4 ms·

I agree with this, from not being afraid to use soap, to you are putting too much oil on it when you are done with it. When I purchased my most recent new cast

I agree with this, from not being afraid to use soap, to you are putting too much oil on it when you are done with it. When I purchased my most recent new cast iron, I did power sand the interior with a drill attachment. I prefer the smooth interior to the rough interior that they come with, and for me they stay rough for a very long time. It also gave me the opportunity to know what exactly the inside cooking surface is seasoned with (crisco).

denton-scratch 5y ago
Crisco? I don't agree with the claim that simply cooking fatty food results in a seasoned pan. Nor does oiling it before putting it away - that just deters rust. I don't know what mixture of oils they're using at the moment in Crisco, but I doubt any of the ingredients is a drying oil. Drying oils polymerise readily when exposed to air, and especially when heated. Linseed oil is the most-prominent example. If you smear linseed oil on wood, it will harden into a tough finish in a few days. Flax seed oil was mentioned up-thread; that's the same stuff, but food-grade. If you have to season from scratch, invest in some flax oil, apply VERY thinly, and bake for an hour, then cool. Repeat 5 times. If you need to strip it, caustic soda does a pretty thorough job.
- asciimov 5y ago
  Yes, many people have great success with flax seed oil. However, many experience flaking from either improper seasoning, poor quality oil, or simply using too much. I stick to vegetable oils and shortenings because it's what my grandparents and their parents used. I find that it works well, is cheap ($3/16oz vs $12/8oz), and readily available. I choose crisco because of its shelf life and high smoke point. Seasoning cast iron with crisco is the same process as flax seed oil, but you don't have to repeat the process as many times and it is forgiving if you use too much. You still should use very little oil and season the pan upside down so any excess oil doesn't pool on the surface. Finally, I don't care to keep or use lye.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    "Lye" is the same as caustic soda? I saw the word used several times up-thread. In my lexicon, lye is made from wood-ash; the stuff I'm referring to comes as white pellets, and it's nasty stuff indeed - rubber gloves and goggles. I keep it because my drains tend to get blocked, and caustic works better than supermarket drain-cleaner. I also keep a bottle of "Spirits of Salts", which is 30% HCl in water. It's better at removing scale than supermarket toilet cleaners. I imagine a vigorous reaction would occur if I were ever to mix these two sustances. Frankly, I don't like paying a premium for a proprietary product, when these simple chemicals just work better and go further.
    - adrian_b 5y ago
      "Lye" is now frequently used for any kind of strong alkali. Nowadays caustic soda is much cheaper than caustic potash, so "lye" is applied more frequently to caustic soda. The original sense of the word "lye" was referring, as you said, to the lye obtained from wood ash (or other vegetable ash), whose main component was caustic potash. Caustic soda, having similar properties, was obtained from soda (sodium carbonate) extracted from evaporite mineral deposits. Before the end of the 18th century, when the names of potash and soda (formerly just commercial names) were adopted in the chemical language, for many centuries the scientific names for lye (caustic potash) and caustic soda were vegetable alkali and mineral alkali, because of their different preparation methods.
- KozmoNau7 5y ago
  > I don't agree with the claim that simply cooking fatty food results in a seasoned pan. I'm sorry to say that you disagree with every professional kitchen that uses cast iron or carbon steel cookware. Regular cooking with adequate amounts of fat is absolutely what maintains and strengthens the seasoning. The initial layer you bake/fry on is only a starter to get the pan ready for use. For carbon steel pans, it also serves to prevent it from rusting, after you remove the protective wax/lacquer that was put on it for shipping. > If you have to season from scratch, invest in some flax oil, apply VERY thinly, and bake for an hour, then cool. Repeat 5 times. You can do this, and it results in a very pretty deep dark golden coating that would look great on a display piece. Unfortunately the resulting coating is brittle and doesn't bind very well to the surface, so it's fragile and will flake off. It's more of a lacquer coating than an actual polymerization of fat molecules onto the iron. To be clear, I tried this exactly as the common advice tells you to: by meticulously cleaning and drying the pan, then wiping on a super-thin almost dry layer of oil, then heating in the oven, then repeating several times. The coating was very pretty, but it was no match for the normal method I use, which is the one recommended by Matfer Bourgeat and De Buyer for their carbon steel pans. Just clean the pan well, then fry up a batch of potato peels in plenty of oil and salt, until the peels are very dark. Clean out the pan and start using it. It will get better and better the more you use it. That's all there is to it, and it's so much quicker than repeated applications of flaxseed oil and baking cycles.

denton-scratch 5y ago

Crisco? I don't agree with the claim that simply cooking fatty food results in a seasoned pan. Nor does oiling it before putting it away - that just deters rust. I don't know what mixture of oils they're using at the moment in Crisco, but I doubt any of the ingredients is a drying oil. Drying oils polymerise readily when exposed to air, and especially when heated. Linseed oil is the most-prominent example. If you smear linseed oil on wood, it will harden into a tough finish in a few days. Flax seed oil was mentioned up-thread; that's the same stuff, but food-grade. If you have to season from scratch, invest in some flax oil, apply VERY thinly, and bake for an hour, then cool. Repeat 5 times. If you need to strip it, caustic soda does a pretty thorough job.

asciimov 5y ago
Yes, many people have great success with flax seed oil. However, many experience flaking from either improper seasoning, poor quality oil, or simply using too much. I stick to vegetable oils and shortenings because it's what my grandparents and their parents used. I find that it works well, is cheap ($3/16oz vs $12/8oz), and readily available. I choose crisco because of its shelf life and high smoke point. Seasoning cast iron with crisco is the same process as flax seed oil, but you don't have to repeat the process as many times and it is forgiving if you use too much. You still should use very little oil and season the pan upside down so any excess oil doesn't pool on the surface. Finally, I don't care to keep or use lye.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  "Lye" is the same as caustic soda? I saw the word used several times up-thread. In my lexicon, lye is made from wood-ash; the stuff I'm referring to comes as white pellets, and it's nasty stuff indeed - rubber gloves and goggles. I keep it because my drains tend to get blocked, and caustic works better than supermarket drain-cleaner. I also keep a bottle of "Spirits of Salts", which is 30% HCl in water. It's better at removing scale than supermarket toilet cleaners. I imagine a vigorous reaction would occur if I were ever to mix these two sustances. Frankly, I don't like paying a premium for a proprietary product, when these simple chemicals just work better and go further.
  - adrian_b 5y ago
    "Lye" is now frequently used for any kind of strong alkali. Nowadays caustic soda is much cheaper than caustic potash, so "lye" is applied more frequently to caustic soda. The original sense of the word "lye" was referring, as you said, to the lye obtained from wood ash (or other vegetable ash), whose main component was caustic potash. Caustic soda, having similar properties, was obtained from soda (sodium carbonate) extracted from evaporite mineral deposits. Before the end of the 18th century, when the names of potash and soda (formerly just commercial names) were adopted in the chemical language, for many centuries the scientific names for lye (caustic potash) and caustic soda were vegetable alkali and mineral alkali, because of their different preparation methods.
KozmoNau7 5y ago
> I don't agree with the claim that simply cooking fatty food results in a seasoned pan. I'm sorry to say that you disagree with every professional kitchen that uses cast iron or carbon steel cookware. Regular cooking with adequate amounts of fat is absolutely what maintains and strengthens the seasoning. The initial layer you bake/fry on is only a starter to get the pan ready for use. For carbon steel pans, it also serves to prevent it from rusting, after you remove the protective wax/lacquer that was put on it for shipping. > If you have to season from scratch, invest in some flax oil, apply VERY thinly, and bake for an hour, then cool. Repeat 5 times. You can do this, and it results in a very pretty deep dark golden coating that would look great on a display piece. Unfortunately the resulting coating is brittle and doesn't bind very well to the surface, so it's fragile and will flake off. It's more of a lacquer coating than an actual polymerization of fat molecules onto the iron. To be clear, I tried this exactly as the common advice tells you to: by meticulously cleaning and drying the pan, then wiping on a super-thin almost dry layer of oil, then heating in the oven, then repeating several times. The coating was very pretty, but it was no match for the normal method I use, which is the one recommended by Matfer Bourgeat and De Buyer for their carbon steel pans. Just clean the pan well, then fry up a batch of potato peels in plenty of oil and salt, until the peels are very dark. Clean out the pan and start using it. It will get better and better the more you use it. That's all there is to it, and it's so much quicker than repeated applications of flaxseed oil and baking cycles.