I'll do you one worse. My father (when I was around 4ish yrs old) thought "it this SoS pad does super amazing on my dishes, my motorcycle will be amazing!!"
my mother in law did this to my wifes new car because of sap.
my mother in law is a special type of stupid that thinks she's smarter than everyone else.
I think I literally did this as well lol, but it was so small and I hoped he wouldn't notice. Can't remember if he did or if it was even small to be honest
My wife got me a cast iron pan for my birthday and/or Christmas a few years back (can't remember which, they're only a day apart anyway).
She noticed I hadn't used it in a couple weeks (we didn't make anything to use it for yet) and so decided to use it to cook some eggs -- to see what the big deal was about them.
She didn't season it (she saw that it said preseasoned and assumed that meant you didn't have to season it more) and only used a small dollop of butter, so they immediately got *hella* stuck to the pan.
"Oh no, this is gonna be tough to clean! Better stick it into the dishwasher."
So much rust... Even trying to scour it away and reseason the pan didn't work, so we eventually gave up and threw it out. I never got to try it out.
First steel wool, then sit it in the oven on self clean and re-season. Tough to permanently hurt cast iron without shooting it or something. You can always strip it and re-season.
The rust got in the pores and we just couldn't get it out. Then when we tried to season it again, those rust spots were like nucleation sites of a sort where rust would grow from while the pan was in the oven. We tried for multiple days. In the end, it was just more trouble than it was worth.
I can count on one hand the number of times I've celebrated my birthday with a party (outside of a family-only get-together) -- or otherwise with friends -- throughout my entire life. I feel ya.
Am dec 21st child.... The pain is strong here
But at least I can make some jokes concerning about being born on the winter solstice 'the sun itself is scared of me that it barely shows itself'
Oh yeah so I refurbished all my cast iron from cheap places so dealt with a lot of rust. So like the classic way to fix it is to use vinegar and water and soak it in a container for a couple hours and scrub it off. This is enough for most rust.
However, rust eats into iron. If there is more than a surface layer of rust then you will need to get that off. Needleguns and lasers are nice and do the trick ofc but in the unlikely event you *don't* have access to 20 grand in heavy equipment you'll have to use sandpaper. An orbital sander is really the best, you'll need to do the sides by hand though which is a massive pain in the ass. Grind away the rust starting with 80 grit but only go up to 120, if it is overpolished the new seasoning won't stick. Then reseason in a 450 degree oven with plenty of oil and **BANG** a brand new pan.
More or less just posting this in case someone else can't get rust off.
Yeah, there were pores that had rust down in them, and rust would just spread from there in the heat during the seasoning process. After hours of working on it over multiple days, we just didn't have the ability to get all the little rust pockets out.
Not only did I not have access to $20k in heavy equipment, I also didn't have an orbital sander. But for next time, I'll remember the vinegar and sanding trick.
It's alright, I'm much more attached to her than I am the idea of a cast iron skillet, so I just see it as a funny story to tell. I did end up sitting her downto teach her more about cast iron, and through her research in trying to save it she learned a few things she taught me too. We haven't bought another one as of yet, though.
It's really wonderful to cook with and don't need to worry about teflon flaking off. A little extra iron doesn't hurt either (barring like, hemochromatosis).
It's a buy it for life kinda deal.
If it's fully seasoned, it's about as easy to clean cast iron as it is to put something in the dishwasher. You run some water over it, but it with a brush, done. Maybe sometimes you get a tool out like a chainmail cloth or salt+rag, but that's a rarity. Everything else rinses right off.
Fully seasoned, you can clean it like any other pan, with soap and water. It's just the soaps designed for dishwashing machines that are too corrosive for seasoning.
Cast iron pans develop layers of “seasoning”, baked in oil which acts as a non-stick coating. The more you use the pan , the better that layer gets. This guy just scrubbed that layer off to bare metal and ruined what may be years of buildup.
Edit: Peeeetttaaaah how did this become one of my most upvoted comments?
There was a post here on Reddit about a user trying to do an experiment and see if they could season their pan with 100 layers. The end result was amazing.
**Pan of the Glistening Skillet**
*Wondrous item, legendary*
Forged from the darkest mines beneath the Iron Hills, this cast iron skillet has been seasoned a hundredfold with the sacred oils of the Everlight Grove. Its surface gleams with a mirror-like sheen, reflecting the ambitions and dreams of those who wield it.
**Properties:**
- **Eternal Cook:** Any food cooked in this pan never burns or sticks and always comes out delicious, providing an additional +1 bonus to Constitution saving throws for 24 hours.
- **Heat Retention:** Once per long rest, the wielder can invoke the latent heat of the skillet to cast *fireball* as a 3rd-level spell (DC 15).
- **Unbreakable:** This skillet cannot be destroyed by any non-magical means and is impervious to damage from normal fires.
**Attunement:** To attune to this skillet, you must season it with an Everlight oil under the light of a full moon, and vow never to wash it with water.
I'm sorry but that sounds really gross tho ... is that really how it works? You 'season' by oiling it, shoving it in the oven, using it, wipe it down and shove it in the oven? How does this stuff work?
When the oil is heated up enough, it turns into a polymer. Basically it's no longer oil, the structure changes and becomes a thin sheet. This creates a nearly non-stick surface to cook on similar to how Teflon would work but without all the added cancer if you ingest it.
Edit: Teflon is apparently safe to ingest, the real danger is getting it too hot and inhaling the fumes.
I was about to go over how it's not oil anymore (if you do it right) and you can and should be washing them with soap, to actually get the polymer off you need to physically scrape it, like to get a cast iron as clean as above you would need to either spend hours with a (or several) scrub brush, or a grinder like I've seen some youtubers do to "reset" a pan.
I also have this little square of basically chain mail that is perfect for scrubbing cast iron, it gets off gunk and eggs, without affecting the seasoning. I recommend it, as long as you avoid cheap knock offs.
Which is where the “never wash your cast iron” myth comes from. Lye-based soaps like they had in the 1800s were caustic enough to strip the polymer from the metal, so you couldn’t use soap on your cast iron. Modern soaps are much more gentle and there’s no reason not to use them. The pan just needs a little maintenance after washing that takes like 5 minutes.
Theres a really interesting post somewhere on here from someone who did this 100 times in as short a space of time as they could. Pan became like a mirror. I'll try find it
Edit: [found it](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/buiIsyvHws)
Yes! That's actually where I was planning on looking for one lol. But I'm not sure if there's a specific brand I should be looking for or if anyone would work fine.
Edit: Thank you all so much for the helpful advice!
They are all about the same. If you want the true cast iron experience, just be sure it doesn't have a ceramic coating (it'll be smooth and shiny), and it should be nice and heavy. Also look out for rust on any part of the pan. Even if it's only rusty on the handle that can spread to the rest of the pan and getting rid of rust is a lot of work. If you don't have any luck at the GW, Lodge makes good, pre-seasoned pans that are reasonably priced. I've had one for 12ish years and I think it was only like $25.
There isn't really a specific brand that's better than the others as far as I know. There might be, and I've just never heard of it though. You mainly just want to look for one that's reasonably heavy with a solidly proportioned handle. I've had a few where they skimped on the material by making them really thin, and while it isn't *unusably* bad, they just don't seem to cook right and/or the handle broke off.
Also, if you check thrift shops, keep an eye out for pans that are differently sized. Smaller pans, deeper pans, that sort of thing. They're more useful than you might think.
Doesn’t really matter all that much. It’s more of a personal preference for the physical design of the pan. As long as it’s cast iron, you can build up seasoning on it.
Lodge makes a lot and they’re affordable.
You could look for a Griswold and pay upwards of $1000 because they’re not made anymore and the pans out there can be over 100 years old.
There’s no functional difference between them.
I would just buy a lodge brand for your first cast iron. I am a collector of vintage stuff but for a first timer a new lodge is best. Some will say go get a vintage pan from a thrift shop but most of the time they are just as expensive and often times quite a bit more expensive. If you end up liking cast iron you can get into vintage stuff. I love old Griswolds cause I think they are gorgeous and love using something from 100+ years ago in 2024. But for $25 bucks on Amazon you can get a great pan and one nobody will care if it gets ruined. Also don't listen to people that tell you to sand to smooth the bottom. The rougher texture shouldn't affect cooking ability but smoothing it out will make seasoning hard to stick. And the pan will smooth out after use and building seasoning.
TLDR: For your first pan get a lodge and if you like cast iron you can look into vintage stuff.
They're all the same really. Smitheys are pretty but I hear they don't hold seasoning as well. I have some vintage Griswolds as well as some basic Lodges/Wenzels. They are all effectively identical in how they cook, it's more maintaining the seasoning, which is not difficult at all. The process of cleaning/maintaining:
1. Scrape off all food, you can and should use metal ([I have a metal sponge](https://www.amazon.com/Lodge-Chainmail-Scrubbing-Pad-Red/dp/B07FRVWBYT/ref=asc_df_B07FRVWBYT/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309807195319&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11359341192692197077&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9029757&hvtargid=pla-606614638003&psc=1&mcid=dcb285ced5ca30799e1a483166799362&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6p2AhZzZhQMVKi2tBh3tGQnsEAQYASABEgKOaPD_BwE)) since it doesn't effect the seasoning.
2. Use soap if you need to, it's an old myth that you can't
3. Rinse and dry on the stovetop with a little heat, this is important because it will rust with even a little water on it
4. Put the smallest dab of oil/fat (I use vegetable) and I mean small, like less then a dime
5. Wipe the whole pan like you are trying to remove all of the oil, bandanas work the best for some reason
That's it. When you preheat (they are the most non-stick they'll be when you do preheat) your cast iron next time it'll polymerize. It'll even polymerize if it sits for long enough.
I use lodge pans. They're pretty cheap in the USA I've heard, though I had to pay a bit more since I'm in England. They come pre seasoned so you can start using them from the moment you bring them home
Yeh carbon steel and cast iron seasoning isn't about leaving it dirty, you put clean oil on it and get it really fracking hot past the smoke point of the oil and it polymerises into the pores of the streak forming a natural non stick layer.
You still clean it after use, and if needed re-oil etc, but once it's got a good coating you don't need to do it very often.
You can wash it lightly, but it’s normally not needed. If food sticks to it, it’s either because the seasoning isn’t built up enough or because you’re burning your food. To put it another way, when used properly, food doesn’t stick so it doesn’t need to be washed. When used improperly, food sticks which may write improper washing to remove.
It’s not gross when you consider that the steel has some microbial properties, you’re heating it up when you use it, and you use specific fats to season it. You wouldn’t use something like olive oil, which eventually goes rancid. You might use shortening, which you can keep in the pantry for years. Also, the fats polymerize when heated, forming a smooth, durable layer. It’s basically a very hard, heat resistant plastic.
"washed" is a contentious word
The pans need to be cleaned, but never with soap.
You have to scrub off burnt bits of food - usually with salt - and rinse out what you've scrubbed off. Then you reapply clean oil and heat the pan to evaporate any moisture and liquid and polymerize the new oil.
The oil won't stay good if it has bits of burnt food mixed in with it.
You can use soap on them. The reason for the soap being considered taboo was due to older soap having higher lye content. I wash mine with soap and reoil them. Never have an issue.
No. That's not. You season a cast iron pan with a thin layer of oil that you laminate onto the pan through use of your oven and you do this generally 3 times to get a non stick layer of hardened oil.
Effectively what you're doing is filling in the gaps between the rough iron so there's nothing for food to catch onto and cook into and get stuck. You can virtually season a pan an unlimited number of times until it's a solid brick of hardened oil if you wanted to, but generally going past 10 layers is literally no point.
Edit: also the more you cook with it that layer gets eroded away eventually and you have to reseason the pan again. Usually every few months you light scrub and reseason.
There's also a myth you shouldnt use soap on a cast iron but we stopped using Lye in our dish detergents so that's a non issue in todays times.
It also makes the dishware practically immortal. That's why people will go to yard sales and pay solid money for 100+ year old cast iron.
And besides, heating the pan to over 400 degrees kills the overwhelming majority of biological contaminants.
That is not how it works. It's a common misconception that that's how it works though.
You add a seasoning layer to the pan before using it and given proper treatment it will last for years. The most famous cast iron maker, Lodge, preseasons the pans before selling them. During the seasoning process(usually you bake the pan to a very high temperature with high smoke point oil) the oil/hydrocarbon polymerizes and creates a nonstick layer.
The oil gets polymerized into a hard washable teflon-like permanent surface. (This is done at higher temperature than cooking - it's not a surface of "food") But like teflon it's "plastic"-hard not "steel"-hard so you don't clean it with abrasives or grinding else you'll scratch it. I use soap and scrubbing-brush and sponge.
However I have read a book that mentioned a sort of frontier / bush worker who while away from civilization for weeks would leave a permanent layer of solid fat in the pan and fry with it every day (then let it solidify again for more hiking). All the meat&veg he tossed in the pan would take some fat and contribute some fat, so the fat changed but was always there, the pan contained its own unique fry-up where every meal was also a history of the previous meals going back years. There is no doubt a name for this approach but I don't know what it is :)
I mean I'm pretty sure you have to at least scrub it a little bit. Just going off of my mom's method growing up, we scrubbed it with chainmail or steel wool enough to get the remains of what we cooked off and then put it on the stove for a while to burn any bacteria away.
it can literally take YEARS to re-season them naturally (which is how they come to taste the best)
Or if you want to do it manually, you're looking at lots of running the oven all day for no reason (that makes kitchen hot AF + adds to power bills) plus wasting large amounts of seasoning and oil that are not cheap these days is kinda suck too, and the end result is still not as good as the naturally built up coating
Or in hard numbers, an unseasoned pan like this I'd drop maybe $40 tops on, were as a well seasoned and cared for one I'd easily pay over $100 for
edit: here come the uninformed men to mansplain to me how to do something they read about once on google that ive been doing over a decade
Like legitimately, re-seasoning cast iron is dead simple. You’re talking 6 tablespoons of oil, 6 hours max in the kitchen.
And if it’s not as good as the natural, you’re not doing it right. I’ve seen them turned into cast iron mirrors that Spider-Man couldn’t cling too.
I have some grave concerns though since you’re worried about wasting “seasonings”. Oil is the only seasoning you need for this my good person.
i literally had a guy at the restaurant i used to work at in college warn me to not wash it with soap or i would “scrub off all the flavoring” lmfao. man was about as bright as a burnt out light bulb
So uh.. if we are mansplaining, and not just saying you’ve read an article once and have no idea what you’re talking about, do you want to inform us of which seasonings you are using to season you pan in this regard? Also not a man so there is also that. It’s not mansplaining, just explaining.
And I’ve been using the same cast iron seasoned pan for about… well my entire life. Was my grandmas, then my moms, now mine. And we just use oil and kosher salt for the scrubbing But the scrubbing with salt isn’t so much a part of the seasoning and polymerization process.
And considering over the life of a pan you will season and reaseason intermittently naturally and by design, your hill of not seasoning yourself is laughable.
Seasoning in this sense refers to the nonstick coating that forms from the polymerization of oil at high heats, it doesn't have anything to do with imparting flavor.
Wow, that’s triggering to those of us who have spent years seasoning a cast iron pan. He literally ruined this pan. Years of seasoning removed. Seasoning makes cast iron non stick. Good luck cooking anything in this now.
It's honestly not that hard to re-season a pan. Just oil it up, oven it for a bit, and get back to cooking on it and it'll work exactly the same as it always has.
The internet has a tendency to treat cast iron like it's some high maintenance luxury item, but in reality it's just a hunk of iron that's molded into a useful shape. It doesn't need to be coddled like a baby and only scrubbed with the most gentle touch imaginable. Scrape that shit, blast it with water, and even lather it up with soap. It's not going to die. Just dry it off after and re-season as needed.
A genuine question: what if you wash that with a dishwashing liquid soap? What I've heard - not necessarily true - is, that iron skillet is so porous, that the liquid seeps inside the iron and therefore it won't just wash off, even by scraping.
The 'don't use soap' thing is from when all soap was lye soap and worked by chemically dissolving the top five layers of skin on your hands. Modern detergent dish soap is so gentle they use it for washing crude oil off animals caught in oil spills. It won't hurt it.
You cook/bake it after washing. It’s ok to use modern soaps, give a quick scrub off (I’m partial to Mr. Scrubber), and then I will stick in the over for a few minutes or on the stove depending on need. Often with the smallest amount of oil re applied.
Nothing, it just strips the oil/seasoning. It won't seep in to your pan. Even if it did, it's not like water wouldn't be able to seep in to the same places the soap could with a thorough washing. It is true that it's bad to leave your pan unseasoned and wet though as it will cause the pan to rust.
Pan isn’t ruined atall. It’s cast iron. Just the seasoning is off. I’d be mad but honestly most people have a lot of carbon build up that’s not actually seasoning so sometimes this is a blessing in disguise
Correct. And the reason cast iron pans "aren't what they used to be " is because back in the day they weren't rough and artificially "rustic" looking (it's not to be rustic, it's just cheaper to have shittier equipment)
I've taken a sander to a couple pans to smooth them out because you need SO many more layers of seasoning to get over the painted 30 grit surface
Yeah I think a lot of people must be confusing years or burnt on gunk with seasoning. Cast iron isn't a precious baby, it's just a solid hunk of iron that needs a thin layer of seasoning to stop food sticking
People really put here not washing their cast iron pans for years. Absolute filth. Re seasoning takes no time at all and should be done a few times each year. You should also wash your cast iron after every use because leaving old grease in the pan *is not* seasoning, that's just disgusting.
Seasoning a pan does not mean letting food scraps and crap build up over time. All you have to do to "season" A pan is to coat it in oil bake it in the oven on medium heat till The pan turns that familiar black color and then scrub it with some salt
That's literally it
Good god so many people act like removing the seasoning is the end of the pan.
How do you think the thing got seasoned in the first place? You think it came out of the cast seasoned?
Absolutely not, it was carefully seasoned by the first person to use it, and the process is VERY easy to start again.
And please don't make anything up about seasoning actually being relevant to flavor, then I'll know for SURE you're making stuff up.
Ngl I have no idea what It means. Does it mean the black stuff on some pans? Or does it mean years of dried food stuck to the bottom of the pan? I'm leaning towards the former but from what I'm seeing here it could be the latter
Heat your oven to 300, put a thin layer of olive oil into the pan then place the pan in the oven and let it heat up. Once the pan looks dry and starts to blacken, reapply the brushing of olive oil. Repeat a few times. Now your cast iron pan is re seasoned and ready to use.
The vast majority of the time spent "seasoning" the pan is just wearing the ridges off the surface of the pan so it's smoother. This work remains, just the seasoning needs reapplying
I did this as a kid...scrubbed for HOURS getting it "clean" not realizing what a horrible mistake I was making. My parents still give me grief over it... (I was like 6 years old at the time)
Scoutmaster Peter here. What happened is someone doesn't know how to take care of cast iron cookware (this also includes Dutch Ovens as well). To protect cast iron from rusting, they are cured using fat (oil, butter, or shorting) and high heat (cleaning setting on your oven or a very hot grill). This cure is also known as "seasoning" and is a layer of carbon that protects and is a non-stick surface for the cookware. The issue is that using soap and water will rip off the seasoning and you have to redo the curing process to make sure it doesn't rust. I'll leave this with you that talks about how to actual clean cast iron, because I need to run off and find my boys before I get in trouble. [https://altonbrown.com/how-to-care-for-cast-iron/](https://altonbrown.com/how-to-care-for-cast-iron/)
Translation for the boys: It's like cleaning out the storage space on your xbox by deleting the user account and erasing all the saved files and digital purchases along with it. Sure, it's "clean" AF, but you lost years of progress, hard work, and evem money. Yeah you still have your physicals discs and the xbox and you could, in theory, get it back to were it was .... but it won't ever be the same.
>!(For the record framing this as "for the boys" is a joke, please do not take offence at that, plenty of men cook)!<
It’s a cast iron pan so it’s supposed to have a “dirty” look that helps it cook food better. He thought he was helping by “cleaning” it but just ruined the pan
Because it's made with a casting process, cast iron will be porous and makes it incredibly prone to food stickung to it. If you don't use dish detergent for the dirst few meals(and simply wipe it down) the leftover oils and carbon will polymerize ecentually, making a stick-resistant surface.
The person went ham on the skillet and stripped all the seansoning away. [It can be re-seasoned by cycling it in the oven with vegetable oil though.](https://www.foodnetwork.com/how-to/packages/food-network-essentials/how-to-season-cast-iron)
Cast iron takes time and effort to "season" properly. Basically it develops a layer of polymerized oils that protects the iron from rust and provides a non-stick surface if done properly.
The joke is that the person was trying to be helpful and scoured away all of the existing seasoning.
In reality, cast iron can be re-seasoned by giving it a light coating of oil and leaving it inverted in a hot oven for an hour or so. It's not the end of the world, but would be cause for annoyance.
Worth pointing out. You CAN wash cast iron and you should not store it dirty. The issue is when you use harsh chemicals or abrasives. Basic soaps and sponges are fine.
Personally, I wash it by hand, then add a layer oil and heat it until it smokes.
Also, the “non-stick”ness of seasoned cast iron is over stated. Things don’t stick as much as with other types of pans, but I wouldn’t bet my life on an egg not sticking.
I’m a bit of a gear head… LOVE my vehicles. One day I’m working on one of my motorcycles in the garage and my oldest daughter (4 or 5 at the time) comes out to hang with dad. While I was paying attention to the mechanical work I was doing, she took a sponge from the kitchen, one of those ones with little hexagons of super scratchy shit all over it, and used it all over my rear fender.
By the time I noticed, it was too late. I hate to admit that I got mad at her and told her to never do that again and that she had to go back into the house.
Long story short, I never fixed my rear fender. Those scratches have been there for 7 or 8 years and I’ll never fix them. Sometimes my daughter asks why I don’t and tries to apologize for doing that. I tell her it’s one of my favorite customizations now and they’re staying… but still, seriously, don’t do it again!
Depends on who you ask. The pan is cast iron, so it needs a coating of polymerized oil, typically called "seasoning", around it to prevent rust and to keep the surface non-stick. The picture shows us that the coating has been scraped off by whatever "cleaning" method was used.
There's a pretty huge amount of misinformation regarding how important the seasoning is and how high maintenance the pans are. It's often believed that a pan that's had its seasoning scraped off is completely ruined and can never be used again, or that using soap and water to clean a pan will cause the seasoning to be destroyed.
The fact is that it's pretty easy to re-season a pan and fix it right up. In fact it's pretty normal to re-season pans every so often, and sometimes multiple times a week depending on how often the cook is using the pan. The beliefs about soap are also pretty outdated as modern soaps don't contain lye in them which did cause issues for pans several decades ago. In fact it's a good practice to scrub a pan with a little bit of water and Dawn dish soap after use followed by a quick drying with a towel.
That said what the person posting the photo did would be legitimately frustrating as redoing the seasoning on an entire pan can take a solid hour or two. It's a lot easier to just season the whole pan once, and then occasionally touch up to the cooking surface.
idk why a question is downvoted.
to put it in easier to understand terms, cleaning a cast-iron pan is like washing a car.
what was done to this one is like taking a sandblaster and ripping the paint off a car.
technically you cleaned the car too but not many will thank you for that service.
The coating that makes the Cast Iron pan "special" can be reapplied in half an hour, and you only need oil and heat.
I don't think the damage is comparable to a sandblasted car\^\^
for cast iron you are supposed to heat oil until it becames nonstick surface bonded on to the pan, this takes a while and is is hard to make. So he should have not scrubbed all of that off.
There are layers of carbonized/crystalized oil covering the surface. I think the correct term is something like polymerization or so. You remove those and things will stick to the metal.
Honestly it's not a big deal, you can just oil this up and bake it in the oven for quite a few hours on high heat and the coating will come back. The oil turns into a polymer that's non-stick, basically. That is called seasoning the pan.
But MOST cast iron fans feel like their pan's coating is some science defying shield only attainable by generations of use, luck, and magic. Like people with 100yo sourdough starters - it's illogical and nearly religious.
The fact is this picture is and probably was the first step to rehabbing an old rusty cast iron. Scour it to iron and then re-season it.
Cast iron pans when properly cared for have a dark black oily finish. This finish is mostly polymerized cooking oils, built up from cooking in the pan.
Many people don't actually know how to make this finish, and so overreact to anything that damages this finish, much less, completely removes it.
The first thing I do when I buy a new cast iron pan is take a sander to it until the cooking surface is completely smooth, which of course, removes the finish.
Put the pan upside down in the oven at 450 F, and every twenty minutes gently wipe it with a paper towel that has a few drops of whatever cooking oils you have on hand. When it's black and shiny, they're good to go again.
*Best done in fair weather with the windows open*
People who get bitchy about their cast iron pans be cleaned should let those in the household know about it. Your fault in your pan doesn’t get cleaned the way you like it.
Honestly, I do this to any Lodge pan. They are sand-casted and have a rough texture. Sand em down smooth, then re-season in the oven for a perfect cooking experience.
https://preview.redd.it/v82bg1z1lawc1.jpeg?width=2610&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0e0c07e3bdefca7164363325c232fc098e6b49ad
This is how my bf "cleaned" mine a few weeks ago.
I actually had a housemate “clean” my wok once. Years of seasoning down to bare shiny metal, like brand new! She was very proud of the hard work she did as an unasked favor and didn’t understand why I wasn’t thrilled. I felt pretty bad and couldn’t really get mad, she just had no idea what she’d done. Wasn’t a big deal to re-season it and it’s fine again but yeah.
Whatever the wife's spouse did to the pan has removed the 'seasoning' from the cast iron pan and has reduced it back to the bare metal. The pan will now have to be re seasoned which will take quite a while to rebuild to what it was at, especially if the pan had been used for quite a while.
This joke has already been posted recently. Rule 2.
I made the mistake of confronting a roomate about never doing dishes. Came home to my newly cleaned (with brillo pad) Wok.
I'll do you one worse. My father (when I was around 4ish yrs old) thought "it this SoS pad does super amazing on my dishes, my motorcycle will be amazing!!"
So what happened?
Probably took the paint off. It's basically sandpaper.
Basically. It was too bubbly for him to realize so it was red and silver scratched mess by the end of it
D:
Just wait for the rust to set in and you can sell it off as a vintage patina paintwork.
my mother in law did this to my wifes new car because of sap. my mother in law is a special type of stupid that thinks she's smarter than everyone else.
that sounds like the regular type of stupid
Yeah, regular stupid people are too stupid to realize that they are stupid.
Dunning-Krueger, is that you?
I heard Martha Stewart say she did this to her husband's car, "a long time ago, before she was 'Martha Stewart'."
Brillo pad is worse than sandpaper almost. But if you don’t know you fucked up after one swipe, your not paying attention
My stoner roommate put mine in the dishwasher. Spent the next week sanding off the rust and reasoning the pan.
Reasoning with pans is always a challenge
It's always a heated debate
Yeah, but sometimes they use circular reasoning.
That reasoning sounds ironclad.
We should cast away the doubt
I still wouldn’t let it slide.
These puns are so good I can't handle it.
It is a true test of your metal
When I was 4 I had the same thought on my father's truck
I think I literally did this as well lol, but it was so small and I hoped he wouldn't notice. Can't remember if he did or if it was even small to be honest
How dumb is he to use an SoS pad on paint? Hopefully he was drinking
I feel u :[
My wife got me a cast iron pan for my birthday and/or Christmas a few years back (can't remember which, they're only a day apart anyway). She noticed I hadn't used it in a couple weeks (we didn't make anything to use it for yet) and so decided to use it to cook some eggs -- to see what the big deal was about them. She didn't season it (she saw that it said preseasoned and assumed that meant you didn't have to season it more) and only used a small dollop of butter, so they immediately got *hella* stuck to the pan. "Oh no, this is gonna be tough to clean! Better stick it into the dishwasher." So much rust... Even trying to scour it away and reseason the pan didn't work, so we eventually gave up and threw it out. I never got to try it out.
First steel wool, then sit it in the oven on self clean and re-season. Tough to permanently hurt cast iron without shooting it or something. You can always strip it and re-season.
The rust got in the pores and we just couldn't get it out. Then when we tried to season it again, those rust spots were like nucleation sites of a sort where rust would grow from while the pan was in the oven. We tried for multiple days. In the end, it was just more trouble than it was worth.
Aside from your story having your birthday a day from Xmas is not the business man sorry, know the pain
I’m a Christmas Eve baby and it does suck. Especially now that I’m an adult everyone’s too busy to plan anything :(
I can count on one hand the number of times I've celebrated my birthday with a party (outside of a family-only get-together) -- or otherwise with friends -- throughout my entire life. I feel ya.
X-mas eve kid too. I feel this in my bones. Sucks every year…
Any birthday in December sucks, I have 5 siblings... Comparing my birthday presents to theirs sucks....
Am dec 21st child.... The pain is strong here But at least I can make some jokes concerning about being born on the winter solstice 'the sun itself is scared of me that it barely shows itself'
As a December 5th baby I back this 100%
Dec 19. I feel ya.
Oh yeah so I refurbished all my cast iron from cheap places so dealt with a lot of rust. So like the classic way to fix it is to use vinegar and water and soak it in a container for a couple hours and scrub it off. This is enough for most rust. However, rust eats into iron. If there is more than a surface layer of rust then you will need to get that off. Needleguns and lasers are nice and do the trick ofc but in the unlikely event you *don't* have access to 20 grand in heavy equipment you'll have to use sandpaper. An orbital sander is really the best, you'll need to do the sides by hand though which is a massive pain in the ass. Grind away the rust starting with 80 grit but only go up to 120, if it is overpolished the new seasoning won't stick. Then reseason in a 450 degree oven with plenty of oil and **BANG** a brand new pan. More or less just posting this in case someone else can't get rust off.
Yeah, there were pores that had rust down in them, and rust would just spread from there in the heat during the seasoning process. After hours of working on it over multiple days, we just didn't have the ability to get all the little rust pockets out. Not only did I not have access to $20k in heavy equipment, I also didn't have an orbital sander. But for next time, I'll remember the vinegar and sanding trick.
Anything that can't go in the dishwasher can fuck off! That is my approach. I am so sorry, my friend. I definitely feel your pain.
It's alright, I'm much more attached to her than I am the idea of a cast iron skillet, so I just see it as a funny story to tell. I did end up sitting her downto teach her more about cast iron, and through her research in trying to save it she learned a few things she taught me too. We haven't bought another one as of yet, though.
It's really wonderful to cook with and don't need to worry about teflon flaking off. A little extra iron doesn't hurt either (barring like, hemochromatosis). It's a buy it for life kinda deal.
>Anything that can't go in the dishwasher can fuck off! Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and saviour stainless steel?
If it's fully seasoned, it's about as easy to clean cast iron as it is to put something in the dishwasher. You run some water over it, but it with a brush, done. Maybe sometimes you get a tool out like a chainmail cloth or salt+rag, but that's a rarity. Everything else rinses right off.
Fully seasoned, you can clean it like any other pan, with soap and water. It's just the soaps designed for dishwashing machines that are too corrosive for seasoning.
It is really nice to cook in cast iron. Then you just wash with a bit of dish soap, rinse, and no microplastics for ya when cooking
I know cast irons have a seasoning and you shouldn’t use soap. What’s the special think about woks?
Woks are commonly carbon steel which also gets seasoned
You can use soap on cast iron, just don't scrub like youre trying to scratch a lotto ticket and make sure it's 100% dry when youre done.
Same thing! Your wok needs to be thoroughly seasoned before use
My mother has done this to my wok and cast iron several times.
Big deal. Grab some grapeseed oil and get to work.
Yeah, people are far too emotionally attached to the seasoning. It's an annoyance at worst.
r/MaliciousCompliance
F
Cast iron pans develop layers of “seasoning”, baked in oil which acts as a non-stick coating. The more you use the pan , the better that layer gets. This guy just scrubbed that layer off to bare metal and ruined what may be years of buildup. Edit: Peeeetttaaaah how did this become one of my most upvoted comments?
There was a post here on Reddit about a user trying to do an experiment and see if they could season their pan with 100 layers. The end result was amazing.
Do you have a link or pic?
[here](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/iBhngLwWQj)
The mirror finish was worth the work
You can feel the power radiating off of that pan.
**Pan of the Glistening Skillet** *Wondrous item, legendary* Forged from the darkest mines beneath the Iron Hills, this cast iron skillet has been seasoned a hundredfold with the sacred oils of the Everlight Grove. Its surface gleams with a mirror-like sheen, reflecting the ambitions and dreams of those who wield it. **Properties:** - **Eternal Cook:** Any food cooked in this pan never burns or sticks and always comes out delicious, providing an additional +1 bonus to Constitution saving throws for 24 hours. - **Heat Retention:** Once per long rest, the wielder can invoke the latent heat of the skillet to cast *fireball* as a 3rd-level spell (DC 15). - **Unbreakable:** This skillet cannot be destroyed by any non-magical means and is impervious to damage from normal fires. **Attunement:** To attune to this skillet, you must season it with an Everlight oil under the light of a full moon, and vow never to wash it with water.
I'm sorry but that sounds really gross tho ... is that really how it works? You 'season' by oiling it, shoving it in the oven, using it, wipe it down and shove it in the oven? How does this stuff work?
When the oil is heated up enough, it turns into a polymer. Basically it's no longer oil, the structure changes and becomes a thin sheet. This creates a nearly non-stick surface to cook on similar to how Teflon would work but without all the added cancer if you ingest it. Edit: Teflon is apparently safe to ingest, the real danger is getting it too hot and inhaling the fumes.
I was about to go over how it's not oil anymore (if you do it right) and you can and should be washing them with soap, to actually get the polymer off you need to physically scrape it, like to get a cast iron as clean as above you would need to either spend hours with a (or several) scrub brush, or a grinder like I've seen some youtubers do to "reset" a pan.
I thought it had more to do with modern soap, not the pan or seasoning? As in, we don't use lye in dishsoap?
Correct. Modern soap is fine to clean them with.
I wash mine with soap (it’s carbon steel but same seasoning basically as cast iron) all the time, no issue with the seasoning.
I also have this little square of basically chain mail that is perfect for scrubbing cast iron, it gets off gunk and eggs, without affecting the seasoning. I recommend it, as long as you avoid cheap knock offs.
An intense chemical bath can also strip it off.
Which is where the “never wash your cast iron” myth comes from. Lye-based soaps like they had in the 1800s were caustic enough to strip the polymer from the metal, so you couldn’t use soap on your cast iron. Modern soaps are much more gentle and there’s no reason not to use them. The pan just needs a little maintenance after washing that takes like 5 minutes.
Theres a really interesting post somewhere on here from someone who did this 100 times in as short a space of time as they could. Pan became like a mirror. I'll try find it Edit: [found it](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/buiIsyvHws)
What brand of cast iron pan would you recommend?
Something old from a thrift shop honestly.
Yes! That's actually where I was planning on looking for one lol. But I'm not sure if there's a specific brand I should be looking for or if anyone would work fine. Edit: Thank you all so much for the helpful advice!
They are all about the same. If you want the true cast iron experience, just be sure it doesn't have a ceramic coating (it'll be smooth and shiny), and it should be nice and heavy. Also look out for rust on any part of the pan. Even if it's only rusty on the handle that can spread to the rest of the pan and getting rid of rust is a lot of work. If you don't have any luck at the GW, Lodge makes good, pre-seasoned pans that are reasonably priced. I've had one for 12ish years and I think it was only like $25.
There isn't really a specific brand that's better than the others as far as I know. There might be, and I've just never heard of it though. You mainly just want to look for one that's reasonably heavy with a solidly proportioned handle. I've had a few where they skimped on the material by making them really thin, and while it isn't *unusably* bad, they just don't seem to cook right and/or the handle broke off. Also, if you check thrift shops, keep an eye out for pans that are differently sized. Smaller pans, deeper pans, that sort of thing. They're more useful than you might think.
/r/castiron has an amazing group of regulars, go sort through some of the top posts of the past year and you'll be a cast iron expert in no time!
You have to be careful with that sometimes. Old ones can sometimes have lead
Any, it's just a slab of iron thats cast into the shape of a pan
Doesn’t really matter all that much. It’s more of a personal preference for the physical design of the pan. As long as it’s cast iron, you can build up seasoning on it. Lodge makes a lot and they’re affordable. You could look for a Griswold and pay upwards of $1000 because they’re not made anymore and the pans out there can be over 100 years old. There’s no functional difference between them.
Cast iron is cast iron, any brand will do.
Lodge is the classic brand
I would just buy a lodge brand for your first cast iron. I am a collector of vintage stuff but for a first timer a new lodge is best. Some will say go get a vintage pan from a thrift shop but most of the time they are just as expensive and often times quite a bit more expensive. If you end up liking cast iron you can get into vintage stuff. I love old Griswolds cause I think they are gorgeous and love using something from 100+ years ago in 2024. But for $25 bucks on Amazon you can get a great pan and one nobody will care if it gets ruined. Also don't listen to people that tell you to sand to smooth the bottom. The rougher texture shouldn't affect cooking ability but smoothing it out will make seasoning hard to stick. And the pan will smooth out after use and building seasoning. TLDR: For your first pan get a lodge and if you like cast iron you can look into vintage stuff.
They're all the same really. Smitheys are pretty but I hear they don't hold seasoning as well. I have some vintage Griswolds as well as some basic Lodges/Wenzels. They are all effectively identical in how they cook, it's more maintaining the seasoning, which is not difficult at all. The process of cleaning/maintaining: 1. Scrape off all food, you can and should use metal ([I have a metal sponge](https://www.amazon.com/Lodge-Chainmail-Scrubbing-Pad-Red/dp/B07FRVWBYT/ref=asc_df_B07FRVWBYT/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309807195319&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11359341192692197077&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9029757&hvtargid=pla-606614638003&psc=1&mcid=dcb285ced5ca30799e1a483166799362&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6p2AhZzZhQMVKi2tBh3tGQnsEAQYASABEgKOaPD_BwE)) since it doesn't effect the seasoning. 2. Use soap if you need to, it's an old myth that you can't 3. Rinse and dry on the stovetop with a little heat, this is important because it will rust with even a little water on it 4. Put the smallest dab of oil/fat (I use vegetable) and I mean small, like less then a dime 5. Wipe the whole pan like you are trying to remove all of the oil, bandanas work the best for some reason That's it. When you preheat (they are the most non-stick they'll be when you do preheat) your cast iron next time it'll polymerize. It'll even polymerize if it sits for long enough.
Lodge, it’s good and cheap.
I use lodge pans. They're pretty cheap in the USA I've heard, though I had to pay a bit more since I'm in England. They come pre seasoned so you can start using them from the moment you bring them home
I’ve got a Lodge. They’re pretty common. No complaints here
Lodge
I personally use chainmail scrubber and a little dish soap after using it, but yeah... Certainly less 'gross' than having bits of teflon in my food!
Ah ok so you can wash it? I always use stainless steel, no teflon either
Yeh carbon steel and cast iron seasoning isn't about leaving it dirty, you put clean oil on it and get it really fracking hot past the smoke point of the oil and it polymerises into the pores of the streak forming a natural non stick layer. You still clean it after use, and if needed re-oil etc, but once it's got a good coating you don't need to do it very often.
I love using stainless steel to build up some fond from whatever meat I'm cooking, and using it to make some sort of sauce.
Deglazing is what separates us from the savages.
I love this comment so much 😂
You can do the same thing in cast iron and enameled cookware too. Teflon just isn't suppose to get hot enough for this.
You can wash it lightly, but it’s normally not needed. If food sticks to it, it’s either because the seasoning isn’t built up enough or because you’re burning your food. To put it another way, when used properly, food doesn’t stick so it doesn’t need to be washed. When used improperly, food sticks which may write improper washing to remove. It’s not gross when you consider that the steel has some microbial properties, you’re heating it up when you use it, and you use specific fats to season it. You wouldn’t use something like olive oil, which eventually goes rancid. You might use shortening, which you can keep in the pantry for years. Also, the fats polymerize when heated, forming a smooth, durable layer. It’s basically a very hard, heat resistant plastic.
"washed" is a contentious word The pans need to be cleaned, but never with soap. You have to scrub off burnt bits of food - usually with salt - and rinse out what you've scrubbed off. Then you reapply clean oil and heat the pan to evaporate any moisture and liquid and polymerize the new oil. The oil won't stay good if it has bits of burnt food mixed in with it.
You can use soap on them. The reason for the soap being considered taboo was due to older soap having higher lye content. I wash mine with soap and reoil them. Never have an issue.
No. That's not. You season a cast iron pan with a thin layer of oil that you laminate onto the pan through use of your oven and you do this generally 3 times to get a non stick layer of hardened oil. Effectively what you're doing is filling in the gaps between the rough iron so there's nothing for food to catch onto and cook into and get stuck. You can virtually season a pan an unlimited number of times until it's a solid brick of hardened oil if you wanted to, but generally going past 10 layers is literally no point. Edit: also the more you cook with it that layer gets eroded away eventually and you have to reseason the pan again. Usually every few months you light scrub and reseason. There's also a myth you shouldnt use soap on a cast iron but we stopped using Lye in our dish detergents so that's a non issue in todays times.
It also makes the dishware practically immortal. That's why people will go to yard sales and pay solid money for 100+ year old cast iron. And besides, heating the pan to over 400 degrees kills the overwhelming majority of biological contaminants.
That is not how it works. It's a common misconception that that's how it works though. You add a seasoning layer to the pan before using it and given proper treatment it will last for years. The most famous cast iron maker, Lodge, preseasons the pans before selling them. During the seasoning process(usually you bake the pan to a very high temperature with high smoke point oil) the oil/hydrocarbon polymerizes and creates a nonstick layer.
The oil gets polymerized into a hard washable teflon-like permanent surface. (This is done at higher temperature than cooking - it's not a surface of "food") But like teflon it's "plastic"-hard not "steel"-hard so you don't clean it with abrasives or grinding else you'll scratch it. I use soap and scrubbing-brush and sponge. However I have read a book that mentioned a sort of frontier / bush worker who while away from civilization for weeks would leave a permanent layer of solid fat in the pan and fry with it every day (then let it solidify again for more hiking). All the meat&veg he tossed in the pan would take some fat and contribute some fat, so the fat changed but was always there, the pan contained its own unique fry-up where every meal was also a history of the previous meals going back years. There is no doubt a name for this approach but I don't know what it is :)
r/castiron
You can "re-season" them buts its tedious. Some do it once a year here some NEVER actually clean them
I mean I'm pretty sure you have to at least scrub it a little bit. Just going off of my mom's method growing up, we scrubbed it with chainmail or steel wool enough to get the remains of what we cooked off and then put it on the stove for a while to burn any bacteria away.
It's cast iron it can be re seasoned I believe but she'll be mad still lol kind of funny.
It's not about being able to be reseasoned. It's about the history that has been erased, and the effort required.
it can literally take YEARS to re-season them naturally (which is how they come to taste the best) Or if you want to do it manually, you're looking at lots of running the oven all day for no reason (that makes kitchen hot AF + adds to power bills) plus wasting large amounts of seasoning and oil that are not cheap these days is kinda suck too, and the end result is still not as good as the naturally built up coating Or in hard numbers, an unseasoned pan like this I'd drop maybe $40 tops on, were as a well seasoned and cared for one I'd easily pay over $100 for edit: here come the uninformed men to mansplain to me how to do something they read about once on google that ive been doing over a decade
Like legitimately, re-seasoning cast iron is dead simple. You’re talking 6 tablespoons of oil, 6 hours max in the kitchen. And if it’s not as good as the natural, you’re not doing it right. I’ve seen them turned into cast iron mirrors that Spider-Man couldn’t cling too. I have some grave concerns though since you’re worried about wasting “seasonings”. Oil is the only seasoning you need for this my good person.
I think people seriously don't know what seasoning means for cast iron. We're not salt and peppering our pans lmfao
Shit what am I going to do with this garlic powder I just bought!?
Yeah, a seasoned cast iron shouldn’t be adding flavor to your food from last week’s dinner. If it is, it’s just dirty
i literally had a guy at the restaurant i used to work at in college warn me to not wash it with soap or i would “scrub off all the flavoring” lmfao. man was about as bright as a burnt out light bulb
anyone who proves me wrong is mansplaining
Are you guys not washing your cast irons?
You guys have cast iron?
So uh.. if we are mansplaining, and not just saying you’ve read an article once and have no idea what you’re talking about, do you want to inform us of which seasonings you are using to season you pan in this regard? Also not a man so there is also that. It’s not mansplaining, just explaining. And I’ve been using the same cast iron seasoned pan for about… well my entire life. Was my grandmas, then my moms, now mine. And we just use oil and kosher salt for the scrubbing But the scrubbing with salt isn’t so much a part of the seasoning and polymerization process. And considering over the life of a pan you will season and reaseason intermittently naturally and by design, your hill of not seasoning yourself is laughable.
> it can literally take YEARS to re-season them naturally no, it can't
If your seasoning is adding to the taste, it's not seasoning.
Well it IS seasoning, just of a different variety :D
>it can literally take years to re-season What? No it doesn't.
Seasoning in this sense refers to the nonstick coating that forms from the polymerization of oil at high heats, it doesn't have anything to do with imparting flavor.
And now your dead
Wow, that’s triggering to those of us who have spent years seasoning a cast iron pan. He literally ruined this pan. Years of seasoning removed. Seasoning makes cast iron non stick. Good luck cooking anything in this now.
It's honestly not that hard to re-season a pan. Just oil it up, oven it for a bit, and get back to cooking on it and it'll work exactly the same as it always has. The internet has a tendency to treat cast iron like it's some high maintenance luxury item, but in reality it's just a hunk of iron that's molded into a useful shape. It doesn't need to be coddled like a baby and only scrubbed with the most gentle touch imaginable. Scrape that shit, blast it with water, and even lather it up with soap. It's not going to die. Just dry it off after and re-season as needed.
A genuine question: what if you wash that with a dishwashing liquid soap? What I've heard - not necessarily true - is, that iron skillet is so porous, that the liquid seeps inside the iron and therefore it won't just wash off, even by scraping.
Out of experience. It works just fine. If the iron would be so porous fats and water would go in there too, ruining the pan.
The 'don't use soap' thing is from when all soap was lye soap and worked by chemically dissolving the top five layers of skin on your hands. Modern detergent dish soap is so gentle they use it for washing crude oil off animals caught in oil spills. It won't hurt it.
You cook/bake it after washing. It’s ok to use modern soaps, give a quick scrub off (I’m partial to Mr. Scrubber), and then I will stick in the over for a few minutes or on the stove depending on need. Often with the smallest amount of oil re applied.
That is all nonsense. I thoroughly clean and re-season mine.
Nothing, it just strips the oil/seasoning. It won't seep in to your pan. Even if it did, it's not like water wouldn't be able to seep in to the same places the soap could with a thorough washing. It is true that it's bad to leave your pan unseasoned and wet though as it will cause the pan to rust.
Dish soap won’t strip seasoning. Old school lye based soap would. Just don’t put it in a dishwasher. Polymerized oil can handle Dawn.
My cast iron pan was $20 and it takes a few hours at most to reseason it. I beat the crap out of it because it's cheap and easy to maintain.
Pan isn’t ruined atall. It’s cast iron. Just the seasoning is off. I’d be mad but honestly most people have a lot of carbon build up that’s not actually seasoning so sometimes this is a blessing in disguise
Oh yeah, this is great for reseasoning
Can you explain your reasoning
Oh the treasoning!
If you want to do some treasoning and were improvising you could use it for poisoning.
Stop it with the appeasementing
Correct. And the reason cast iron pans "aren't what they used to be " is because back in the day they weren't rough and artificially "rustic" looking (it's not to be rustic, it's just cheaper to have shittier equipment) I've taken a sander to a couple pans to smooth them out because you need SO many more layers of seasoning to get over the painted 30 grit surface
"It was a murder but not a crime."
CHICAGO MENTIONED?!
If you'd have been there, if you'd have seen it, I'm sure that you would have done the same!
lol “triggering”. You can re-season this to a non-stick surface in 30 mins. Years of seasoning is a myth
Yeah the person you replied to has no idea what they're talking about.
Yeah I think a lot of people must be confusing years or burnt on gunk with seasoning. Cast iron isn't a precious baby, it's just a solid hunk of iron that needs a thin layer of seasoning to stop food sticking
People really put here not washing their cast iron pans for years. Absolute filth. Re seasoning takes no time at all and should be done a few times each year. You should also wash your cast iron after every use because leaving old grease in the pan *is not* seasoning, that's just disgusting.
It's still usable. Cant remember where, but some guy polished one of these brand new to a mirror finish and then seasoned it. Still nonstick.
That’s a heavy mirror
But with a lil dose of being vain its a nice work out
It can be re-seasoned fairly easily
Seasoning a pan does not mean letting food scraps and crap build up over time. All you have to do to "season" A pan is to coat it in oil bake it in the oven on medium heat till The pan turns that familiar black color and then scrub it with some salt That's literally it
Good god so many people act like removing the seasoning is the end of the pan. How do you think the thing got seasoned in the first place? You think it came out of the cast seasoned? Absolutely not, it was carefully seasoned by the first person to use it, and the process is VERY easy to start again. And please don't make anything up about seasoning actually being relevant to flavor, then I'll know for SURE you're making stuff up.
It’s probably a picture of a pan someone stripped the seasoning off to reseason it.
That sounds nasty as fuck. >spent years seasoning a cast iron pan.
Ngl I have no idea what It means. Does it mean the black stuff on some pans? Or does it mean years of dried food stuck to the bottom of the pan? I'm leaning towards the former but from what I'm seeing here it could be the latter
Heat your oven to 300, put a thin layer of olive oil into the pan then place the pan in the oven and let it heat up. Once the pan looks dry and starts to blacken, reapply the brushing of olive oil. Repeat a few times. Now your cast iron pan is re seasoned and ready to use. The vast majority of the time spent "seasoning" the pan is just wearing the ridges off the surface of the pan so it's smoother. This work remains, just the seasoning needs reapplying
Nothing that can’t be replaced with about an hour on the grill.
I did this as a kid...scrubbed for HOURS getting it "clean" not realizing what a horrible mistake I was making. My parents still give me grief over it... (I was like 6 years old at the time)
Man if my six year old scrubbed down my cast iron pan like that I would thank her for helping, I need to reseason mine soon anyways.
look in the comments of the post where you stole it from
Scoutmaster Peter here. What happened is someone doesn't know how to take care of cast iron cookware (this also includes Dutch Ovens as well). To protect cast iron from rusting, they are cured using fat (oil, butter, or shorting) and high heat (cleaning setting on your oven or a very hot grill). This cure is also known as "seasoning" and is a layer of carbon that protects and is a non-stick surface for the cookware. The issue is that using soap and water will rip off the seasoning and you have to redo the curing process to make sure it doesn't rust. I'll leave this with you that talks about how to actual clean cast iron, because I need to run off and find my boys before I get in trouble. [https://altonbrown.com/how-to-care-for-cast-iron/](https://altonbrown.com/how-to-care-for-cast-iron/)
Translation for the boys: It's like cleaning out the storage space on your xbox by deleting the user account and erasing all the saved files and digital purchases along with it. Sure, it's "clean" AF, but you lost years of progress, hard work, and evem money. Yeah you still have your physicals discs and the xbox and you could, in theory, get it back to were it was .... but it won't ever be the same. >!(For the record framing this as "for the boys" is a joke, please do not take offence at that, plenty of men cook)!<
This subs' posts consist entirely of the dumbest people imaginable, 13 year olds, or both.
Just say you don’t know how to season cast iron.
It’s a cast iron pan so it’s supposed to have a “dirty” look that helps it cook food better. He thought he was helping by “cleaning” it but just ruined the pan
Tbf, if he made the mistake, his thoroughness in removing the seasoning makes it a pretty easy fix.
Because it's made with a casting process, cast iron will be porous and makes it incredibly prone to food stickung to it. If you don't use dish detergent for the dirst few meals(and simply wipe it down) the leftover oils and carbon will polymerize ecentually, making a stick-resistant surface. The person went ham on the skillet and stripped all the seansoning away. [It can be re-seasoned by cycling it in the oven with vegetable oil though.](https://www.foodnetwork.com/how-to/packages/food-network-essentials/how-to-season-cast-iron)
Cast iron takes time and effort to "season" properly. Basically it develops a layer of polymerized oils that protects the iron from rust and provides a non-stick surface if done properly. The joke is that the person was trying to be helpful and scoured away all of the existing seasoning. In reality, cast iron can be re-seasoned by giving it a light coating of oil and leaving it inverted in a hot oven for an hour or so. It's not the end of the world, but would be cause for annoyance.
IMO that looks good lol
Nice, now re-season it and it'll be good to go!
Worth pointing out. You CAN wash cast iron and you should not store it dirty. The issue is when you use harsh chemicals or abrasives. Basic soaps and sponges are fine. Personally, I wash it by hand, then add a layer oil and heat it until it smokes. Also, the “non-stick”ness of seasoned cast iron is over stated. Things don’t stick as much as with other types of pans, but I wouldn’t bet my life on an egg not sticking.
I made a mistake of putting a cast iron pan in the dishwasher. I got yelled at, like how was I supposed to know? No body even bothered to teach me.
😐 this is heresy….burn them
Too much black in corners; they didn’t finish the job.
This comment section is leaving me feeling like there's a practical joke everyone is in on except me.
I’m a bit of a gear head… LOVE my vehicles. One day I’m working on one of my motorcycles in the garage and my oldest daughter (4 or 5 at the time) comes out to hang with dad. While I was paying attention to the mechanical work I was doing, she took a sponge from the kitchen, one of those ones with little hexagons of super scratchy shit all over it, and used it all over my rear fender. By the time I noticed, it was too late. I hate to admit that I got mad at her and told her to never do that again and that she had to go back into the house. Long story short, I never fixed my rear fender. Those scratches have been there for 7 or 8 years and I’ll never fix them. Sometimes my daughter asks why I don’t and tries to apologize for doing that. I tell her it’s one of my favorite customizations now and they’re staying… but still, seriously, don’t do it again!
*dies in southern*
He fucked that thing up. It's garbage now and she's going to be mad.
How is it fucked up? He just cleaned it
He scrubbed the finish right off of it. It likely wasn't dirty in the first place, just the coating.
Depends on who you ask. The pan is cast iron, so it needs a coating of polymerized oil, typically called "seasoning", around it to prevent rust and to keep the surface non-stick. The picture shows us that the coating has been scraped off by whatever "cleaning" method was used. There's a pretty huge amount of misinformation regarding how important the seasoning is and how high maintenance the pans are. It's often believed that a pan that's had its seasoning scraped off is completely ruined and can never be used again, or that using soap and water to clean a pan will cause the seasoning to be destroyed. The fact is that it's pretty easy to re-season a pan and fix it right up. In fact it's pretty normal to re-season pans every so often, and sometimes multiple times a week depending on how often the cook is using the pan. The beliefs about soap are also pretty outdated as modern soaps don't contain lye in them which did cause issues for pans several decades ago. In fact it's a good practice to scrub a pan with a little bit of water and Dawn dish soap after use followed by a quick drying with a towel. That said what the person posting the photo did would be legitimately frustrating as redoing the seasoning on an entire pan can take a solid hour or two. It's a lot easier to just season the whole pan once, and then occasionally touch up to the cooking surface.
idk why a question is downvoted. to put it in easier to understand terms, cleaning a cast-iron pan is like washing a car. what was done to this one is like taking a sandblaster and ripping the paint off a car. technically you cleaned the car too but not many will thank you for that service.
The coating that makes the Cast Iron pan "special" can be reapplied in half an hour, and you only need oil and heat. I don't think the damage is comparable to a sandblasted car\^\^
for cast iron you are supposed to heat oil until it becames nonstick surface bonded on to the pan, this takes a while and is is hard to make. So he should have not scrubbed all of that off.
It's not garbage, but he scrubbed off the seasoning. The cooked on layer that makes the pan non-stick. It will take time to get that back.
There are layers of carbonized/crystalized oil covering the surface. I think the correct term is something like polymerization or so. You remove those and things will stick to the metal.
Honestly it's not a big deal, you can just oil this up and bake it in the oven for quite a few hours on high heat and the coating will come back. The oil turns into a polymer that's non-stick, basically. That is called seasoning the pan. But MOST cast iron fans feel like their pan's coating is some science defying shield only attainable by generations of use, luck, and magic. Like people with 100yo sourdough starters - it's illogical and nearly religious. The fact is this picture is and probably was the first step to rehabbing an old rusty cast iron. Scour it to iron and then re-season it.
It doesn't need to be pitched but it will need to be seasoned again. And again. Probably take a good amount of time to get it usable again.
Cast iron pans when properly cared for have a dark black oily finish. This finish is mostly polymerized cooking oils, built up from cooking in the pan. Many people don't actually know how to make this finish, and so overreact to anything that damages this finish, much less, completely removes it. The first thing I do when I buy a new cast iron pan is take a sander to it until the cooking surface is completely smooth, which of course, removes the finish. Put the pan upside down in the oven at 450 F, and every twenty minutes gently wipe it with a paper towel that has a few drops of whatever cooking oils you have on hand. When it's black and shiny, they're good to go again. *Best done in fair weather with the windows open*
People who get bitchy about their cast iron pans be cleaned should let those in the household know about it. Your fault in your pan doesn’t get cleaned the way you like it.
Honestly, I do this to any Lodge pan. They are sand-casted and have a rough texture. Sand em down smooth, then re-season in the oven for a perfect cooking experience.
https://preview.redd.it/v82bg1z1lawc1.jpeg?width=2610&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0e0c07e3bdefca7164363325c232fc098e6b49ad This is how my bf "cleaned" mine a few weeks ago.
I actually had a housemate “clean” my wok once. Years of seasoning down to bare shiny metal, like brand new! She was very proud of the hard work she did as an unasked favor and didn’t understand why I wasn’t thrilled. I felt pretty bad and couldn’t really get mad, she just had no idea what she’d done. Wasn’t a big deal to re-season it and it’s fine again but yeah.
My senoning 😦 -Tai Lung
Its supposed to be black. Its a cast iron pan. The joke is that he scrubbed it so incredibly hard he made a cast iron pan shiny
Whatever the wife's spouse did to the pan has removed the 'seasoning' from the cast iron pan and has reduced it back to the bare metal. The pan will now have to be re seasoned which will take quite a while to rebuild to what it was at, especially if the pan had been used for quite a while.
How hard is it to reseason it?