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I 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 ma
by ChuckMcM 5y ago
I 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.