Cooking Cast Iron - Long with many thumbnails

LM, I've used them for muffins, fried eggs and individual quiche's.

Thanks YB! I hadn't thought about those either. Good ideas!

Longmill

I read in a Heloise i.e. "Hints from Heloise" to season at 250 degrees for 1 1/2 -2 hours.
What's the difference?
I've got two pans ready right now and the oven preheating to 350 and it got me wondering.

Your objective is to turn your seasoning fat/oil to carbon. You can use lower temperatures and longer time or vs versa. There are a number of different "recipes", but all have the same objective.

I prefer using the grill and higher temps. Then I don't have to worry about smoke in the kitchen. With the grill, I also watch the color change. When the oil goes from dark brown to black the pan is "done". Sometimes I repeat the process to obtain even better results.

How did your pans turn out?

Longmill

I did 'em your way last night but I had a little too much Crisco in them so I got a little excess caking around the edges. I scraped that out and put 'em back in for 250 for 2 hours. I've got 'em in again right now at 300 for 2 hours.
Sveral sites on the Web said the same thing so I'm just being thorough.
I've done 'em in the past (on the advice of a friend) at 400 for 4 hours so I have a pretty good base going I'm just trying to help 'em along.

They're looking good so far.

any tips to where you find thes old cast iron gems ,also have bought the lodge pre seasoned and love them.

I use several ci pans on a regular basis. I had one start to get a lot of buildup on it. I had read an article to just toss them into a fire and leave it to it cools, clean oil and reuse...

Well, no fire, so I put mine on the gas grill, fired it up on high, closed the lid and walked away for awhile. When I came back, it was HOT, and the pan was clean again. Turned the grill off and let it cool down. Took it in side, wiped it down and put in on the stove to heat up again. Oiled it up and presto..... Like LM said with the corn bread, the first use, plan on dumping it out. Then your ready to go. My eggs in my baby pan are the best...

Bill

I've seen those instructions for tossing CI in the fire to clean it. This will clean the pan, but you run the risk of damaging the pan. CI can warp if exposed to extreme temperatures. And it can cause a condition called "red rust".

For a $3 yard sale pan with no collector's value tossing in a camp fire is probably OK if you're willing to take the risk. For treasured family pieces and/or valuable collectables, using a grill or your self cleaning oven is a much better way to clean it.

FWIW, I'm switching over to a lye bath and electrolysis system to clean cast iron. The lye bath removes that crusty carbon build up. Items can remain in the solution for extended periods of time without rusting. The electrolysis process removes both the crusty buildup and rust without damaging the item. For most items, I'll probably do both. Soak in the lye bath first to remove the "crud". Then, put through electrolysis, if needed, for rust removal. With the crud gone, the electro process time is cut down.

If anyone is interested, I can do a write up of these along with pix in a week or so. Currently have 2 lye baths setup. One filled with CI cookware, the other with wood stove parts. So, there'll be so photo opportunities along the way.

Longmill

Always interested in photos with a write up.
Can hardly wait, thanks.

So, the work on the wood stove begins!

I'm really looking forward to seeing how that thing
turns out!

It's gonna be a lot of work but I'm sure it will
be worth it.

Good luck, LM

-YB

I got two cast iron skillets that need some TLC. I currently keep them under my oven in the broiler. I will take them out of there for good now.

When mine got rusty I would just scrub them oil them and then mabey do some fried chicken in them. Now I will just scrub them up oil them and bake them in my oven for 30 min or so, then re oil them.

Thanks for all the info this is great.

Thanks!

YB, those stove parts are for another wood cookstove that I recently bought. It's smaller than the one in the pix. I'm getting that ready to replace the wood burning box stove in my workshop. I took some pix before I started taking it apart.

I'll see how this one goes, before taking that Majestic apart. Hoping that one day, it'll be a part of a "summer kitchen" in the backyard.

A FWIW, installed a twin compartment laundry sink in my shop yesterday. The bar sink I had in there was too small for anything more than handwashing or rinsing a coffee cup. It's too cold now to clean CI in the sink in the backyard. Plus, too much trouble to hook, unhook, and drain the water line with each use. Much easier to do that with the setup in my shop.

And.... In the next day or two, I'll be hooking up a full sized gas stove out there. That's replacing a 2 burner RV cooktop that I used to make coffee and such. When that's in place, I can season CI to my hearts content, out of the weather and out of the kitchen (smoke).

Well, I'd better quit rambling and get back to reading.

Longmill

bstein wrote:

I got two cast iron skillets that need some TLC. I currently keep them under my oven in the broiler. I will take them out of there for good now.

When mine got rusty I would just scrub them oil them and then mabey do some fried chicken in them. Now I will just scrub them up oil them and bake them in my oven for 30 min or so, then re oil them.

Thanks for all the info this is great.

Here's a tip. After you clean up iron and do the initial seasoning, fry a potato or two. Discard the potato and the oil. That'll remove any metallic taste/odor or lingering odor from your cleaning efforts. Plus, it adds another layer of seasoning. Once you have your pans throughly seasoned, you won't have any more rust problems. Providing you keep them LIGHTLY oiled if not used for a long time. It isn't necessary to oil them between uses if you use fairly frequently and they are well seasoned. Just be sure to clean and then dry quickly (over heat is best) after each use.

For CI grill grates, I do oil those after each use, BTW.

Longmill

Hey thanks for posting this, I remember seeing it long ago. I searched it today and put it to good use.

Thanks again!

Howdy, Longmill.

Thanks for the great info on CI and seasoning. I've only used one pan (a small frying pan) and royally messed it up , so maybe I'll do better now.

It's funny. I was *just * mentioning to my wife yesterday that I knew nothing about CI and didn't trust myself to use or clean it. Can't say that now.

Looking forward to info on lye baths, electrolytic set-ups, and more pics.

Well, that, and finding some CI of my own.

Muchas Gracias, Senora.

Rob - TX Sandman