How gross is cast iron cooking?
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- Опубліковано 11 кві 2024
- Is it gross to cook with a cast iron (or carbon steel) pan?
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I had a real hard time trying to season my cast iron pan using the "scientific" methods of wiping on the perfect amount of fat and leaving it in the oven at a perfect temperature for a perfect amount of time. Eventually I just said screw it and started cooking on it... after a week or so I had an amazing non-stick seasoning that eggs just slide off of. Convinced me that a lot of people just overthink this stuff way too much. I can't imagine my great grandma carefully pre-seasoning these pans in the 1920s, she'd just cook on the damn things.
It's not a difficult process. Just a quick water rimse and maybe some dishsoap and wipe with a cloth, a good dry, a bit of oil (say a little bigger than a dime to a quarter depending on the size of the pan) and then a good wipe around with paper towel on the residual heat. It's not any more care than most pans really. You shouldn't leave food to get stuck on on any pan as it's much easier to clean fresh off the heat in the first place.
The main reason it's recommended to add thin layers is for bonding, if you add too much oil it can become sticky and not polymerize fully, leaving a sticky, gunky feeling to parts of the pan. A very thin layer will polymerize more completely in less time and is more likely to bond to the other layers, but because it's thin you need to apply a lot of layers for any substantial effect, and an improperly cured layer can make it difficult to add additional seasoning layers. And when I say thin I mean you should basically not see any oil when applying it, it should look almost dry, it's almost impossible to get all the oil off a pan with some form of towel so there's almost always an extremely thin layer left. When I started seasoning some pans I thought that was too little and applied enough oil that I could still see the shine from it, and the seasoning did not turn out good at all.
The thing about pre-seasoning is more for at the beginning or after a heavy restoration, a completely fresh pan will have very little seasoning and can be so sticky it's nearly impossible to cook with, so a lot of people don't want to cook with the pan for 4-5 cooks until it starts getting more non-stick. And if you end up needing to restore a pan, say the seasoning is ruined and it starts rusting, it's important once you remove the rust and seasoning layers to preseason as quick as you can, as the raw cast iron will rust readily and impart unenjoyable iron flavors into your food. If a pan already has enough seasoning that you feel good using it, then by all means use it often and all good to go.
yeah, no need to be precious about it; what helped me get a feel for how to approach this stuff was a couple of those "cowboy cook" videos where the guy would just rub some oil on a pan and stick it in a campfire until it smoked a little and the pans come out a beautiful glossy black
hell, one time adam ragusea just got one hot on his stove and (after turning the flame off!!) hit it with some cooking oil spray, whereupon it set instantly like "seasoning spray paint"
there are many methods, another one is simply getting something like grapeseed or rapeseed oil and pouring it out just so the entire bottom is coated and no more. Then leave it on high for a bit and dump it out. It's a great way that'll work every time but it'll waste the oil.
But simply cooking on it works too
Also, it really matters what you cook in it. Some things you can mess around, mess up, and your pan will be fine. But if, for example, you cook with tomatoes often then in my experience you need to also pay attention to re-doing the seasoning.
My first exposure to cast iron pans was when I was asked to do the dishes after a meal at stranger's house and when I started to apply the soapy sponge to a cast iron pan someone freaked out at me. That has made me think "well fuck these prissy pans that get ruined by ordinary washing!" ever since. This video helpfully clears up that that person was just overreacting.
Exact same thing happened to me with a roommate I had a while back except the dishes had been piled up and just sitting in the sink for almost a week before I got tired of it.
I was almost done cleaning everything when they came in and the first thing they did was start freaking out that I was washing the cast iron with soap. Only difference was that I was aware that seasoning them was a thing, just didn't know that a light soap scrubbing would completely "ruin" it. I told them "can't it just be re seasoned?" But they obviously didn't want to hear that since they couldn't even wash dishes and worked at home.
The only rule I'd say cast iron has is "don't leave it visibly wet". hit it with a dish towel after you're done washing and it's fine. Other than that you're basically cooking with the toughest thing around.
yep if dish soap ruins it, it's not seasoned. Oil layers that are too thick or not properly heated will wash out... and they should be washed out.
Who tf asks a guest to do their dishes? I mean I kinda get it if you offered to do them, but even then a normal host would insist that they’ll do their own dishes.
The only way this could possibly make sense to me is that this didn’t happen in America because almost everyone I know would have just said “fuck off” and left immediately after the hosts asked that.
No steel scrubby, no dishwasher, no soaking... soap and normal abrasive plastic, bamboo, etc) are fine. Just dont go crazy.
I had no idea modern soaps wouldn't instantly strip the seasoning! Good to know :)
they dont, not even close, if modern soaps could strip polymerized fats, think what it would do to your skin.
Yeah, this is the most shocking part of the video.
@quercus3290 if it can strip polymers, I wouldn't know at all what it could do to my skin. I don't know if my skin is at all similar in chemistry to a polymer.
deglazing with wine or tamato juice, t make a pan sauce for yoyur steak, does more damage, than a bit of dish soap an scrubbing could ever do
Technically old soaps shouldn't either. Soap is made with lye, but if the soap is properly made, no lye will be left in the soap. Modern dish soap isn't even soap, it's a detergent, and it will in no way harm your seasoning :)
The only truly important tips are "don't scrape too much or too hard" and "keep it dry". If you cook normally, clean it normally, and just do a good job of drying it, then it will be fine.
I do usually heat my cast iron and carbon steel after I clean to dry it though, my climate isn't dry enough to leave them out. Doubly so for carbon steel pans (my wok) which tend to have a thinner layer of seasoning, get scraped more, and which often have various joints or rivets for handles and stuff which can get water trapped in them. When I dry my wok over the fire, I tilt it towards the handles and there's always a bit of fizzing from them. Although, it is admittedly a fairly cheap wok, so your mileage may vary.
Even scraping often/hard can be a good thing as it evens out the bumpy texture over time!
@@MichaelFairhurst If you do that though, it's gotta be done really evenly. It's very easy to scratch a pan with a fork or the corner of a metal spatula if you're not careful.
Nuance dies on the internet, so it's generally easier to say "don't do it" than to say "sometimes it's fine, but only if you do x, y, and z"
@@cebo494 I use a metal spatula, aggressively, all the time and haven't experienced issues. But I'm sure one day I will because you're right, everything is more nuanced than it appears online. Cheers!!
Keeping it dry is very easy if you just leave the oily residue from the last cook until you use it again. Then just break out a sponge and soap and clean it when you need it. The oil from the last cook keeps water off the pan very well.
The handles are the issue on my wok lately yeah 😅 I prefer a carbon steel frying pan over a full cast iron as well though, mostly for weight reasons. I have a better seasoning on that than the wok though, I guess due to a thinner layer from the factory like you say. Maybe I should try to start again with my wok… either grind it back, or just buy a new one and be a little more careful drying the handles.
Y'all are so good at answering practical questions using clear language and staying focused on the most important ideas.
Counselor Troi: You mean you're older... more experienced... a little more... seasoned.
Commander Riker: Seasoned? That's a horrible thing to say to a man.
As horrible as "older?"
Actually, Troi did NOT say "seasoned." She said "more seasoned," which is relatively horrible, not absolutely horrible.
@jimrobinson9979 I think of this quote every time I hear someone describes a person as “seasoned” 😂
Glad I'm not the only one who thought of this, damn we're a bunch of dorks!
@@ross-carlson Old Dorks ... who can cook!
It is always amazing how on the internet there are entire forums dedicated to OCD seasoning and make cast iron and carbon steel seem extremely difficult.
Meanwhile at any restaurant, whether western carbon steel or asian woks, grandmother cooks - you just cook. Wash the pan as one would then dry it with a kitchen towel. Meanwhile some bro who only cooks steak and eggs will go around telling everyone how soap never touches his pan, he bakes it in the oven to reduce moisture and treats a hunk of steel like it is more fragile than a Teflon coating.
I cook a lot in my cast iron, and even leave food overnight occasionally. I found that a good modern Lodge pan stood up to this abuse much better than a cheaper, thicker Chefmate that was my first exposure to cast iron.
I’ll also say that when I got my second Lodge, I noticed the difference between “brand new” and “well used for the last 3-4 years”. Putting it to use and throwing it in a preheating oven a few times over the first couple months really seemed to help it build seasoning faster.
Which is to say, the oven stuff can go way too far, but it’s not useless either, like with a new piece, or restoring an old one.
There are literally zero forums anywhere dedicated to OCD seasoning.
@@NicholasSandar I found the oven is more useful for Carbon steel than cast iron if you have an electric stove top. Often times electric heats up too much because the temperature is harder to control and you end up burning your season instead of polymerizing it properly; whilst the oven has much better and even temperature. It's also good for doing multiple pans at once, you can go ahead and give all your pans a touch up at the same time.
@@nyanuwu4209 Probably means the cast iron or cooking subreddits. I've certainly seen people recommend creative ways to wash a cast iron, the weirdest I've seen being salt and water lmao
@@uponeric36 I know what he means. But there's no OCD there. Salt will certainly work if you've got stuff stuck on (and didn't wash while it was still hot which is basically deglazing with soap and water), being abrasive and all, but it's a waste of salt.
It's like those "Forever Stew" or Forever Soups. Where the same dish has been cooked and served and restocked for decades. So long as you don't get chemical contaminants in, and so long as the heat is high enough, no germs can propagate in it.
Perpetual 1-day blinding stew
@anthonyjoshder4395 blinding?
@@priestesslucy3299 It's a meme, look it up it's quite funny
There was a 1500 year old pottage in france that got interrupted in WWII. I think the oldest pottage is now 300 years old.
I've made a pot of stew then just added vegetables as it got low. I think it lasted about a fortnight maybe a little longer.
The MYTH that you shouldn't clean cast iron with soap is infuriating! So many people just don't clean them at all because of this.
Goes hand in hand with the myth that *not* scrubbing them down with soap is unsanitary.
I use “cutting board soap” on my carbon steel, because I assume it’s just soap that is less likely to impart bad soapy flavors.
The only myth is WHY you shouldn't. I don't use soap on my cast iron because it makes the next thing you cook in it taste like soap, and it's completely unnecessary.
Soap is only needed to remove grease from pans, which doesn't make sense with cast iron since you're just going to polymerize that oil and create a new top layer for your pan's coating. The people who think they've unlocked some secret by putting soap on their cast iron pans are infuriating.
You're being a princess, Tui
There is no reason to use soap in cast iron. None.
I would rather dunk it in vinegar for a couple days or give it an electrolysis bath if I need to deep clean it.
As a soapmaker I have to correct one thing...Lye is used to make soap but there is no lye in properly made soap as it has had a chemical reaction to it and is not longer lye...it's soap. It won't strip your pan if you use lye soap but using a straight lye water bath can strip your pan if you need to.
This is true now since we know the science. Back in the day, this wasn't the case. People used wood ashes for their base, and the lack of consistency in that meant a very high chance of unreacted base left behind.
I cook on cast iron 60% of the time, and stainless the remaining 40%. I always use soap. Every time.
If you have built up a good thick layer of seasoning, any soap made within the past 50 years will not hurt it.
The only “never do” things I found are: clean in the dishwasher, let soak overnight, cook highly acidic foods, overheat an empty pan (this can burn off the polymerized layer if it gets hot enough).
You can cook highly acidic foods like spaghetti sauce, but you'll have to re-season afterwards. I prefer to make stuff like chili and spaghetti sauce in stainless steel.
@@claytonberg721 No you won't. I cook tomato sauce in my dutch oven all the time and there's no special care needed.
@@Meton2526 my skillet is only like 3 years old, maybe you have better seasoning on yours.
I'm not saying it wrecks it, it just needs a layer of oil and an hour in the oven afterwards,.. Or you can cook a package of bacon in it the next day or something.
I simply clean my pan exactly as I would a teflon one. Just soap up, scrup lightly, rinse and drain. My pan is used every single day and 99% of the time I don't bother to do the extra oiling and heating up process. If you use this things often, they are the cheapest, most realiable, best way to cook pretty much anything.
Yeah.. If your seasoned pan can't handle some scrubbing and soap, then it isn't really seasoned.
And I always laugh when I think of home cooks 200 years ago babying their cast/carbon cookware like we baby ours.
my teacher sent our class one of your videos and from the start of the year, the videos really helped me out as a food and nutrition student. I've subbed ever since. love your vids, keep it on❤❤
It's nice to see folks correcting misconceptions about cast iron pans. I've met some people who insist that their sticky or outright greasy pans are "properly" seasoned, pay no mind to the residue they were leaving on other surfaces. I also dated a guy who never considered that the soap issue could be related to how the soap is formulated (he had taken a lot of chemical engineering classes so I'm still a bit surprised by that).
In a similar vein, people mistakenly think you *need* to use unsalted butter when you're baking. The biggest reason that advice existed was because butter was *heavily* salted for preservation before we figured out refrigeration. Like it straight up had to be soaked before use to draw out the excess salt, and you could be left with a variable amount of salt depending on soak time. These days, the salt is just enough for flavor, and the package tells you /exactly/ how much salt is in the butter, so you can adjust if needed. (Learned some of that from another of Adam Ragusea's videos 😂).
I never use unsalted butter when baking, and I'm a very prolific baker. I only buy salted, cuz that's what I like on my toast. Never had everyone tell me my goodies were anything other than delectable.
Super cool to see an Adam Ragusea shout-out, especially that episode. One of his best science explainers, I think
That was a particularly great video of Adam's as well. I think about that one a lot
He's a tool
@@BuzzingGoober You're a tool
@@BuzzingGoober what'd he do
Could you please make a video on Wooden spoons, Wooden cutting boards, etc.? I hear some people with allergies worry about their ability to cross-contaminate from previous uses. Others just feel they can't get clean enough so its gross.
I don't have allergies & don't get grossed out so I use them often - but im curious about whether I should stop!
Wooden spoons and cooking utensils are fine. You should ideally be giving them a quick wash immediately after use and drying them with a towel as much as possible (as opposed to just letting a soaked spoon air-dry) but you aren't going to get anyone sick unless you don't wash a wooden spoon after using it with raw meat or just letting it sit out unwashed for a long time. For wooden cutting boards, same thing. Every now and then (as in once or twice a year) you may want to sand it down a bit and apply some neutral food safe oil (usually mineral oil - you can also use this one wooden spoons and such but since spoons tend to be so cheap it's not really worth the added effort ot sand and oil them like it is with a good wooden cutting board).
@@dealbreakercoh, good tip. My favourite cutting board is looking a bit scarred-up with dry patches now, and I wondered what could be done with that. It makes sense that treating it like my guitar fretboard (polish, perhaps a lot more vigorously with the cutting board, and oil) is the way to go 😊
I grew up in a home where my mother prepared raw chicken on wooden cutting boards with wooden spoons, washed with ordinary dish soap, and I'm still alive many decades later.
My mom uses plastic cutting boards and she got cancer.. I only use wood because I don't like eating microplastics
Kitchen woods are used because of their anti-bacterial properties. The gouge marks are the same as with plastic, but the plastic isn't trying to combat the bacteria, and putting microplastics into your prepared dish. Wash the wood, run it through the dishwasher to sanitize and you're better off. Yes, the wood is more porous, which gives more hiding spots, but those spots are inhospitable to things like e-coli and salmonella due to the wood resins and oils. As long as you sanitize and dry it out, you're safe.
Essentially, the fat and oils turn into a plastic surface, something that 3M has been trying to replicate for years with Teflon.
I have no issue using soap on cast iron - even soap made from lye. The saponification process transforms the lye into soap - just because lye is an ingredient doesn't mean it's present in the final soap (kind of like baking - saponification is transformative!). I can definitely see how a bad soap batch with the wrong proportion of ingredients could potentially have extra lye left over...but if there's enough lye to hurt your pans, it would also be likely to hurt you - wouldn't want that stuff in your eyes or on bare skin. So I think the risk of traditional soap on cast iron is WAY overblown.
Your first cast iron video answered so many of my questions, but this video really rounded it all out and answered my core question of cleaning them and what "seasoned" actually meant.
birb
3:38 Lye-Less Minnelli for the dish brand name is CRIMINAL lmao
Thank you for not pan-dering to the haters
She better steel herself for the haters to come for her, though.
a very informative video for those that dont know the wonders of cooking in cast iron.
I have both a Black pot, and a skillet. Basically the two cooking items that get used the most in my house. After cleaning i always reheat and pop a touch of oil with a paper towel to make sure no rust happens and to re-up the season layer.
love cooking in cast iron.
Pantastic video. I can see that you are a seasoned pan user. I had a great pun watching your video, as usual.
Bad babilon, BAD!
@@iansteelmatheson Did you notice that a "seasoned pan user" can mean a "user of seasoned pan" or a "seasoned user of pan". And both are true here. Isn't that neat?
unbeatable comment 😲
@@MeriaDuck Meh. I bet you could easily pun-ch my lights out if you tried.
Go straight to jail! Do not get 200 dollars
Thank you for this video. I'll be honest, when I clicked on it, I wasn't sure which direction you'd go. I don't remember having watched your videos previously. I have several hundred pounds of cast iron cookware collected over the decades. I'm not old, I've just been young for a very long time. I have fry pans, bread pans, cornbread pans, indoor and outdoor dutch ovens, chicken fryers, and presses.. I treat them all the same, exactly the way you described. My oldest camp dutch oven is over 40 years old. Looks like new. Some of my cast iron was salvaged from garage sales as rusty hulks. My oldest fry pan is only a couple years younger. Again, thank you.
Yoooo! The point of seasoning is just an old method to make a non-stick surface. Just like how a liquid mirror can be the smoothest, the liquid oil can settle into a smooth coating and, with heat, polymerize into a smooth solid/hard surface for cooking. It's like cooking on a custom made ice rink, only the ice is frozen carbon residue.
this was really helpful and insightful. thanks for the content!
My 12" cast iron skillet was my grandmother's. Had to do a bit of restoration due to poor storage, but now it's my most treasured piece of cookware. Everything you said here is spot on, and I would add, if you treat it well, it will treat you well for a lifetime. Maybe longer.
My mum was gonna toss out a small (8"?) cast-Fe pan, until I said, "Screw that... gimme!", and that became my fave for eggs. Was all pale gray and rusty, just nekkid Fe. Sanded down the shiite out of it , smoothed it, seasoned it, and it's one of my faves.
A chainmail scrubber was the best purchase I made for cleaning cast iron. That with a dap of dish soap on the more stubborn bits is all I need.
THANK YOU. I've always wanted to use a cast iron pan. But after all the research I did about how to clean it I got so overwhelmed and confused. I only ended up using it once and called it quits. I'll use this video from now on!
It’s really so simple and people will try to convince you it’s so complex, like many other things on the internet.
@@ek9589 It's easy to misunderstand how to clean, was my biggest problem when starting out with cast iron. Actually I had used them for years before I learned how to properly clean them.
Gimme da pan
they literally take me less time to clean than most people spend cleaning their "non stick" pans the only downside is the first seasoning part
@@WayStedYou You just have to know how to do it, that's all. There's alot of wives tails and stuff like that which persist to this day, which causes much confusion about a simple thing. I'm also thinking back to years ago before you could just research this stuff online. I remember my mom saying they can't ever touch water and all this stuff, without ever explaining how to do anything about cleaning them. That's all that's nonsense, cleaning is very easy.
thanks for another great vid full with helpful informational content :)
I use my pan virtually daily. I got into the habit of leaving it as is, then I clean with boiling water from the kettle and a good brush after I heat it up for next use. It's a nice balance to save having to reheat after I've eaten.
Thank you for this. I get so tired of explaining the soap thing to people who still believe you shouldn’t use soap.
"SEASONING" for cast iron
Now, that is a thread that a person could talk on for at least a half hour. Sure there is the "seasoning" that comes from years of cooking, and not washing very hard. BUT, there is also "flax seed" oil. Bake it on the skillet at about 400 degrees (I dunno, I baked my in the BBQ. lots of smoke). Really thin coats of flax seed oil @ 20 minutes each. About 12 coats. Once that stuff bakes on there. It's not coming off, with soap. But, even so. I have never tried the dishwasher. And I don't have a reason ever to. Nothing "sticks" to flax seed. My skillet is clean with a paper towel.
Flaxseed oil is pure poison for cast iron!!!! Cast iron and Flaxseed oil should not be used in the same sentence!!!!!!!!!! Absolutely heed warning!!!!! NEVER use Flaxseed oil on cast iron!!!!! Absolute nightmare!!!!
I live by the motto of "If it comes off with dish soap, its not 'seasoning' or anything I want real seasoning to adhere to."
It's really important to remove as much as possible that isn't seasoning. Seasoning attached to junk that isn't attached to the layer below it will just come right off. And that kind of applies to resistance to scraping too. A true seasoning should handle scraping really well. Unless you scrape it with a knife or something dumb. Most of what's going to come off wasn't that well attached anyways.
Totally agree. I use soap and a sponge on my cast iron every time I cook with it, and don't bother post-seasoning. I occasionally (about once a year or if some mishap happens that damages the seasoning) do a few rounds of seasoning in the oven.
If you've ever had oil baked onto a baking sheet, you'll know how nearly impossible it is to get polymerized oil off a pan with regular soap and water.
I once was a bit too vigorous with a metal spatula, but yeah it’s handled everything else fine 😅
@@meatmanek I thought I had a black baking sheet until I took metal wool to it. It's metal colored. And it wasn't a black oxide coating.
My Mama and Grandma used soap on theirs and then dried them on a burner on the gas stove. If something was really stuck on them as it sometimes will, they just put some water in the skillet and simmered it for a little bit, dumped the water out, wiped it dry, then put it on the gas stove burner with a little bacon grease rubbed in. That kept the beautiful black seasoning/coating looking and cooking beautifully
BTW, they're both gone now, and I'm cooking on their 100yr old passed down cast iron. 😊
Personally I do put my seasoned cast iron in the dishwasher once in a while, just not often. I've never had any issues with it stripping off the seasoning with normal dishwasher detergent, just don't use the extra strong detergents or whatever and it's fine
More often though I just use copper wool to scrub the pan with Dawn dish soap in the sink, then pop the pan back on the stove on high heat, spritz with olive oil (i like how shiny it ends up) and boom, reseasoned as much as I need on a regular basis
Yeah sometimes it’s nice to be really sure of cleaning every nook and cranny, and get a good view at the coverage of the “bronze” colour of a thinner seasoning to check on its natural progress of building up.
All the content you’ve made on cast iron has taught me so much!
The title of this video really should be "Cast Iron Cooking Is Not Gross".
Yeah but this title actually hits the target demographic of people who are concerned about cast iron.
Bait is the best strategy for winning UA-cam.
T H E A L G O R I T H M R E Q U I R ES E N G A G E M E N T.
@@mister-zen8491 Wang Chung tonight! 🤘
Man, I love this channel. It is a shame it isn't getting more of the attention it deserves.
Thank you for explaining it that way. I finally understand my cast iron pans better thanks to you.
As someone who watches, Adam Ragusa, I’m so happy that you mentioned him in the video
Great video with great info. In my experience, maybe it's because we were working with new pans when I was first learning about this, but I do remember having to basically start over if someone messed up and used detergent to clean the pan. Now that we've had them for years, I've also noticed that it's never a big deal to use a cloth that had been in sudsy water. I think that could be explained either by the detergent having no effect and it just being not well seasoned enough in the first place, or that the detergent is capable of making a dent in the polymer, but not enough to reverse years of work.
You had me at yucca scrubs, I use the same scrub and it woks perfect.
Great video! Spot on
The first cast iron pan I bought was a brand new Lodge. I'd cooked in older, "family" pans though and had an idea what I wanted. The first step in my break-in of the pan involved an angle-grinder and a several sanding flap discs. I think I ended on a 400 grit. Then I scrubbed the hell out of it and then immediately got to seasoning. In my area (western WA state) clean, unprotected iron or carbon steel will start to rust in minutes in the damp air. I would never grind a vintage pan, but they tend to be smoother already. Lodge is still an excellent deal for the cost, but I don't feel guilty adding a step to their production.
wow, a 5 minute super concise video that basically taught me not to overcomplicate a cast iron pan and just clean it normally. do you guys sell your own cast iron pans cause i'd love to buy my first from you lol
You had me til the end when you suggested that not cleaning your pan AT ALL is fine because of the lack of moisture and/or preheat for the next meal. Keep in mind that there are bacterias that grow not just in H2O but can grow in lipids instead (lipophilic). So your oily uncleaned pans can still grow bacteria without moisture. For example Bacillus cereus can come from meat and milk, is lipophilic, and is extremely heat resistant to beyond boiling temps for a certain period. You definitely don't want oily residues in your pans for extended periods of time if you can help it.
THANK YOU!! Finally a well explained video on this subject.
Thank you thank you. I love learning new stuff
Thank you for pointing out that soap doesn't strip a pans seasoning! Scrubbing a ton with soap will remove the seasoning but using soap doesn't automatically get rid of it
I just follow the instructions that came with my Lodge. Warm water, lightly scrub, dry. It doesn't smell or add weird flavors. I've used it almost every day since 2018 and it's amazing.
My parents used to run a restaurant that had a nice big carbon steel griddle that was likely used to cook cheesesteak for hoagies. What they would do to maintain it is fairly aggressively scrape off the grease and other bits, maybe throw some water on it to dislodge gunk, and get rid of the grease and gunk. They might have tossed some oil onto the griddle at the beginning or end of the work day.
I also tried flax oil before... never again, that stuff flaked off after a month.
I always add a little water to the pan after cooking and let it soak while I eat. Then I scape the bottom with a metal spatula, rinse, wipe dry and lightly oil for storage. Just make sure you NEVER leave the water in the pan overnight. It can make its way below the seasoning layers and rust your pan from the inside. (I learned the hard way).
I only use one mild steel pan, and have a few things to say about this video.
I actually found putting it in the dishwasher did nothing to the seasonings within the pan, and actually improved the non stick coating.
I normally do the dryout and season step before cooking nor after cleaning, although i might start doing that in the future.
One of my favourite meals is to repeatedly cook bacon over a few says in the same oil so i can have a supper bacony omelet at the end.
Thank you very much for everything! Good content!
Excellent and informative video!
This is all true. I went through the entire cast iron cooking learning curve. In the end, the only tool I used to clean up with were the hard plastic scrapers sold by Lodge. I just scraped, rinsed, and put them on the stove on low for a few minutes to evaporate all moisture, and they were good to go. I gave away my cast iron cookware collection when I bought a house with a glass top stove. Glass tops are destroyed by cast iron. But the Viking Culinary non-stick pans, which are very expensive, but worth it, will do anything the cast iron pans do, and they clean up perfectly in seconds. So I use those now.
03:52: This is what I've been doing with my new cast iron griddle. sometimes, usually by accident, I do something right. BTW, Can't beat the pancakes I cook on them, and zero sticking.
Thank you for this video! I bought a cast iron over a year ago, but I've only used it 2 times because I was afraid of undoing the 'seasoning' I was trying to build up. I am an aggressive washer, and have been known to polish stainless steel pans with a plastic scrub pad, and even remove metal from aluminum ones. So I didn't wanna damage my pan, and no-one could give me a definitive answer. Plastic brushes, copper scotch boys, Salt and a potato, you name it. I bought a little plastic bristled scrubber with a soap dispenser in the handle, but still didn't have the nerve to try it out, because they said if I damaged the seasoning, I'd have to break out the grill and oven cleaner, strip the whole pan, and start again. But I'm gonna try now, that thing did cook up a mean rib eye, even if I over cooked it a bit.
In addition, it's good to remember that pure fat (like an oil or lard) with no sugars doesn't have anything for bacteria to eat. Butter can go off because it still has tiny amounts of lactose (really tiny amounts) and oil will eventually go rancid but not from bacteria, from oxidation. So if oil/pure fat is the only thing in your pan, it's also safe (if you didn't pour off your bacon grease, you can use it to cook your eggs tomorrow).
To clean, I mainly wiped out the crumbs or grease I can, add a little water and wipe with a scrubber, then rinse in water under the faucet, wipe dry, and reapply a little oil and wipe clean. If food stuff is stuck on it, I boil water in it and then do the previous steps mentioned. I may scrub a bit while boiling but only with a rubber or wood spatula which is the utensils I use with cast iron.
I leave pans on the stove and reuse them every few days for weeks on end, without washing them. I can firmly attest that nothing ever grows in a pan that I've let dry out, but just a little moisture held in place by a closed lid will get mold spots after just a few days.
So I just leave lids slightly ajar when not in use and only bother washing them if oily crusts on the underside get thick.
I personally just use a regular blue Scotch Brite scrubbie sponge with soap to clean off any burnt on food and then spray a bit of avocado oil into the skillet and distribute it into a thin layer using a paper towel. Afterward, I use a blow torch to quickly polymerize the oil. You can tell when it's done when the sheen from the oil turns matte. This occurs with very little smoke compared to heating it on the stovetop or in the oven. Also, this process takes seconds with the proper Bernzonmatic torch and a canister of MAPP gas.
My big tip for cast iron pans, is use a stiff metal spatula and to scrape without a concern. This will over time smooth out the surface to help the nonstick qualities.
Personally, I find cast iron easiest to clean when it's completely cool, so I just leave the pan as is after dinner, and then clean it prior to using it the next day. This make it easy to scrape away the solidified grease and collect it with a paper towel. The less grease that goes down the sink the better.
But yes, for the occasional times you need, it's perfectly okay to let it soak with soapy water. As long as you are leaving it for hours, it's fine.
I started using my first cast iron pan last year when I got into cooking, and I always give mine a light washing with soap after boiling water in it. This video made my realize I've been doing it right 😅 except I don't reheat my pan at the end I just put some oil on it 😅
For some reason I also like the "ritual" aspect of cleaning, heating and oiling a pan to a nice shine after use
Though soap today is much milder than the old lye soap that granny made from costic soda in a big ole pot, I still would not recommend using soap on your cast iron because it can still damage the seasoning. Using metal spatulas and tools can scrape off your seasoning layers. You also usually don't want to boil water based or acidic foods unless your iron is very well seasoned.
And with using paper towels on your skillet, you want to use a lint free rag. Paper towels have a lot of mint and the lint gets transferred to your cast iron.
how did you know this was exactly on my mind with my new carbon steel pan? I was getting tired of reasoning after every use. It's great to know I can skip that step
I'm in the camp of dropping some cleaning product in cast iron and oiling it up again. I use some detergent with non-stick aswell. At the time that it won't cook your food properly, I have already gotten a new one anyway
I love my cast iron skillet. I do occasionally clean it with soap if I’ve cooked something sticky like gravy after pan frying a steak, or making fried apples, but usually I just pour water in it, while it’s still hot, and it releases all the gunk, and I scrape it with my flat spatula. I give it a good rinse after that, and put it on the burner that’s still hot.
Permaculture people also recommend using a stainless steel spatula(turner) with a perfectly flat edge. Scraping the pan with this as you cook helps the polymer coat become mirror smooth over time. Aside, I often cook in the residue from the meal before - specifically for the flavor boost. Tonight's chicken seared in this morning's bacon grease? Yes, please!
I'm gonna be honest.. I don't wash my cast iron pan, pretty much ever. I use it every single day and the only thing I ever cook in it is beef, and the only oil that ever touches it is whatever fat comes out of the meat. Before I use it I just take my spatula and scrape out the solidified tallow from its last use, taking along with it whatever crumbly gunk got left behind. Never had a problem and it's a beautiful pan on the very VERY rare occasion that I do actually wash it.
FINALLY it makes sense. thanks!
Bamboo spatula is pretty good for scrapping the bits of food away. I find it has just the right amount of "toughness".
I just toss in the last of my can of beer and rinse it after it's deglazed into a broth. Sometimes, I'll cook in my dutch oven instead of my pan, and finish off the week with a stew to make the most of whatever is in there.
I cooked with venison for a week and the stew I made at the end of that was downright magic, the broth filled you up more than the solids did and kept you full all day on one bowl. Been thinking about switching to carbon steel so I don't have to worry about cracks and breaks if I ever drop something.
I usually skip the additional heating step, but do it around once a month. I’ve found ~ 20 good uses of the pan with a high smoke point oil is the pinnacle of nonstick. I usually don’t have to use anything besides hot water and a scrub daddy to clean the pan after use. I clean with mild dish soap about once a week or every other week.
I don't put water on my cast iron. I gave that up after a lot of trial and error. My mom told me about my great grandmother scraping with a knife. I use a steel spatula. As long as you don't "dig" it's fine and eventually it produces a really nice smooth layer. Usually all I need to do is wipe with a paper towel when I'm done and it's clean, but it doesn't get that way if you keep putting water on it. It's the idea of "cleaning" that's your enemy. It doesn't matter if you leave stuck on food in the pan. It just burns when you re-heat. Scrape lightly and it comes right off. I always oil the pan hot before cooking anything, but IDK if that's necessary.
As a metallurgist and materials engineer who loves being in the kitchen, this mythbust was done at the perfect level. I love using ferrous cookware because of their specific heat capacity and heat retention, coupled with the fact that most cooking oils and fats are basically crosslinked hydrocarbon chains, forming a conveniently non-stick barrier coating from further oxidation of the pans. The fact tthat they don't break down at high temperatures makes them great for multi-use applications. PTFE/Teflon above 275°C can start the decomposition of the fluoroethylene compounds. Have a look at what HF compounds do, especially hydrofluoric acid on bones (admittedly, this is at significantly higher temps to what we usually cook at). So, I'll be non-sticking with my carbon steel woks, pans and cast irons and doing exactly what this video has recommended.
*thank you* for the lye statement. I had always been wary about people telling me soap is fine and they use it all the time and it doesnt hurt their seasoning. I would often notice my seasoning was nice on my pan and just wrote off their anecdotes. Now im realizing that is more likely because i put alot of effort into my initial seasoning, while the people I have ignored are likely working off of the factory season.
no its because soap is fine to use
For really stuck on gunk... Heat a little oil in the cast iron and add A LOT of coarse salt... Coarser the better. Then I cut a lemon in half, and hold it with tongs... Place the cut side down with the tongs and use it like a sponge to scrub the pan.
I like how you delineate between “gross” and unsanitary. While meanings of these words normally have a good amount of overlap, they are not the same. One is a social/psychological construction and the other is based objectively on wether something is sanitized (without bacteria) or not.
Use bandanas to make drying easier! Microfiber, finer thread, or paper towels tend to snag on the rougher surface of cast iron. Good luck and good cooking!
A lot of stuck-on bits of food can be removed by deglazing the pan while it is still hot. Just add enough water to to cover the bottom. Adding more will cool the pan too much. The pan should be hot enough to boil vigorously when the first bit of water is added. Add a drop or two of detergent if there is significant grease in the pan. Rinse and dry the pan, then give it a squirt of Pam and wipe it out. Job done! --Old guy ... been doing this for over 40 years.
Carbon steel knives are also primo. Old Hickory makes some nice but affordable ones. They're softer steel than stainless, so they sharpen very easily. They still hold an edge well though.
Been cooking with a cast iron skillet for years. grew up having many meals cooked in cast iron skillets, and I carry on the tradition. Glad i know how to cook.
I like to ask the question what 'dirt' and 'dirty' really means. Sometimes things are called dirty for no other reason than that someone is used to calling it dirty for example.
I'd say that calling something dirty/nasty ought to be a bit more complex: if it's got harmful microbes growing in it, defs nasty, but if the microbes aren't harmful? If it makes something feel sticky leaving some residue on your hands, defs dirty, but what if it's only visual or doesn't leave the residue? I'd go for a case by case basis on these things and try to imagine the origin and effects of the dirt as well. Calling something dirty or nasty too quickly can be very wasteful, whereas doing it too late can be harmful to you, objects, or make cleaning more difficult by the dirt adhering more firmly to the surface.
One of the best things about cast iron pans is that it's really, really difficult to do any permanent damage to them. Sure, if you don't take good care of them you could strip away the layers of seasoning, or worst case scenario you expose the iron underneath and let it rust. But again, it's not permanent: with some iron wool you can scrape off the layer of rust, and re-season afterwards. Sure it's a hassle but nothing that you can't resolve with a little time, oil and heat; no permanent harm done.
That #5 skillet you have looks like the #5 Wagner I picked up for $6 at an estate sale last Saturday. I use my cast iron almost every day.
Love my cast iron skillets and my cast iron stove-top griddle! I clean them by rubbing any stuck-on bits with a ball of aluminum foil under running water. Then I wipe it off with a paper towel and put it over high heat until all the excess water droplets evaporate.
you should absolutely hand clean cast iron as you would any other pan, then apply clean oil to them before covering and storing them.
that's what we did in a restaurant i worked in. cleaned and oiled after every use. so they never rust and the inspectors were happy.
my favorite hack with cast iron is to deglaze with soda. either sprite or coke. it clears junk, dries almost immediately, but the carbonated syrup absorbs whatever flavor is leftover and seals into the pan as quickly as it dries.
3:58 I don't always add more oil, but I do always heat the pan up to evaporate the excess water. Then again, I don't live in a super-dry area, especially in springtime
Technically living in a dry area (Vs a humid area) means you don't have to take as much care with cast iron. The 'risk' with cast iron is mostly the iron getting exposed to moisture and this rusting. I. A dry climate that isn't as likely to happen or at least as quickly so not re-oiling a pan is less critical (but certainly still recommended) in dry climate.
Clean using Cowboy Kent Rollins method. Heat some water in microwave (easiest way). Pour hot water into your hot cast iron, while on high flame. The stuck on bits pop off. Use wood scraper to get the still stuck bits.
Hi, chef here. I must say, those french pans are my favorite pans ever, and I got soooo giddy when I saw them feature in this video.
Thank you for clarifying that using soap to clean a cast iron or carbon steel pan won't send you straight to hell... Just make sure to dry it well and re-season it every now and then, no need to be so nerdy about it...
when done cooking, i let soap water sit in my pan overnight and then use the chain scrub when cleaning, let it dry with the stove on, apply olive oil once its barely done drying ( so it wont rust), then let the stove etch the oil onto the pan and not use it for a day, thats how i do it
You don’t want to breathe in that smoking oil, it’s a carcinogenic.
Luckily cook culture did an episode on the temperature of polymerization, and it turns out it’s lower than the smoking point of oil. I slowly let my pans heat when putting oil for seasoning in them, let them go for ten minutes or so and the moment it starts smoking I pull off the pan from the heat
I boil some water and scrub at the same time with a plastic spatula. Then I'll run some hot water on it, drop one drop of dish soap and a brush with a nailon brush. Then I'll put it to the still warm stove and let it dry. I might add a bit of seasoning grease but often don't. My pants are imo in mint condition with this.
I've got a couple of cast iron pans (a new pan I bought, and an old griddle from my great grandmother) and i was worried that I'd need to scrub them even, reseason them and more. I'll have to take another look at them and see how bad they are!
I clean Mine the way You do, the way My Elder's taught Me. I use most any oil/grease *_NO_* Canola & Peanut oil. Canola - I stay away from period, hardens Peoples Arteries and, Peanut Oil My Daughter is severely allergic to.
When I get the oxidized black residue, I wipe off until paper towels don't have any more black/gray residue.
I re-grease and fire My Irons. If it really bothers Me visually. I scrub My Irons with scrubbers - S.O.S./Chainmail/ScotchBrite and re-season.
Not a problem for Me I've been doing that ever since I was young girl (now 50+)