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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

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.

gilrain 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    Try oven cleaner! I leave it on sheet pans for about 15 minutes; it’s amazing what wipes away.
  - AdmiralAsshat 6y ago
    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.
    - ethbr0 6y ago
      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.
    - mark-r 6y ago
      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.
  - jfim 6y ago
    There's two versions of barkeeper's friend, a powder one and a liquid one. The powder one is the one to use to remove caked on residue.
- iamacyborg 6y ago
  > 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 6y ago
  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.
  - wyclif 6y ago
    BKF is great on stainless steel, like All-Clad sets. Highly recommended.
chongli 6y ago
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.
- gambiting 6y ago
  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.
  - philwelch 6y ago
    I’ve never had a non-self-cleaning oven.
  - butterfi 6y ago
    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 6y ago
      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 1000€ the self-cleaning module of the oven was not installed.
petre 6y ago
I wash it with water and scrub with scotch brite. Will try homemade soap.
- chipsa 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    If you have unreacted lye in your soap you're going to have more problems than just stripping the seasoning off your pan.
    - chipsa 6y ago
      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.
  - OJFord 6y ago
    Homemade X is made with whatever you made it with...
    - chipsa 6y ago
      Homemade soap is soap. The only way to make soap is the saponification process. Which involves lye. The oil used can vary, but a strong alkali is required, and any strong alkali you use is going to do the saponification process on your seasoning. Commercial dish soap can be soap, or it could be detergent. Detergent is made differently, and doesn't necessarily involve lye.
AmericanChopper 6y ago
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.
hnick 6y ago
> 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. I'd never made this link before, thanks for pointing it out! We have plenty of baking sheets like this and I thought it was a form of black rust or something but your explanation makes so much more sense.

gilrain 6y ago

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 6y ago
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 6y ago
  Try oven cleaner! I leave it on sheet pans for about 15 minutes; it’s amazing what wipes away.
- AdmiralAsshat 6y ago
  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.
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    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.
  - mark-r 6y ago
    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.
- jfim 6y ago
  There's two versions of barkeeper's friend, a powder one and a liquid one. The powder one is the one to use to remove caked on residue.
iamacyborg 6y ago
> 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 6y ago
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.
- wyclif 6y ago
  BKF is great on stainless steel, like All-Clad sets. Highly recommended.

chongli 6y ago

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.

gambiting 6y ago
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.
- philwelch 6y ago
  I’ve never had a non-self-cleaning oven.
- butterfi 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    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 1000€ the self-cleaning module of the oven was not installed.

petre 6y ago

I wash it with water and scrub with scotch brite. Will try homemade soap.

chipsa 6y ago
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 6y ago
  If you have unreacted lye in your soap you're going to have more problems than just stripping the seasoning off your pan.
  - chipsa 6y ago
    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.
- OJFord 6y ago
  Homemade X is made with whatever you made it with...
  - chipsa 6y ago
    Homemade soap is soap. The only way to make soap is the saponification process. Which involves lye. The oil used can vary, but a strong alkali is required, and any strong alkali you use is going to do the saponification process on your seasoning. Commercial dish soap can be soap, or it could be detergent. Detergent is made differently, and doesn't necessarily involve lye.

AmericanChopper 6y ago

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.

hnick 6y ago

> 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. I'd never made this link before, thanks for pointing it out! We have plenty of baking sheets like this and I thought it was a form of black rust or something but your explanation makes so much more sense.