I made some awesome omlets this weekend in the Ballarini carbon steel pan you recommended. The seasoning was slow to develop, but has steadily developed over time to a nice non stick coating. Avocado oil has woeked great for me! Thanks for all the great content!
Nice to see someone getting the word out on modern dish “soap” being good for seasoned pans. When I first started using cast iron many years ago, I always had terrible problems with flaking or peeling seasoning. I had believed the old wives tales, and cleaned just with water and elbow grease, various scrubbers, brushes, a chainmail scrubber, and sometimes kosher salt. Then I heard the origin of the myth was due to caustic homemade lye soap in the old days, and that modern detergent-based liquid dish soap was perfectly safe for seasoning. Empirically, that made sense to me as anyone who has tried to clean polymerized oil from inside an oven knows how tough and stubborn that stuff is. I tried washing with soap like any other pan, and my peeling problems went away. I think what happens is, during cooking, you should get a thin layer of seasoning that adheres to the existing seasoning. But also, after cooking you will have a layer that’s a mixture of oil and tiny food particles sitting on top of that. After washing with water and a sponge or scrubber, you will still have a thin film of that coating the pan, because it is almost impossible to get all of that off through water and mechanical action only, as oil and water repel each other. When you cook the next time, the newest polymerized layer of seasoning will form on top of that film of near-microscopic residue, and it can’t fully bond to the underlying layer wherever it is blocked by the tiny food particles. Those food particles carbonize over time. So basically you are making a graphite-and-seasoning “lasagna”, and those seasoning “noodles” become easy to flake off when they aren’t stuck to anything below. Using soap and water allows the unpolymerized oil to be washed away by the water, taking the microscopic food bits with it, leaving a clean, smooth, hard seasoning layer for the next layer of seasoning to bond to. Polymerized seasoning is a natural plastic, and modern soap doesn’t affect it.
I've been cooking with cast iron for about 2 years and carbon steel for about 8-9 months. I think I can season my pans. When I wash them the seasoning is fine whether or not I use soap. when I store them they don't rust. My problem is when I cook with them. If I fry potatoes there is no problem but if I cook a pan of onions and corn and let it simmer, then the seasoning seems to be reduced at the end as if I had cooked tomato sauce. Even if I sear a hamburger or fry bacon I can often see bare (or at least closer to bare) metal each place where the meat stuck to the pan. I use oil to reduce the sticking, but still get some spots each time I cook meat. So on average I feel like the seasoning gets less and less dark the more I cook with it. I can't just fry potatoes for years just hoping that some day I can use the pan for other purposes... So I cook with them and the seasoning doesn't improve and whenever it gets too much like bare metal I do oven method.... Sure would be nice to figure out what I'm doing wrong and have my seasoning build up over time as you discuss in the video. Any Thoughts would be much appreciated.
That’s interesting. Can you tell me more about your seasoning process? What oil are you using. How high of a temp and for how long. Are you using the oven method. Sound like to me, maybe your pan wasn’t perfectly cleaned before seasoning and the polymerization is having a hard time
@@tomwadek Thanks, my oven seasoning process uses grapeseed, canola or veg oil, with temps around 450 and times around 90 mins. I vary things to try to see what works best. Stovetop seasoning is a bit difficult for me because I use induction. When I get a new pan (I've gotten an OXO a matfer and most recently a Strata, I clean with soap and water followed by towel drying, followed by stovetop drying, followed by oil application and oven seasoning. the patina is beautiful after one or two rounds. The surface is super smooth and eggs don't stick. but as I said before, if I cook meat then invariably I get some spots where it sticks and removes some of the seasoning.. You can see the outline of the hamburger after I cook it. metal coloring where the hamburger was and dark where there was no hamburger. Temp gun says I'm at about 450F when the hamburger goes in and it's not really hard to lift from the surface after 90 - 120 seconds of searing. Bacon is similar. Cooking (simmering) vegetables is worse. The edges of the pan remain seasoned, but the bottom surface and a bit up the sides where the liquid has been are noticeably reduced in color. again. no rust and cooking is much less sticky than if I use stainless, but I feel like the pan is not accumulating a dark color over time. Thanks for reading.
Hi Tom. I've been cooking with a large cheap ($20) carbon steel pan for a few years now. I followed your advice on seasoning and I'm super happy. I just recently purchased a 14" carbon steel pan from Costco by the company Tramontina and was wondering if you are familiar with it. If you are could you share a few comments on its quality. Cheers
Great to hear! Glad you are enjoying carbon steel. I don’t have much experience with their cs line but I have used the company before and they have a great reputation. I think you did well. Give it a go, the good thing about Costco is they have a great return policy.
Nice video. This is a pretty comprehensive guide on seasoning. However, based on many searches, I have not come across any real scientific study on the optimal method. It seems to me that going past the oil's smoking point induces hard carbon buildup. Different manufacturer websites have different approaches, Field recommends high ratio of polyunsaturated fat to monounsaturated fat oils. Perhaps I am overthinking this, but hopefully a chemical engineering student comes up with a comprehensive study.
To even out layers so that you get a smooth season surface to work with, add 2 tablespoons of coarse salt, and a tablespoon of oil and folded up a paper towel and scrub it all throughout the inside as hard as you can then wipe it out and use it. As a mild and natural abrasive, which will remove carbon deposits and leave your pan with a single smooth layer of seasoning that's delightful.
Nice video! Have been using steel scouring pads with the spray-on Dawn dish soap to clean cast iron pans and carbon steel woks of crud . Is this stripping the coating? I've made a practice of lightly oiling pans after drying with a thin layer of canola oil (400F to smoke) and heating to that point as part of the cleaning process. Buff after cooling a bit. Is this unnecessary overkill? The result is a slick non-stick, but have wondered if I'm doing too much. I've also noticed you use plastic scrapers and scrub brushes exclusively so wondered about my steel 'curly cue' scouring pads.
I think the pan can handle it and you don’t seem to be having any issues. Plastic scrapers make sense if you’re like me and want to baby it. 😂 sounds like you are getting great results so keep doing what you are doing. I also like to add some oil and heat it up before storage. Cheers!
Anyone who says that your pan isn't seasoned right, is dead wrong. As long as it isn't chipping or rusting, it's seasoned perfectly. I will say from my restaurant experience, that too much buildup of that seasoning could prevent some heat transfer, but that's only if it's super uneven. But in a home setting on a small pan you wouldn't notice it. It's more noticable on steel griddles or flattops, where the back half of the grill has that buildup, and isn't as hot as the front where it's not as built up. The burners don't seem to penetrate as well through seasoning, but that's why we strip that seasoning off every week, to let it rebuild.
For flattops in a restaurant setting, we have gone thru different chemical methods to clean on a nightly basis, from oven cleaners, to specialty chemicals but then settled with scrubbing with grill cleaning bricks. The bricks are soft enough that they leave polymerized coating on the surface.
@@CoolJay77 we rinse our grill every night but we don't deep clean it every night. We've tried grill bricks but it doesn't get anything off. If you want to clean it with a chemical use a high temp grill cleaner, you only need about 4oz at a time, and everything comes right off. Plus you can do it in the middle of service as long as you rinse it off (obviously with no food on the grill at that time)
@@giovannispagnoli8040 It might vary with different cooking conditions. With our nightly grill scraper, a wipe followed by grill brick, most of the surface retains light bronze and part metallic color, without a dark carbonization. We have moved on from the specialty chemicals. That is not to say your method is bad.
@@CoolJay77 what do you guys cook? And is your grill your main cooking equipment/surface. We are doing burgers, so the grill is literally all we use, which might be why we have varying degrees of cleanings
Great video! Yes, it would be interesting to see a comparison btw seasoning above and below smoke point. I just saw this video from Cook Culture: ua-cam.com/video/By5_xL-BPwY/v-deo.htmlsi=Dd4heThNcxzfsYjl, where it is argued that keeping it below smokepoint is better.
What I find funny is seeing these Chefs on Food Network that cook tomato based sauces on cast iron pans. It looks good on Camera but it probably tastes horrible. What gets to me is newbie cooks see this and think its okay to cook tomato if this chef does it and then you see the silly comments below like "if you cook tomatoes for under 45 minutes it won't make a difference. Not sure about that. A few years back I did a test where I seasoned a Paella carbon steel in the oven for 5 times with vegetable oil and washed it over and over with soap and no seasoning ever came off. However I put a few drops of vinegar on it and you should see how the seasoning became liquid. Blesh think about it would you eat polymerized oil? No thank you. The other thing that makes me laugh is when you see someone cooking a steak to the point where everything is burned and then they wash it with water and put an oil with a paper towel after drying and then showing you gunk and saying its normal. I don't get how someone can cook fish on a carbon steel and not clean it with soap. The pan will stink so they can boast about their prefect seasoning? I have my Matfer for a few years now and its black. I use it almost daily and I wash it with soap and its black and will always be black. I never introduce anything with acid to the pan and i works great. Lodge Cast Iron pans don't cost much and if it was really true that soap kills your seasoning which its not, well then I rather buy another pan then to keep cooking over dirt any day. To many stupid myths and many gullible people. Nice video :)
I cannot for the life of me get oven seasoning for cast iron or carbon steel to work. I follow the instructions, use 1/4 tsp grape seed oil for a 10” pan, and wipe the oil off until it looks matte, place upside down and yet I get sticky spider webs at the end. I do 10 minutes at a lower heat, pull out and wipe off again while increasing the temp, place upside down and in the end I get sticky spider webs. 🤷♂️ Thankfully I don’t have to season often, but occasionally someone will put eggs in a cold pan with no oil and weld them on, after cleaning that out I have to season again.
Sounds like to me the pan is dirty. Maybe some wax left over from the manufacture. Also are you taking the oil past its smoking point? Grape seed oil can have vastly different smoking points.
My grandmother used a cast iron skillet for most of her life that she got from her mother, who used it for most of her life. Two generations and neither went through this much effort to keep the pans useable. Did this generation just get stupid, or has cast iron changed?
Are people on average incredibly stupid or how is there a need for multiple videos on this? I know some subjects have limited topics for videos but jeezuss.
What you are forgetting cooking oil is a very very recent addition to our menu, and is extremely detrimental to our health, What I remember as a child, my best friend's father was a chef and as far as I remember no soap never went on his frying pan he cleaned it with crumpled newspaper and salt then rinsed it under the tap. This would be in the early sixties the only oil availlable was olive oil, not very good for cooking with and rather expensive at that. I predict very shortly we will completely abandon these oils.
One of the most clear and comprehensive video on seasoning a pan so far! 👏
Glad you think so! Thank you
Great explainer. I like the calm tone you have Tom, make your points come across well.
Thank you kindly! Glad you enjoyed the video.
I made some awesome omlets this weekend in the Ballarini carbon steel pan you recommended. The seasoning was slow to develop, but has steadily developed over time to a nice non stick coating. Avocado oil has woeked great for me! Thanks for all the great content!
That’s awesome. I’m glad you are enjoying your cs. Cheers!
Nice to see someone getting the word out on modern dish “soap” being good for seasoned pans. When I first started using cast iron many years ago, I always had terrible problems with flaking or peeling seasoning. I had believed the old wives tales, and cleaned just with water and elbow grease, various scrubbers, brushes, a chainmail scrubber, and sometimes kosher salt. Then I heard the origin of the myth was due to caustic homemade lye soap in the old days, and that modern detergent-based liquid dish soap was perfectly safe for seasoning. Empirically, that made sense to me as anyone who has tried to clean polymerized oil from inside an oven knows how tough and stubborn that stuff is. I tried washing with soap like any other pan, and my peeling problems went away.
I think what happens is, during cooking, you should get a thin layer of seasoning that adheres to the existing seasoning. But also, after cooking you will have a layer that’s a mixture of oil and tiny food particles sitting on top of that. After washing with water and a sponge or scrubber, you will still have a thin film of that coating the pan, because it is almost impossible to get all of that off through water and mechanical action only, as oil and water repel each other. When you cook the next time, the newest polymerized layer of seasoning will form on top of that film of near-microscopic residue, and it can’t fully bond to the underlying layer wherever it is blocked by the tiny food particles. Those food particles carbonize over time. So basically you are making a graphite-and-seasoning “lasagna”, and those seasoning “noodles” become easy to flake off when they aren’t stuck to anything below.
Using soap and water allows the unpolymerized oil to be washed away by the water, taking the microscopic food bits with it, leaving a clean, smooth, hard seasoning layer for the next layer of seasoning to bond to. Polymerized seasoning is a natural plastic, and modern soap doesn’t affect it.
Very nicely explained. Thank you for this comment. Cheers!
I've been cooking with cast iron for about 2 years and carbon steel for about 8-9 months. I think I can season my pans. When I wash them the seasoning is fine whether or not I use soap. when I store them they don't rust. My problem is when I cook with them. If I fry potatoes there is no problem but if I cook a pan of onions and corn and let it simmer, then the seasoning seems to be reduced at the end as if I had cooked tomato sauce. Even if I sear a hamburger or fry bacon I can often see bare (or at least closer to bare) metal each place where the meat stuck to the pan. I use oil to reduce the sticking, but still get some spots each time I cook meat. So on average I feel like the seasoning gets less and less dark the more I cook with it. I can't just fry potatoes for years just hoping that some day I can use the pan for other purposes... So I cook with them and the seasoning doesn't improve and whenever it gets too much like bare metal I do oven method.... Sure would be nice to figure out what I'm doing wrong and have my seasoning build up over time as you discuss in the video. Any Thoughts would be much appreciated.
That’s interesting. Can you tell me more about your seasoning process? What oil are you using. How high of a temp and for how long. Are you using the oven method. Sound like to me, maybe your pan wasn’t perfectly cleaned before seasoning and the polymerization is having a hard time
@@tomwadek Thanks, my oven seasoning process uses grapeseed, canola or veg oil, with temps around 450 and times around 90 mins. I vary things to try to see what works best. Stovetop seasoning is a bit difficult for me because I use induction. When I get a new pan (I've gotten an OXO a matfer and most recently a Strata, I clean with soap and water followed by towel drying, followed by stovetop drying, followed by oil application and oven seasoning. the patina is beautiful after one or two rounds. The surface is super smooth and eggs don't stick. but as I said before, if I cook meat then invariably I get some spots where it sticks and removes some of the seasoning.. You can see the outline of the hamburger after I cook it. metal coloring where the hamburger was and dark where there was no hamburger. Temp gun says I'm at about 450F when the hamburger goes in and it's not really hard to lift from the surface after 90 - 120 seconds of searing. Bacon is similar. Cooking (simmering) vegetables is worse. The edges of the pan remain seasoned, but the bottom surface and a bit up the sides where the liquid has been are noticeably reduced in color. again. no rust and cooking is much less sticky than if I use stainless, but I feel like the pan is not accumulating a dark color over time. Thanks for reading.
Hi Tom. I've been cooking with a large cheap ($20) carbon steel pan for a few years now. I followed your advice on seasoning and I'm super happy.
I just recently purchased a 14" carbon steel pan from Costco by the company Tramontina and was wondering if you are familiar with it. If you are could you share a few comments on its quality. Cheers
Great to hear! Glad you are enjoying carbon steel. I don’t have much experience with their cs line but I have used the company before and they have a great reputation. I think you did well. Give it a go, the good thing about Costco is they have a great return policy.
@@tomwadek yes that makes sense as they give you a 90 day money back
Nice video. This is a pretty comprehensive guide on seasoning. However, based on many searches, I have not come across any real scientific study on the optimal method. It seems to me that going past the oil's smoking point induces hard carbon buildup. Different manufacturer websites have different approaches, Field recommends high ratio of polyunsaturated fat to monounsaturated fat oils. Perhaps I am overthinking this, but hopefully a chemical engineering student comes up with a comprehensive study.
Thank you! Definitely agree. Would love to see the science behind smoke point. Maybe I’ll do a little experiment. 🤔
@@tomwadekI’d be interested in seeing this.
To even out layers so that you get a smooth season surface to work with, add 2 tablespoons of coarse salt, and a tablespoon of oil and folded up a paper towel and scrub it all throughout the inside as hard as you can then wipe it out and use it. As a mild and natural abrasive, which will remove carbon deposits and leave your pan with a single smooth layer of seasoning that's delightful.
Great tip! Thanks
Go to your local Chinese restaurant and watch them season a wok. The metal is different but the process is similar and the heat they use is intense.
Nice video! Have been using steel scouring pads with the spray-on Dawn dish soap to clean cast iron pans and carbon steel woks of crud . Is this stripping the coating? I've made a practice of lightly oiling pans after drying with a thin layer of canola oil (400F to smoke) and heating to that point as part of the cleaning process. Buff after cooling a bit. Is this unnecessary overkill? The result is a slick non-stick, but have wondered if I'm doing too much. I've also noticed you use plastic scrapers and scrub brushes exclusively so wondered about my steel 'curly cue' scouring pads.
I think the pan can handle it and you don’t seem to be having any issues. Plastic scrapers make sense if you’re like me and want to baby it. 😂 sounds like you are getting great results so keep doing what you are doing. I also like to add some oil and heat it up before storage. Cheers!
@@tomwadek Thank you -- that is helpful!
Anyone who says that your pan isn't seasoned right, is dead wrong. As long as it isn't chipping or rusting, it's seasoned perfectly.
I will say from my restaurant experience, that too much buildup of that seasoning could prevent some heat transfer, but that's only if it's super uneven. But in a home setting on a small pan you wouldn't notice it. It's more noticable on steel griddles or flattops, where the back half of the grill has that buildup, and isn't as hot as the front where it's not as built up. The burners don't seem to penetrate as well through seasoning, but that's why we strip that seasoning off every week, to let it rebuild.
That makes complete sense to me on a griddle in a restaurant environment. Thanks for sharing. Cheers!
For flattops in a restaurant setting, we have gone thru different chemical methods to clean on a nightly basis, from oven cleaners, to specialty chemicals but then settled with scrubbing with grill cleaning bricks. The bricks are soft enough that they leave polymerized coating on the surface.
@@CoolJay77 we rinse our grill every night but we don't deep clean it every night. We've tried grill bricks but it doesn't get anything off. If you want to clean it with a chemical use a high temp grill cleaner, you only need about 4oz at a time, and everything comes right off. Plus you can do it in the middle of service as long as you rinse it off (obviously with no food on the grill at that time)
@@giovannispagnoli8040 It might vary with different cooking conditions. With our nightly grill scraper, a wipe followed by grill brick, most of the surface retains light bronze and part metallic color, without a dark carbonization. We have moved on from the specialty chemicals. That is not to say your method is bad.
@@CoolJay77 what do you guys cook? And is your grill your main cooking equipment/surface. We are doing burgers, so the grill is literally all we use, which might be why we have varying degrees of cleanings
I see you use a plastic scraper. I've been using a metal spatula to scrape out stuck residue. Am I harming my carbon steel skillet?
Nothing it can’t handle but better to use plastic
Will a dishwasher strip the seasoning
Yes it’s possible but a lot of other negative things can happen. Ci and cs will rust
As long as your egg don't have black bits when cooking. You are good. Otherwise you are eating that "black"
A lot of carbon steel now comes from the factory with that jet black seasoning. Just look at OXO.
Great video! Yes, it would be interesting to see a comparison btw seasoning above and below smoke point. I just saw this video from Cook Culture: ua-cam.com/video/By5_xL-BPwY/v-deo.htmlsi=Dd4heThNcxzfsYjl, where it is argued that keeping it below smokepoint is better.
Oh very cool! That’s interesting. I think I might have to investigate.
What I find funny is seeing these Chefs on Food Network that cook tomato based sauces on cast iron pans. It looks good on Camera but it probably tastes horrible.
What gets to me is newbie cooks see this and think its okay to cook tomato if this chef does it and then you see the silly comments below like
"if you cook tomatoes for under 45 minutes it won't make a difference. Not sure about that.
A few years back I did a test where I seasoned a Paella carbon steel in the oven for 5 times with vegetable oil and washed it over and over with soap and no seasoning ever came off.
However I put a few drops of vinegar on it and you should see how the seasoning became liquid. Blesh think about it would you eat polymerized oil? No thank you.
The other thing that makes me laugh is when you see someone cooking a steak to the point where everything is burned and then they wash it with water and put an oil with a paper towel after drying and then showing you gunk and saying its normal.
I don't get how someone can cook fish on a carbon steel and not clean it with soap. The pan will stink so they can boast about their prefect seasoning?
I have my Matfer for a few years now and its black. I use it almost daily and I wash it with soap and its black and will always be black.
I never introduce anything with acid to the pan and i works great.
Lodge Cast Iron pans don't cost much and if it was really true that soap kills your seasoning which its not, well then I rather buy another pan then to keep cooking over dirt any day.
To many stupid myths and many gullible people.
Nice video :)
Is it Cast Iron Carbon steel, or carbon steel? Thought it was just carbon steel skillet.
I cannot for the life of me get oven seasoning for cast iron or carbon steel to work. I follow the instructions, use 1/4 tsp grape seed oil for a 10” pan, and wipe the oil off until it looks matte, place upside down and yet I get sticky spider webs at the end. I do 10 minutes at a lower heat, pull out and wipe off again while increasing the temp, place upside down and in the end I get sticky spider webs. 🤷♂️ Thankfully I don’t have to season often, but occasionally someone will put eggs in a cold pan with no oil and weld them on, after cleaning that out I have to season again.
Sounds like to me the pan is dirty. Maybe some wax left over from the manufacture. Also are you taking the oil past its smoking point? Grape seed oil can have vastly different smoking points.
@@tomwadek Cool. Those are things I can check. I thought I had but I can double check if I try again. Thanks.
@@MikeRisleyno problem, good luck.
My grandmother used a cast iron skillet for most of her life that she got from her mother, who used it for most of her life. Two generations and neither went through this much effort to keep the pans useable. Did this generation just get stupid, or has cast iron changed?
104 thumbs up and 1 downvote, musta cheaped out on the oven step.
😂
Are people on average incredibly stupid or how is there a need for multiple videos on this? I know some subjects have limited topics for videos but jeezuss.
What you are forgetting cooking oil is a very very recent addition to our menu, and is extremely detrimental to our health, What I remember as a child, my best friend's father was a chef and as far as I remember no soap never went on his frying pan he cleaned it with crumpled newspaper and salt then rinsed it under the tap. This would be in the early sixties the only oil availlable was olive oil, not very good for cooking with and rather expensive at that. I predict very shortly we will completely abandon these oils.