulraphael]

The theoretical differences between these oils are real. But I think it's unlikely that in practice you'll tell the difference between anything high in mono- and poly-unsaturated oils. Grapeseed, safflower, sunflower, and canola all work very well. Flaxseed should theoretically work at least as well, but it's not a standard kitchen oil. Animal fats like bacon will work less well. Oils that are more unsaturated will just get the job done faster, because you can get away with fewer coats (each coat should be as thin as you can make it; otherwise it's easy to get an uneven finish that chips off). 

 

If you use whatever high-heat, unsaturated oil you normally use for sauteeing, you'll be fine. I pay most attention to it being a refined oil with a high smoke point, because this is most useful for sauteeing anyway. To make the seasoning stick-restant, it needs to be heated past the smoke point. It's the carbonized particles within the polymer that are slippery.

 

But you don't want to go too far. Beyond 700°F or so, you'll break down the polymer to gray ash and it will just flake off. As if you'd put it in a self-cleaning oven. Take a look at a grill pan that's been used on a restaurant's 20,000+ btu/hr burner. There won't be any seasoning. I like to season / reseason pans in an oven set to the oil's labelled smoke point plus 25°F. I use safflower oil, and it usually takes around 5 thin coats. Not counting preheating this takes half an hour or so.

[MelissaH]

17 hours ago, kayb said:

I'm about to be of the mind bacon grease is as good as anything.

Does this mean cooking a batch of bacon in it? And then another batch? And maybe a third batch?

 

My husband always swore that the best way to break in a new set of grill grates (regardless of material) was to make a large batch of burgers, using meat that was no leaner than 80%. Same principle, perhaps?

[kayb]

5 minutes ago, MelissaH said:

Does this mean cooking a batch of bacon in it? And then another batch? And maybe a third batch?

 

My husband always swore that the best way to break in a new set of grill grates (regardless of material) was to make a large batch of burgers, using meat that was no leaner than 80%. Same principle, perhaps?

Cooking the bacon, pouring off the grease, wiping the skillet out with a paper towel. Over and over and over. That's why it's good to season skillets in the summer, so you can make lots of BLT's.

 

I would suspect the burger thing is the same principle, but beef fat has never seemed to me to be as "greasy" as pork fat. Dunno why.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

At the moment my poor Lodge has been wiped down with grapeseed oil and is in the CSO at 450 F for an hour.  I am not expecting miracles.  There must be a more idiot proof cookware material than iron somewhere in the cosmos.  Though at $14 a shot I am not complaining.  Too much.

 

[paulraphael]

18 hours ago, kayb said:

Cooking the bacon, pouring off the grease, wiping the skillet out with a paper towel. Over and over and over. That's why it's good to season skillets in the summer, so you can make lots of BLT's.

 

I would suspect the burger thing is the same principle, but beef fat has never seemed to me to be as "greasy" as pork fat. Dunno why.

 

 

 

The pan won't season properly from cooking bacon properly. You need to get the pan past the fat's smoke point. This would mean wiping the pan after cooking the bacon, and putting it in a hot oven, or on a very high flame. The "greasy" quality of the oil isn't relevant. There's no greasiness to a seasoned pan. It needs to be partially carbonized, fully polymerized oil. If the pan's greasy, it's just not clean.

 

Bacon fat works, but being high in saturated fats it will be less efficient than the unsaturated options, meaning it will take more coats to get a durable seasoning. And being a very unrefined fat, the smoke point is relatively low, which means you'll have to season at a lower temperature, and possibly have a less durability than with a more refined oil. 

Edited May 6, 2018 by paulraphael (log)

[btbyrd]

There's more voodoo nonsense out there about seasoning cast iron (and carbon steel) than almost anything else in cookery. And that's saying something.

 

Cast iron is basically indestructible. Back in the day, folks used to throw their pans in a bonfire once a year to burn off all the crud. Retrieve it from the coals, scrub and wash, and re-season from bare metal. You can bring back cast iron from the crustiest and rustiest of conditions. It will outlive us all.

 

All the obsession with what lipid to use is misguided nonsense. I've used all kinds of oil, and now I use "whatever." The weak link in your seasoning chain is you, not your lack of superluxe Organic Peruvian flaxseed oil handpressed by virgins at the base of an active volcano on the night of the first full moon after the autumnal equinox.

 

The most common error is using too much oil. The layer's gotta be so thin that it's basically not there. I wait for the pan to get hot and just before it starts smoking, I'll do a final scour with a clean paper towel to get any excess oil. Thick layers end up being gummy and disgusting. They're not even seasoning. They're just gross. Don't be that person with the sticky pans. Just don't.

 

Apart from using too much oil, the other most common error is not doing enough layers. If you're trying to lay down a consistent base level of seasoning, you've gotta do it a bunch. Five times. Eight times. Ten or more times.

 

Extra thin. Lotsa times. That's the recipe.

 

As an example,  this is a pizza steel that rusted out on me. I went at it with a lye soak and all kinds of sandpaper designed for metal. After a weekend of battle, this was about as close to "bare metal" as I could get it.

 

 

Then a bunch of thin layers in the oven. Ten cycles.

 

 

It was a total horror show before I started. Now it's bulletproof. Or as close to bulletproof as cast iron or carbon steel can be.

 

Thin layers. Lotsa times.

[paulraphael]

26 minutes ago, btbyrd said:

All the obsession with what lipid to use is misguided nonsense. I've used all kinds of oil, and now I use "whatever." The weak link in your seasoning chain is you, not your lack of superluxe Organic Peruvian flaxseed oil handpressed by virgins at the base of an active volcano on the night of the first full moon after the autumnal equinox.

 

The most common error is using too much oil. The layer's gotta be so thin that it's basically not there. I wait for the pan to get hot and just before it starts smoking, I'll do a final scour with a clean paper towel to get any excess oil. Thick layers end up being gummy and disgusting. They're not even seasoning. They're just gross. Don't be that person with the sticky pans. Just don't.

 

 

99% agree, except the type of oil will effect your process. I think you'll find that with a mostly unsaturated oil, you'll get where your going in fewer layers than with bacon fat.

 

The result probably won't be any different, you'll just be saving time.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Having just ordered a bottle of boiled linseed oil I'm assuming that's the wrong stuff for culinary cast iron?

 

[btbyrd]

It has no special virtues and is otherwise useless in the kitchen. I'd cancel your order if you can.

 

Also... if any of you are sitting on surplus bacon fat, cook with it. Using it to season metal is a waste.

 

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

36 minutes ago, btbyrd said:

It has no special virtues and is otherwise useless in the kitchen. I'd cancel your order if you can.

 

Also... if any of you are sitting on surplus bacon fat, cook with it. Using it to season metal is a waste.

 

 

 

I purchased the boiled linseed for another purpose, also food related:  for treating my new garden tools.  I had hoped to use it for cookware also but I read somewhere boiled linseed has additives.  Can I safely put it on my pans?

 

[paulraphael]

5 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

I purchased the boiled linseed for another purpose, also food related:  for treating my new garden tools.  I had hoped to use it for cookware also but I read somewhere boiled linseed has additives.  Can I safely put it on my pans?

 

 

Maaaaaybe. Much of the boiled linseed oil that gets sold for finishing wood has volatile organic solvents in it to speed drying. So you could get some bad fumes whiles heating. Once the seasoning is cooked on, you'd expect any solvents, and anything else that separates linseed from flax oil to be long gone. But be careful.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

44 minutes ago, paulraphael said:

 

Maaaaaybe. Much of the boiled linseed oil that gets sold for finishing wood has volatile organic solvents in it to speed drying. So you could get some bad fumes whiles heating. Once the seasoning is cooked on, you'd expect any solvents, and anything else that separates linseed from flax oil to be long gone. But be careful.

 

Thanks, I'll see what the bottle says when it arrives.

 

Meanwhile I've put several coats of grapeseed on my Lodge.  I just finished baking a boule in it.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

My bottle of boiled linseed oil arrived.  It says it is linseed oil treated with hot air to make it cure faster.  Does not say anything about additives, but then food is not the intended use.  The label says not to drink it.