Cast iron: seasoning, care, and restoration

[AlaMoi]

there is a product:  Carbon Off

a super strength "oven cleaner" in a spray can - I use it on burned on gunk from boil overs on copper pots.

works like a charm - use outdoors!!!

 

I have a very old - pre-1920 - Griswold from a flea market that I cleaned to bare metal and have since never done a 'severe' cleaning.

outside it has crusty gunk, inside less-crusty.  it's smooth as a 'baby's bottom' and is about 99% of Teflon in terms of sticking. 

bottom line to this is just:  don't fret the minor crusty stuff - keeping cast iron 'sparkling clean' is not an especially good goal..

 

[paulraphael]

On 12/31/2014 at 12:56 AM, Smithy said:

I have a flat electric (call it glass, call it ceramic) stovetop at home. The user's manual says not to drag or shake heavy cookware across it, for fear of scratching the surface. As I recall the manual is especially alarming about shaking/scraping heavy and abrasive items like cast iron across the cooktop. I'm sure that a rough surface of sufficient hardness could score that cooktop and make it more subject to breakage. I pick up my pans before shaking them when I'm flipping or sauteeing things.

We just bought a house with one of those. I drag my iron pans across the top with impunity. Could I be secretly hoping it breaks so I get to replace it?

[haresfur]

2 minutes ago, paulraphael said:

We just bought a house with one of those. I drag my iron pans across the top with impunity. Could I be secretly hoping it breaks so I get to replace it?

 

Replace with induction then polish the outside of your cast iron?

[paulraphael]

1 hour ago, AlaMoi said:

there is a product:  Carbon Off

a super strength "oven cleaner" in a spray can - I use it on burned on gunk from boil overs on copper pots.

works like a charm - use outdoors!!!

 

 

Interesting. Is it different from regular oven cleaner? That's usually based on lye, sometimes with bleach. 

 

I've used oven cleaner on some nasty cast iron. Recently I used a wire brush wheel on the end of a drill. The latter is much faster, but I ended up looking like a coal miner.

[AlaMoi]

nada clue - Carbon Off is super powerful - however they "manage" that.

spray on, wait, rinse off.

smells a lot like lye oven cleaners -

[SLB]

I have carbon-off, and have used it on thinner layers of carbon on my all-clad pans.  It didn't occur to me to use it on the cast iron gunk before I bought the lye.

 

But the pans came out of the lye this morning, and the remnants are getting the carbon-off approach.  

 

And again:  I'm really mad at myself for letting these pans get to this level of gnarly.  

[SLB]

It took a 3 day lye bath; 2 days of easy-off; two hours in the neighbor's self-cleaning oven; a final vinegar soak; and a salt attack with steel wool. 

 

But we are, finally, back in action.  

 

 

 

Ugh.  NEVER AGAIN!!

[Joe Blowe]

7 minutes ago, SLB said:

Ugh.  NEVER AGAIN!!

I see it's only been mentioned once in this thread, way back in 2014, but what about electrolysis? Seems like a good hands-off approach...

[SLB]

Yep, it definitely does.  I was just too exhausted to go looking for the gear.  

[lindag]

28 minutes ago, SLB said:

It took a 3 day lye bath; 2 days of easy-off; two hours in the neighbor's self-cleaning oven; a final vinegar soak; and a salt attack with steel wool. 

 

But we are, finally, back in action.  

 

 

 

Ugh.  NEVER AGAIN!!

what an amazing transformation!

[kayb]

Nicely done!