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Kenji Lopez-Alt (formerly of Serious Eats) believes flaxseed oil results in seasoning that will flake off. I've not heard that allegation from others, but I adm

Kenji Lopez-Alt (formerly of Serious Eats) believes flaxseed oil results in seasoning that will flake off. I've not heard that allegation from others, but I admit he generally does his homework.

anderiv 4y ago
I've experienced this firsthand, and can corroborate Kenji's recommendation against using flaxseed oil. I drank the flaxseed Kool-aid (courtesy of this article) when I first started purchasing cast iron ~6 years ago. The flaxseed seasoning is incredibly hard, which is great, until its brittleness causes it to flake off. I was constantly losing bits of seasoning nearly every time I used a pan. (my working theory is that thermal expansion/contraction causes parts of the polymerized coating to lose bond with the steel over time). I finally got sick of dealing with it, going at all my pans with an angle grinder and flap disk to remove the old seasoning and started over using bog standard vegetable oil. I've not had a flaking problem since. I do need to re-season more frequently, but that is easy and quick to do.
- prometheus76 4y ago
  BTW a wire wheel would probably clean the old seasoning off faster than a sanding disk. That being said, the sanding disk has the added benefit of giving you a smoother finish on your cast iron, which is nice because most cast iron cookware available in the US is no longer machined on the interior surface. They leave it rough after the sand-forging process.
  - anderiv 4y ago
    Yeah, as long as I was removing the seasoning I figured I might as well also get them as smooth as possible, as they were all modern Lodge pans.
  - tonyarkles 4y ago
    The lowest effort approach I’ve found to stripping bad seasoning off a pan is to just throw it in the oven on self-clean. But make sure you’ve got the windows open! The results are beautiful but also accompanied by some acrid smoke.
  - jadams5 4y ago
    Gotta be careful with the wire wheel, it's possible to get the surface too smooth and the seasoning won't stick as well. Source: I've stripped and re-seasoned 20+ pans and the one I wire wheeled has never been quite right. People on /r/castiron also advise against it. Even for pans where the sand cast finish was milled smooth from the factory.
    - prometheus76 4y ago
      So the wire wheel causes this, but not a sanding disc? I trust your experience, but that's very counterintuitive. I've never used either on my cast iron, so I appreciate your feedback.
    - giardini 4y ago
      I recommend never using any kind of wire wheel, brush or scraper around any kind of food utensils whatsoever. The wire will break and you could ingest a fragment or it could embed in your eye/skin with serious consequences: ttps://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-recipes/a32733/wire-grill-brush-dangers/ The article suggests alternatives such as coil brushes or crumpled aluminum foil instead. Also there are chemical methods. Wire tools deserve considerable respect and should be used only with protective gloves and eyeware and even skin protection, since spun-off pieces of wire can embed in eyes or bare skin (and you may not notice). Good news: any embedded wire or steel fragment shows up like a lighthouse in an x-ray, making them extremely easy to locate.
Graziano_M 4y ago
He specifically says that when people complain about their seasoning not working and he asks where they learned to season like that, they usually refer to this article. So I wonder if this article is doing more harm than good.
radus 4y ago
Same experience, also a direct result of reading this blog post. It looks great at first but eventually flakes and is more trouble than its worth.
hangonhn 4y ago
Minute Foods recently said the same about flaxseed oil. https://youtu.be/3bZVk0LpilM https://youtu.be/3bZVk0LpilM
EdwardCoffin 4y ago
I followed Canter’s article to season my pans, back when it came out, and have had no trouble with them since. Cook’s illustrated did a short piece on the method not long after it came out too, and found it satisfactory, at least with a minor tweak or two,
swearwolf 4y ago
That was exactly my experience. I tried this method many times, thinking I must have made a mistake each time, but it was always the same result. The seasoning would work beautifully for a short while, and then it would flake. Luckily, later on I learned a better way - a cooking spray called Baker’s Joy, which is essentially oil impregnated with a little flour. The flour seems to help speed up the seasoning process, so you can get to a well seasoned pan quickly. I usually heat the pan up, either in the oven or on the grill, then spray the Baker’s Joy when it’s still very hot. I make sure the pan is well coated, then I wipe out the excess. This technique won’t give you a hard shell like the flaxseed oil method does, but it does seem to produce the same results as multiple seasoning sessions in a single pass. I’ve also found that cooking an onion in the pan helps when the seasoning isn’t quite what you want it to be yet. I read once that it’s a traditional method for breaking in a carbon steel wok.

Kenji Lopez-Alt (formerly of Serious Eats) believes flaxseed oil results in seasoning that will flake off. I've not heard that allegation from others, but I admit he generally does his homework.

anderiv 4y ago

I've experienced this firsthand, and can corroborate Kenji's recommendation against using flaxseed oil. I drank the flaxseed Kool-aid (courtesy of this article) when I first started purchasing cast iron ~6 years ago. The flaxseed seasoning is incredibly hard, which is great, until its brittleness causes it to flake off. I was constantly losing bits of seasoning nearly every time I used a pan. (my working theory is that thermal expansion/contraction causes parts of the polymerized coating to lose bond with the steel over time). I finally got sick of dealing with it, going at all my pans with an angle grinder and flap disk to remove the old seasoning and started over using bog standard vegetable oil. I've not had a flaking problem since. I do need to re-season more frequently, but that is easy and quick to do.

prometheus76 4y ago
BTW a wire wheel would probably clean the old seasoning off faster than a sanding disk. That being said, the sanding disk has the added benefit of giving you a smoother finish on your cast iron, which is nice because most cast iron cookware available in the US is no longer machined on the interior surface. They leave it rough after the sand-forging process.
- anderiv 4y ago
  Yeah, as long as I was removing the seasoning I figured I might as well also get them as smooth as possible, as they were all modern Lodge pans.
- tonyarkles 4y ago
  The lowest effort approach I’ve found to stripping bad seasoning off a pan is to just throw it in the oven on self-clean. But make sure you’ve got the windows open! The results are beautiful but also accompanied by some acrid smoke.
- jadams5 4y ago
  Gotta be careful with the wire wheel, it's possible to get the surface too smooth and the seasoning won't stick as well. Source: I've stripped and re-seasoned 20+ pans and the one I wire wheeled has never been quite right. People on /r/castiron also advise against it. Even for pans where the sand cast finish was milled smooth from the factory.
  - prometheus76 4y ago
    So the wire wheel causes this, but not a sanding disc? I trust your experience, but that's very counterintuitive. I've never used either on my cast iron, so I appreciate your feedback.
  - giardini 4y ago
    I recommend never using any kind of wire wheel, brush or scraper around any kind of food utensils whatsoever. The wire will break and you could ingest a fragment or it could embed in your eye/skin with serious consequences: ttps://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-recipes/a32733/wire-grill-brush-dangers/ The article suggests alternatives such as coil brushes or crumpled aluminum foil instead. Also there are chemical methods. Wire tools deserve considerable respect and should be used only with protective gloves and eyeware and even skin protection, since spun-off pieces of wire can embed in eyes or bare skin (and you may not notice). Good news: any embedded wire or steel fragment shows up like a lighthouse in an x-ray, making them extremely easy to locate.

Graziano_M 4y ago

He specifically says that when people complain about their seasoning not working and he asks where they learned to season like that, they usually refer to this article. So I wonder if this article is doing more harm than good.

radus 4y ago

Same experience, also a direct result of reading this blog post. It looks great at first but eventually flakes and is more trouble than its worth.

hangonhn 4y ago

Minute Foods recently said the same about flaxseed oil. https://youtu.be/3bZVk0LpilM https://youtu.be/3bZVk0LpilM

EdwardCoffin 4y ago

I followed Canter’s article to season my pans, back when it came out, and have had no trouble with them since. Cook’s illustrated did a short piece on the method not long after it came out too, and found it satisfactory, at least with a minor tweak or two,

swearwolf 4y ago

That was exactly my experience. I tried this method many times, thinking I must have made a mistake each time, but it was always the same result. The seasoning would work beautifully for a short while, and then it would flake. Luckily, later on I learned a better way - a cooking spray called Baker’s Joy, which is essentially oil impregnated with a little flour. The flour seems to help speed up the seasoning process, so you can get to a well seasoned pan quickly. I usually heat the pan up, either in the oven or on the grill, then spray the Baker’s Joy when it’s still very hot. I make sure the pan is well coated, then I wipe out the excess. This technique won’t give you a hard shell like the flaxseed oil method does, but it does seem to produce the same results as multiple seasoning sessions in a single pass. I’ve also found that cooking an onion in the pan helps when the seasoning isn’t quite what you want it to be yet. I read once that it’s a traditional method for breaking in a carbon steel wok.