How to Refinish a Cast Iron Pan and Keep it in Good Condition
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- Опубліковано 26 вер 2023
- Cast iron pans come pre-seasoned from the factory. They have a coating of oil baked on to them for protection of the surface and to make them non-stick. As the pan is being used the protective coating (seasoning) can wear off. Especially if it is not cared for correctly.
I only use my Lodge combo cooker for breadmaking purposes which does not damage it that much. But it gets abused from time to time especially when I use the pan as a steam generator. Sometimes I pre-heat it with the oven and when the bread gets placed inside, I pour a cup of boiling water in the pan to create a cloud of steam. While being an extremely effective method for producing steam it does wear off the seasoning and makes it more susceptible to rusting. Washing and handling can also cause some wear on the finish. If the pan is not dried well or if it is placed on a wet surface, it may rust.
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Proper care and cast iron can last literally for generations. I have pans that are stamped 1896 when they were made and have been passed down mother to daughter throughout the years (7 generations for far) and each baker added a few new ones to the collection. The best part - I HAVE THEM ALL!!! LOL!!
Great stuff.
Use 000 Steel wool. It's much more effective that that stainless steel scrubber. It's what is used in engineering workshops. Use a Brillo pad if you can't find the '000' grade I think they are more or less the same.
It must be vegetable oil, not animal fat. The veg oil fills tiny pores in the cast iron and then bakes to a tough vegetable resin. That vegetable resin is tough and resilient. As the cast iron pan heats the pores open and the plastic like resin fills them the preventing water vapour entering into them later. That's also why they are non stick... the pores can't grab the food. Stainless steel frying pans get an amazingly good non stick from the same treatment.
As soon as I see any deterioration in my cast iron ware I give it a quick rub over before it goes into the oven for pre-heating. The two parts are pre-heated on different shelves. My stuff doesn't get bad enough to warrant recovery action, but if there is a little local rust. Steel wool and oil thinly all over --> Pre-heat in the oven at the next bake.
I never wash my cast iron bread cloches. At most they get a quick rub with steel wool and then the oil.
Bravo for doing three coats.
Great video. 👍
You can get lint-free paper towels. In the US, they're called shop towels. I have some, and use it pretty much only for cleaning seasoned cast iron.
Why would lint-free towels be so imortant, when you can simply flush the pan with warm water ?
Are they blue color from Costco
@@user3141592635 The fluff gets embedded in the new seasoning layer. Forever (untill you steel wool and re season).
@@user3141592635 Because you use the paper towels to coat it with oil, and you can't then just wash it with water since it needs to be fully dry. I have this issue, I get it completely clean, coat it with oil, but when I try to remove the excess oil I just end up adding a bunch of paper lint all over it instead.
@@user3141592635when applying oil or wiping excess before seasoning, if the surface is rough the paper towels can leave lint. Not idea to back it on the skillet.
I just found a lodge cast iron pan under some other things in a kitchen drawer, lost for 4 years after my last move. There is rust. I was wondering how to fix it, and here is this beautiful video. Thank you!
Good info! Thank you, Charlie! Any food stick can be removed with hot oil and salt, keeping the coating!
I recently cleaned and seasoned my mother’s old cast iron pan that I don’t think she ever seasoned so it was in BAD shape. I sprayed it down with Easy Off over cleaner and left it sitting in a garbage bag for 24 hours. It took two tries of this to get all the baked on gunk and very old seasoning off. I then did about 6 coats of seasoning with grape seed oil and it looks great.
I was wondering how to fix the rust issue from the steaming method. Thank you for sharing this refinishing/seasoning technique - I have two Lodge Combos and a Lodge Dutch oven. 😉
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This is a great video. So helpful. Thank you!
You read my mind with this video. I woke up this morning thinking about how to do this. And here we are 😄 thank you!
The only cast pans iron I own are ancient enamelled Le Creuset casserole dishes but one day I hope to find a similar set to yours
Physics and chemistry of the process: cast iron has microscopic pores. When you heat it with a very thin film of oil, the air in the pores expands and when it cools, the oil replaces it. If the oil layer is too thick, the air can't escape through it. Heat polymerizes the oil, turning it into a kind of plastic, which is what makes a nonstick coating. You need unsaturated fat to get polymerization, so animal fats or coconut oil, which are mostly saturated, are less effective.
Love this video. I especially appreciate that you show just how little fuss is required. I also like that you demonstrated the step of drying off the oil as much as possible before placing in the oven. I get so frustrated by videos that show people placing dripping wet pieces in their ovens. If you're properly "drying" off the oil you wiped on and leave behind a properly-thin layer before placing in the oven, you really don't need a drip tray at all. I prefer no drip tray just so the heating elements have a more direct access to my cast iron pieces. One trick is to apply your oil while the pan is a little hot (leave it to dry a little longer in the oven). Spreading the oil onto a cold pan makes it much more viscous and less willing to spread thinly over your surface, and this may result in your first few layers looking streaky, or getting some sticky, uncured spots.
As far as the advice about using dish soap, any modern (non-abrasive) dishwashing soap is totally safe on cast iron with daily use. Back in the day soaps contained lye, which absolutely WOULD wear down the coating, but lye has long since been eradicated from dish soaps, and now they are just gentle degreasers.
My personal favorite cast iron/carbon steel method has changed a bit over the years. Now I like to make little "seasoning pucks" out of beeswax and soybean oil, with a weight ratio of 1:3. I just melt down in a pan or cup and pour into a cute little honeycomb mould my wifey bought me. It makes applying the oil easier, and the wax supposedly helps give the seasoning a little more structure I think (something about the contrasting oils)? It's also nice to apply because I gently rub in on some of the pan while it's hot, and some of the puck melts into the surface until I have enough to spread around with a rag. Anyway, my initial seasoning techniques are pretty much the exact same as yours, but as for maintenance, I stray slightly away from the standard method that people recommend. Many people recommend that you wash/dry after each use, and then apply some oil and heat the pan on the stove until smoking. I've never really liked this method because it's fussy and requires letting the pan heat/cool twice. Plus, these pans don't really heat evenly, and when you only JUST start to see wisps of smoke, you really are only polymerizing the very borders of the surface, which is far from ideal.
Instead, what I do is actually wash/dry the piece and then use the oven/stove to heat it up slightly, really just enough to completely dry it and get it almost (but not quite) too hot to touch. Then I use the residual heat to lightly melt some of my puck onto it and thinly spread/wipe all over (using just plain oil without beeswax would totally work fine, too). The extra heat in the pan also helps with thinning the viscosity of the oil/wax, which helps me to achieve a nice, super thin layer, which is always what you want. Then the cast iron is mostly cool to handle at this point, and I just store it that way until the next time I need it. Then, whenever I need to bring it back out for baking bread or searing something, it actually just goes through another seasoning step right then and there as I preheat it in the oven or on the stove! I learned this trick from a line cook who used to do this with all of their carbon steel pans before service. It never before occurred to me that you could skip/delay the "re-seasoning" step until its next use.
Also, in regards to kitchen paper towels, I used to use those, but the problem is the rough surface of modern cast iron causes the paper to start shredding and leaving little fibers in your seasoning layers, so I finally opted to start using old cotton t-shirts (or even new cheap white ones). I fold them into a few layers and tie them off with a rubber band to give me a little handle. I have one for applying/spreading the oil, and another one for "drying" off the oil. They usually last me at least a year of use before needing to be swapped out.
One last piece of advice (from learning the hard way): be careful using those "grippy" kitchen mitts on hot cast iron. I was using the same ones for my pan when I suddenly noticed these weird lines in my cast iron that were lighter than the rest of the pan, and when I tried to spread oil onto those spots, they oil would just bead up and fall off. Somehow the extreme ≈500ºF iron was leaching something out of the silicone grippers on my mitts, and it was sticking to the pan's coating. Now I buy some really cheap, thin cotton gloves mitts and slide them over my oven gloves whenever I'm handing super hot cast iron, sort of as a sacrificial layer to keep the silicone grippers from coming in contact.
If my pan gets so dirty that I feel I need to wash it I heat it really hot on stove cover in a liberal amount of oil and course kosher salt then cut a lemon in half and use it to clean the salt and oil into stuck on junk. If it's not clean before salt dissolves keep adding a little more. When everything comes up rinse under water. Dry and recoat like he did above. Just won't have to do it multiple times because you didn't strip your seasoning. I do steam my bread so I do have rusting and nastiness so I appreciate this video immensely.
I only use mine for breadmaking. Watching some of your other videos made me think of a comparison video you could make; compare the different results one gets from using different types of flour in a bread recipe. In my personal experience, for lean doughs I get best results using all-purpose flour and for enriched doughs bread flour works best, while whole wheat flour gives a good flavor with less desirable texture, but I have never tried comparing multiple loaves side-by-side.
Like the pan and lid, specially for bread baking
Great instructions/demonstration. My small skillet is a nightmare, probably even a health hazard! Will be trying this method asap
I should try using cast iron pan. Thank you for the clear explanation.
Thank you ! Mine is in the oven right now for a second layer and it already looked so much better ! No more rusty and white-ish spots and i can feel the non-stick layer again.
Thank you for this!
Thank you very much, Uncle Scott!
Sure thing 😄
I've watched numerous videos about how to do this, and this is by far the best one! Bravo 👏
🙏
An easier way to remove the rust is to make a paste of baking soda and a bit of water, and simply letting it work on the rust for a while combined with rigorous scrubbing.
A diluted solution of sodium hydroxide (NaOH, main component of some drain cleaners) and water, like 10-20:500 grams NaOH to water, can be used to completely strip the seasoning from cast iron without damaging the metal if it's allowed to sit for several hours. Super effective, specially with some scrubbing, but do NOT get this stuff in your eyes - even a diluted NaOH solution can cause serious damage. Skin contact and inhalation should be avoided especially in higher concentrations, too, but as long as you employ proper safety measures and risk minimisation (eye protection just in case, easily removed shirts with buttons/a zipper, a well-ventilated area/under a kitchen fan, etc) it's a very effective method to remove an existing seasoning.
Every chemical compound has a Safety Data Sheet (SDS) available, with tons of info on its hazards and necessary safety precautions.
Thank you for your video. You can use the same method to clean a cast iron grill plate from a barbque. I found an old one at a junk store. Paid next to nothing for it. It was in such a bad condition that I ended up using an drill with a wire brush. It required four coats of oil. It now looks great and works very well.
I use an enameled vast iron dutch oven to bake my bread in when I want an artisan style bread. It works great and doesn't ever rust. 😊
I only use tough paper towels, but they leave bits. I changed to a rag, old! Cotton shirt part, works very well!
Next time I could use a little heat I will redo my old griddle 😊
Good info. Best oil for a hard coating is flax seed oil. Grapeseed isn't bad but flaxseed is the best.
I cook almost exclusively with cast iron and have the same Lodge combo cooker that I use for breads and various other things. My method is effectively the same as yours! Because I use them so often it’s rare I need to do this level of seasoning, but this process definitely works well. Since they get used a lot, mine just need a light scrubbing with thorough drying, sometimes with a light maintenance coat of oil. One thing I do if I have a lot of stuck on bits is to use some coarse sea salt.
I use flax oil (linseed) It has a high smoke point and give a great coat to my Challenger bread pan.
I usually only ever use vegetable oil. Though, after watching this, I think I'll try something new next time. Thanks!
Vegetable oil should work just as well.
Cast iron maintenance easy way ...
After baking anything, place clean
cast iron piece(s) inside the oven
and use remaining heat.
Remove when the cast iron is cool.
Save energy and time.
I have many Lodge pans and am a bit of a cast iron nutter. And I cook on my cast iron pans a minimum of two times every day. I’ve not seen any of my pans reach the level of this 😂. But I always season after every cooking. Mine still look new as when out of the box so that’s the only secret I have to pass on. Mild detergent is fine to use if you clean and season after every use. Only use it when needed. Immediately after washing I put my pan back onto the stove and heat it with the stove. I never leave cast iron to dry sitting on a dish rack etc. it must dry right away. Then I turn the heat to full hottest it can go. Seasoning is created at or near the upper smoke point of the oil. I have made my own custom seasoning from bees wax and highest smoke point soybean oil. Originally I used rape seed oil. For every day use reseasoning as the pan heats up on the stove I put a cap or half a cap full of new plain soybean oil into the pan. I watch the oil shimmer and ripple as the heat waves pulse through it and I use a clean old tee shirt or any cotton cloth and wipe the oil around the pan and it’s sides. If it’s smoking at this point it is done and I turn the heat off and let it cool. If not I let it keep heating up on full and might add a few more drops of oils and wipe it thin across the bottom and sides until it smokes. Then I turn off my pan. Once cool it looks identical to brand new. I set them aside and never stack them or stack anything else inside them. If I did I would have a thick piece of cardboard in between the cast iron and the next item on top to protect the finish. I only bake my pans when brand new. I bake them three times to add three additional costs of seasoning. Then the very first thing I do with a brand new cast iron pan I just finished baking seasoning on is to fill it with a good amount of oil and fry potatoes in them. Frying this starch in generous bath of oil does wonders for me and my cast iron. Cut them into chips or into cottage fries shape depending on your preference. Then if you follow my routine of clean and light season in between cleanings you will never have to again do the full scrub and baking new seasoning on except in very rare occasions where you cook something there very damaging to natural seasoning.
I have a question I hope you can help me with. I have a Lodge cast iron skillet that I left on an electric stove, dry ( I hate electric stoves) and the skillet became red hot. As soon as I noticed it, I took it off the heat and ran cool water in it to cool it off. Is it ruined and needs to be replaced? Or just re-season it and be more careful in the mean time? Thanks
@@billloveless6869 Pouring cold water on a red-hot cast iron skillet can cause thermal shock, which may lead to the skillet cracking or warping. While this doesn't necessarily "ruin" the skillet in the sense that it's completely unusable, it can damage the skillet and affect its performance. It's best to avoid subjecting a hot cast iron skillet to rapid temperature changes and allow it to cool down naturally. If it does warp or crack, you might still be able to use it, but it could have some issues with stability and heat distribution. The red hot won't ruin cast iron, it will ruin the seasoning which can easily be reapplied.
@@pd8559 Thanks for the info. I saw no signs of thermal shock or cracking. I will re-season and pay more attention in the furtue
@@billloveless6869 No problem, and enjoy your cast iron cooking. Much better for you than cooking on what is almost plastic (non-stick cookware polymer coatings).
Excellent video of the correct way to clean & season a cast iron pot or skittle.
Any ideas for enamel covered cast iron?
Thanks well appreciated.
Enamel is easier to look after. The most important thing is not to chip the coating.
I strip them down to the bare metal, after have de-greased them as best as i can. Then I scrub them with an artificial diamond stone made out of metal, using a lot of water. I am happy only when I see the bare surface of the cast iron. I wipe it off to minimize flash-rust, wich in fact can look quite good in the later process.
Now I apply heat, ~230°C and apply a very thin layer of flax-oil. I put a lid over the pan and wait until it allmost stops smoking. Then I repeat the process two more times. I do not care to let it cool down between sessions.
Better than new, and good for a couple of months of daily use.
The action of the diamond-stone makes it planer and planer, and extremely clean, and in a hundred of years, it might become allmost perfectly flat, for now the egg can not be fryed perfectly well, for the pan is slightly convex in the midddle. :)
Artificial diamond-stone = A rectangular piece of steel, with diamond-powder bounded to it by nickel or some other metal. Often used to sharpen fishing-hooks.
Also, do not use plastic implements on a cast-iron pan. I use a stainless-steel spade, and it is very good indeed. I have sharpened it partly, so it can be used to scrape the pan free of irritating knobs and in-burned particles, fuzed into the surface.
The surface is partially self-healing by daily use, but needs restoration once or twice a year, as the Carbon-residues builds up and starts to flake off in small cakes.
That sounds like a super solid method!
I just wanted to add one thing, unless you are using old fashioned lye soap, soap and water won't hurt well seasoned cast.
Awesome, thank you. Do you keep the oven at 250°c when baking for an hour at a time?
Full blast from start to finish 🥵
Thanks for the video! I use flax seed oil on my knife handles. Would that be suitable for cast iron seasoning? Cheers.
I've heard it works great!
I dry my cast iron on the stove top, gas on high, turning the gas off when all visible water has evaporated. Residual heat will evaporate off the rest, without damaging the seasoning. I also season cast iron on the stove top, heating it slowly until the oil just starts to smoke, then letting it cool for a few minutes, then heating it again. Of course, if you need to season both surfaces, this isn't the right method!
After the 1 hour bake, do we wait for the pan to cool down, before doing the consecutive seasonings ?
No need. Just be super careful not to burn yourself or anything else 😅
Thanks Charlie. Perhaps I missed it, but what temperature did you set your oven at for seasoning? Thanks.
As hot as it gets. Mine was at 250C (480F).
Great Video. I have a unrelated question. How thick is your oven steel? cheers!!
Around 6mm-7mm.
I use my cast iron for the steaming method you had talked about in a different video. My main concern is rust getting in the air environment of the oven and getting onto the bread of course. However, my other concern is about how effective seasoning my pan will be when using it for steaming.
Will the water rapidly degrade the seasoning?
If so, is it still worth having to go through the seasoning process? Keep in mind, rather energy intensive to bake it for 1 hour for each layer of seasoning.
Wash the rust off then it will not get on anything.
If you are only going to use it for steaming, then I don't see a reason to season it. The seasoning will wear off.
Expected a fried egg test at the end, but alas. 🙃
It would need a couple more coats for that I think😅
I have the same Lodge cast and used it on several occasions as a steam pot in the oven and have never had it rust. I assume that means my seasoning was more robust?
I was doing it for years before it became rusty. It will fail eventually 😄
I dry on the stove top and usually use avacado oil.
Great advice. According to Le Creuset, their enameled cast iron cookware is dishwasher safe.
I just spent my day stripping my pans, what a wonderful coincidence.
Yup still here waiting for Chimney Cake recipe ;)
I have got some questions. I have never had any cast iron pans before.
1:22 Will any brands of dishwasher ok for cast iron pans?
3:32 If you don't use it for a long time and keep it without oiling it, will it make it rust? Any other alternatives besides oiling it to prevent rust?
Thank you.
Any dishwasher will harm it I would think. If you keep it dry, it won't rust.
What temperature do you bake the pan for?
250C or as high as you can get your oven.
Can we do this on stove? How long we have to put on stove if yes
I've never tried it. I'd imagine it would be less effective, less efficient, and take longer too. I'm sure google will give you a better answer than I could.
What is your opinion of the merits of making the cooking surface smoother through polishing?
The oils fill the pores to some degree so even the rough new pans work fine but I've got one old one that's got a really smooth cooking surface and I've sanded my other cast iron a few times before reseasoning to get it closer to that wonderful slick surface. It does seem to make a difference to me.
@@katrinkarose175 Thanks for the reply. That makes good sense to me.
I had my husband sand down the rough high spots on my 10" Lodge skillet until he hit bare metal. Then I started the seasoning process. Since it was Summer and hot out, I seasoned it in my grill at 400° for an hour and the shut off the grill to cool down overnight. It worked great.
I was in Eastern Tennessee last week so I stopped at the Lodge outlet in Sevierville and spent a lot of money on lots of new cast iron! What a fun place to shop😊. I'm now the proud owner of a set like yours 😃. Between my new pans and my enameled cast iron, I'm good to go. I don't think that I need any more new pans or cast iron for the rest of my life.
@@KitchenFairy61 If you have a larger sized family, you need to go back and get more. Your children will all need their fair share. ;)
@@1DrBar 😊 I have step children who are grown up. Between their father and I, there is more than enough to spread around the three of them. 👍
Anything else will go to nieces and nephews, or grand kids. Or, perhaps to Goodwill if no one wants them.
I can not help but be reminded of a former roommate, who insisted that even rinsing a cast iron pan would strip all the seasoning off. So he'd make his steak in it, with a half-stick of butter, and then let it cool completely before wiping it out with a paper towel.
Is he still breathing? 😁
❤
It would never occur to me to generate steam with my cast iron skillet - I just bought the most basic pan from ebay for like €2! I've been using that one for four years and never done any maintenance on it. And yes, it does look terrible from all the lime in our tap water, but so what, it won't ever have any kind of contact to food
I only use ghee for seasoning, it's traditional
Like 👍 ❤