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People treat their cast irons as if they're fine china. The reality is they've been used for hundreds of years for cooking, without complicated maintenance rout
by scarmig 5y ago
People treat their cast irons as if they're fine china. The reality is they've been used for hundreds of years for cooking, without complicated maintenance routines. You can do pretty much whatever you want with them (within reason) and they'll still turn out fine. Yes, soap is fine, as is a mildly abrasive scrub.
- jchrisa 5y agoI use a chain mail scrub, and if things get bad, a razorblade. Just be sure to dry it over a flame with some coconut oil after each wash.
- gopalv 5y ago> if things get bad, a razorblade A blow-torch works just great too, just the kind you'd use for a creme brulee to carbonize the stuck stuff (usually cheese for me) and scrape it off.
- mrspuratic 5y ago+1 for chainmail scrub. Just a gentle, circular motion keeps the surface even and smooth, and removes any blackened food. I mostly cook with (salted) butter, and only ever use beech wood spatulas to lift. I also have a ribbed square pan which is more of a challenge...
- ChuckMcM 5y agoI appreciate where you are coming from but I have seen cast iron that folks "did what they wanted with it" and it wasn't pretty. From rusted through holes to massive pitting that made them food safety nightmares. My point being that, as with any tool, there are practices that will limit the lifetime of the tool and eventually render it unfit for its intended purpose. Learning about the best practices for using a tool can help avoid that fate.
- scarmig 5y agoI googled some pictures, and yeah, that's appalling. I just have no idea how it happens. I have abused my Lodge cast iron for the better part of a decade and it's totally fine. Perhaps a lot is implicit in my "within reason" that some people willfully violate.
- xyzzyz 5y agoI suppose putting them through a dishwasher cycle, then putting them into pantry dry with no oil, and then leaving it there for a few weeks would be one way to get there.
- throwawayboise 5y agoThe nice thing is that no matter what you do, they are pretty much recoverable by cleaning, possibly sanding, and re-seasoning.
- ChuckMcM 5y agoThis is so true. I picked up a "ruined" cast iron griddle for free at a garage sale and used a surface grinder on it to get back to the metal, re-seasoned it, and now its the camping griddle.
- i_am_proteus 5y agoMy experience, as long as you cook with plenty of fat each time, the pan gets a kind of a re-season when you cook with it, and it'll hold up to most kinds of cleaning. People who don't cook with plenty of fat, they have problems.
- ChuckMcM 5y agoAgreed, we typically put about 1/2" of water in them, bring it to a vigorous boil, pour it off and then wipe down the pan with a few drops of olive oil.
- gtvwill 5y agoSeason it with flaxseed oil and you won't need the fat.
- wiether 5y agoIsn't flaxseed oil... fat ?
- klyrs 5y ago100% fat
- etrautmann 5y agoYou have to bring it above smoke point until it polymerizes into a hard layer that stays on the pan and makes it anti stick
- amluto 5y agoIf you actually take flax oil and heat it, you end up with a very attractive layer that is neither hard nor nonstick.
- kbutler 5y agoThe point is to have the pan well-seasoned, which requires fat but doesn't add (significant?) fat to your food, then it doesn't take as much fat to keep the food from sticking. Some users claim flaxseed oil is the ideal oil for seasoning cast iron, as it is a drying oil w/ a high smoke point. https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/5820-the-ultimate-way-to-season-cast-iron https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/5820-the-ultimate-w... Others claim the "drying oil" is an incorrect theory, and that the polymerized oil from a drying oil is a coating that would flake off, rather than the desired bonding with the cast iron.
- morsch 5y agoI think the food safety concerns are a bit exaggerated. I guess you could get some sort of mold in there. Most safety concerns are alleviated because the pan is presumably heated through regularly on account of it being a pan. Maybe I suffer from a lack of imagination regarding the magnitude of the pitting.
- axaxs 5y agoSame. The only rule I have for mine is "oil it when you're done." I'm a guy who just never washed it. Scrape it, heat it with oil, rub it down...and done. My wife insists on washing it normally. Though well seasoned, it will absolutely surface rust in lot of places if not oiled after dried.
- WillPostForFood 5y agoIf the pan is well seasoned, it shouldn't be rusting. It is showing the seasoning is thin or incomplete and water is reacting directly with the iron.
- axaxs 5y agoThe inside bottom I should say is well seasoned. The sides, handle, and outside...not so much. In my experience even the inside bottom will at times rust in places. Likely where the seasoning broke or was tore through in scraping.
- estaseuropano 5y agoOur cast irons have a good seasoning and we never need to scrape them, no matter what we cook. A hard rub with a wet cloth, if necessary a few minutes soaking before that is the worst we do. We did an initial oil (sunflower or rapeseed) or two, either on the flame or more likely in the oven, and my partner cooks with a lot of oil. No expert at all so maybe we have just been lucky so far, but it works.
- axaxs 5y agoIt really depends on what you cook, and when you clean it. If you can stay on top of it, you can usually just wipe it down with oil cloth while it's hot, and presto, like new. If you run it too hot and dry and start burning something, and let it sit and cool...get the hammer and chisel. I usually don't preseason my pans, as just cooking will take care of it over time. I do however take an angle grinder to the inside to get it glassy when new. Much easier to cook eggs on than that sandpaper Lodge gives you.
- armchairhacker 5y agoThis is why i like cast irons. Nonstick pans wear out. But I have 2 cast irons, one new one super old, and they look and function the exact same.
- jtchang 5y agoI disagree that you can pretty much do whatever you want with them. Modern conveniences such as a dishwasher coupled with a focus on healthy eating (less fat) result in poorly taken care of cast iron pans. Dishwashing soap these days are also a lot more efficient than they use to be. More and better surfactants eat away at any pantina that develops. Yes you can drop a cast iron and nothing will happen to it. But to get eggs not to stick to it takes a bit of upkeep.
- kart23 5y agoI think poster meant you can do anything in the sense of actually cooking with it. putting cast iron in the dishwasher seems insane to me though.
- dlp211 5y agoToday's soaps aren't damaging to cast iron and aren't powerful enough on their own to remove baked on seasoning. This myth persists because it used to be true, old soaps used lye and vinegar, which were effective at doing things you didn't want with a cast iron skillet/pan.
- ascii_only 5y agoDid you try it? I didn't know better and tried it long time ago. Cast iron skillet that was used for years. After few times in dishwasher significant chunk of seasoning was gone.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> People treat their cast irons as if they're fine china. The reality is they've been used for hundreds of years for cooking, without complicated maintenance routines. Cleaning with water and not-too-abrasive tool plus initial and periodic long heating with oil aren't complicated, they are just different from the convenient methods applied for more modern cookware.
- mynameisash 5y agoA few years ago while visiting a friend, we made some mongolian bbq after a long day of hiking. I started chopping up veggies and asked him to get his skillet. He pulled out the nastiest monstrosity I'd ever seen: a fuzzy green skillet that by volume was more alive than not. It turns out he takes his cast iron abuse to a new level: as soon as he's done with it and it's cooled, he puts it away, not even scraping food into the garbage. When he needs it again, he just cranks up the heat until it's billowing smoke, at which point he scrapes the char away from it. I can't get behind that approach, but knowing my friend, I have no doubt that he's been doing that for two decades or more.
- t8e56vd4ih 5y agohe's single, isn't he
- ChuckNorris89 5y agoOuch. No amount of aloe vera can cure this burn.
- mynameisash 5y agoNo, he's happily married.
- andrewmcwatters 5y agoThis is still probably more hygienic than other techniques people use.
- vkou 5y agoIt might be, but I doubt his home has the ventilation necessary to get all that smoke out before it causes problems to his health.
- nkrisc 5y agoI mean as long as he’s doing it outside and he keys everything burn off… I guess it’s OK. Still wouldn’t recommend it as standard practice.
- grawprog 5y agoI've had one for years. I use soap and a steel wool pad on it, dry it off on the stove and use some oil and maybe a bit of garlic in it afterwards. It's fine. No rust, no sticking or anything. Never had any problems. As long as you don't leave it sitting wet there should really be no problem with them.
- tmp538394722 5y agoWhat’s the theory with the garlic?
- grawprog 5y agoMakes things taste better. Garlic's tasty and full of oil. The flavour of the garlic infuses into the oil. Depends on what you plan to cook though, probably wouldn't add it if I was planning on cooking pancakes or something. But a stirfry or anything like that.
- morsch 5y agoGarlic is 0.5% fat according to Wikipedia.
- grawprog 5y agoYup and that 0.5% is pretty darn flavourful.
- morsch 5y agoSeems more like an "okay, but" than a "yes, and".
- grawprog 5y agoI dunno I mean try it and see. It makes the oil you're seasoning the pan with taste like garlic, imparting garlic flavour into the food you cook. I'm not sure how else to say this more clearly. I enjoy the taste of garlic, so i like the extra garlic flavour, if you enjoy extra garlic flavour, this is a way to impart some extra while seasoning your pan. And you end up with a bit of extra crispy browned garlic to add to the meal.
- jlg23 5y ago> The reality is they've been used for hundreds of years for cooking, without complicated maintenance routines. But they have been used routinely: They seasoned themselves just by being used and they never saw strong detergents. "Iron rusts" was obvious to everyone because one was confronted with it every day and thus the drying for the night or oiling/greasing to protect against humidity was a natural task. Nowadays, when we don't use our one cast iron pot every day, we need to replace the routinely usage with a maintenance routine.
- avs733 5y agoWe have three cast iron skillets that see nearly daily use. You are exactly right on this. Ours get, scrubbed, wiped, soaped, and cleaned as needed but just use and constant reseasoning is all it takes to make them look and cook gorgeously. Our parents (in particular) are terrified of the damn pans. Of caring for them of using them. They have this trope in their heads that is just a feedback loop… they see them as fragile so they treat them as fragile so they become fragile. Just cook at home more, preferably bacon. Lots of mechanical things are meant to be used, pans, cars, homes. Letting them sit unused causes more decay