I don’t doubt that painting a layer of congealed linseed oil varnish will produce these results, but they are not necessary. I tried to follow this article’s a

I don’t doubt that painting a layer of congealed linseed oil varnish will produce these results, but they are not necessary. I tried to follow this article’s advice several years ago. It never really worked out for me and ultimately felt like pseudoscience. I have better advice that actually works. Iron and steel are sponges for oil but only when hot. If you get your pan hot and put lots of oil in it, the pan will be flooded with grease at the micro and macro levels. That’s it: hot pan, lots of oil, wipe out / pour off the excess. I used to bake a lot in a domestic oven. Baking baguettes needs steam, so I used one of my small cast irons as a steam bath. I would bring the oven up to the hottest temperature with a dry pan inside. When the baguettes went in I would throw a pint of just-boiled water into the skillet to flood the oven with steam. Do this enough times and your skillet will look like it has been dragged through skillet hell. Dull, dry, and red with rust. All it needed was one good clean, a sand paper scrub to smooth the surface, and one hot oil soak and the pan was slick enough to make an Appalachian grandma happy.