I knew nothing about cast iron pan care when I met my SO and I did his dishes for him one day and washed it with soap and water. I still hate the damn things and think they’re filthy and nasty.
It’s fine to wash them with modern dish soaps. The reason people say not to is because dish soaps used to have lye in them, which would destroy the seasoning. Just make sure you wipe the water off instead of letting it air dry or it can rust.
I keep reading the word seasoning, and for non native speakers this is hard. What are you all meaning? You put some garlic, salt and pepper on the pan and let it be?
English is dumb. We got the term “seasoned” to mean like a veteran fighter, something aging properly and using salt and spice from the French “assaisoner” which means “to ripen / to improve with time” which we expanded upon by being like “when things become tastier” which is how we started applying it to using spices and salt…
In this case it means sort of speed running getting the oil sheen a cast iron cooking implement used to naturally get by just using it over and over when cooking over wood or peat hence “ripening” the pan. Way back in the day in England and France they didn’t really use soap for dishes. You washed them with water and left them outside in UV light to sterilize them so all iron cooking things tended to naturally develop that nice carbon coat. Time and use made them better hence “seasoned”.
Seasoning in this specific context means the residue of the food oil which forms a surface coating when heated up to a certain temperature. It protects the surface from rusting.
In this context, it means to coat the cast iron with oil and/or fat and heat it until the oils polymerize as a thin film stuck to the surface of the pan. This prevents the cast iron from rusting and presents a non-stick surface. It’s honestly more like varnishing the pan than “seasoning” it.
That’s the cool part- no matter what happens to your cast iron pans, it can be fixed. You scratch or chip a non-stick coating and the pan is pretty much ruined.
Not OP, but the Lodge seasoning guide is a pretty good starting point. Cast iron being used forever is proof of how resilient it can be, there’s not too many things you can do that are irreparable.
Also, you don’t really need to baby it as much as most people say. Just keep using it and it’ll keep getting better.
Just burn it on the highest flame after every use. The grime will be all disinfected by the heat. You can stop when you smell the specific odor of burning rubber and see black fumes, this means your burnt oil coating is denaturating.
You burn the grease after cooking so that your skillet won’t stink with rotten lard when you don’t use it for a year.
Reapplying the oil coating before cooking is a good practice, you’ll also burn all the dust. But you then need to let it cool to allow oil to polymerize and lock all that cancer below the coating.
They don’t need the hell scrubbed out of them like stainless steel and they don’t cause cancer like Teflon. They also sear meats way better than any other pans.
Then as others have already said, it’s fine to gand wash them if you’d like. You just don’t grind/scrub off the carbonized oil layers.
Well what the ueck are you doing, because I sure have. We have a higher end ss pan and it’s way worse than our cast iron skillets. Cook scrambled eggs in it and you’ll need a power sander to get that thing clean.
Maybe it’s a quality thing. We bought these really high end ones the chef recommended. I only have to sometimes run the scrubby over a patch of food now and again.
And this post will be exhibit A in the divorce proceedings
I knew nothing about cast iron pan care when I met my SO and I did his dishes for him one day and washed it with soap and water. I still hate the damn things and think they’re filthy and nasty.
It’s fine to wash them with modern dish soaps. The reason people say not to is because dish soaps used to have lye in them, which would destroy the seasoning. Just make sure you wipe the water off instead of letting it air dry or it can rust.
I just put it back on the stove on full heat for a minute to dry off the water.
I keep reading the word seasoning, and for non native speakers this is hard. What are you all meaning? You put some garlic, salt and pepper on the pan and let it be?
English is dumb. We got the term “seasoned” to mean like a veteran fighter, something aging properly and using salt and spice from the French “assaisoner” which means “to ripen / to improve with time” which we expanded upon by being like “when things become tastier” which is how we started applying it to using spices and salt…
In this case it means sort of speed running getting the oil sheen a cast iron cooking implement used to naturally get by just using it over and over when cooking over wood or peat hence “ripening” the pan. Way back in the day in England and France they didn’t really use soap for dishes. You washed them with water and left them outside in UV light to sterilize them so all iron cooking things tended to naturally develop that nice carbon coat. Time and use made them better hence “seasoned”.
Seasoning in this specific context means the residue of the food oil which forms a surface coating when heated up to a certain temperature. It protects the surface from rusting.
It does protect from rust somewhat(water can still cause rust if left on it) but the big deal is it makes the cookware non-stick without Teflon.
In this context, it means to coat the cast iron with oil and/or fat and heat it until the oils polymerize as a thin film stuck to the surface of the pan. This prevents the cast iron from rusting and presents a non-stick surface. It’s honestly more like varnishing the pan than “seasoning” it.
What if you have a new cast iron and accidentally let a wet dish sit on it in a drawer and it rusted? Hypothetically of course…
Steel wool to take off the rust and re-season
Thank you. Do you have any seasoning tips or recommendations?
That’s the cool part- no matter what happens to your cast iron pans, it can be fixed. You scratch or chip a non-stick coating and the pan is pretty much ruined.
There’s this old cowboy on YouTube that has a good video on restoring cast irons I forget his name though
Cowboy Kent Rollins? I like that guy.
Not OP, but the Lodge seasoning guide is a pretty good starting point. Cast iron being used forever is proof of how resilient it can be, there’s not too many things you can do that are irreparable.
Also, you don’t really need to baby it as much as most people say. Just keep using it and it’ll keep getting better.
Oh shit I didn’t know that!
It’s actually fine to use soap and water, otherwise it is in fact, filthy and nasty. Don’t believe the indoctrinated
It forms a thin layer of ‘plastic’ when you season it. The oil polymerizes afaik.
It’s both true and not true. Using something like dawn or similar is fine, using a lye soap will fuck your shit up.
Thanks for the details on this, luckily modern soap doesn’t have lye anymore.
You’re not lyeing to us, are you? ;)
MinuteFood on youtube did a video just yesterday talking about the science of cast iron, and why they’re not dirty like many people seem to think.
https://youtu.be/w0R1jVN3LaY?si=HguOYRn19Hn6HyP6
Just burn it on the highest flame after every use. The grime will be all disinfected by the heat. You can stop when you smell the specific odor of burning rubber and see black fumes, this means your burnt oil coating is denaturating.
I wish you said it’s supposed to be cleaned before using. What good is it in knowing it was disinfected after it’s last use … 10 months ago?
You burn the grease after cooking so that your skillet won’t stink with rotten lard when you don’t use it for a year.
Reapplying the oil coating before cooking is a good practice, you’ll also burn all the dust. But you then need to let it cool to allow oil to polymerize and lock all that cancer below the coating.
As someone allergic to dust and averse to cancer, I’ll mute this cursed thread and sign up to a normie cooking sub 😂
They don’t need the hell scrubbed out of them like stainless steel and they don’t cause cancer like Teflon. They also sear meats way better than any other pans.
Then as others have already said, it’s fine to gand wash them if you’d like. You just don’t grind/scrub off the carbonized oil layers.
I’ve never had to scrub the stainless steel ones actually, they are terrific.
Well what the ueck are you doing, because I sure have. We have a higher end ss pan and it’s way worse than our cast iron skillets. Cook scrambled eggs in it and you’ll need a power sander to get that thing clean.
Maybe it’s a quality thing. We bought these really high end ones the chef recommended. I only have to sometimes run the scrubby over a patch of food now and again.
Bruh.