Seasoning Cast Iron Pans

[pilot]

The best for what?

For seasoning cast iron.

 

[SOLANCO]

BTW, another use for your cast iron - Defrosting frozen food items. Ideally they should temper over nite in the refrigerator but never happens.
I have a home cryovac machine and will buy steaks, chops, etc on sale. Vacuum pack and freeze them. I also consider cryo vac salmon portions a staple and always have some in the freezer. When I need to defrost I put a cast iron dutch oven on the stove. No flame. REPEAT: NO FLAME! I put the frozen food in the pot in good contact with the bottom and walk away. The mass of the iron pot defrosts the food portions surprisingly quickly. 1 to 3 hours depending. Adding some water to the pot seems to make it go quicker.
I hate to see frozen food defrosted without packaging under running water. That foam and stuff going down the drain is flavor and protein.

 

[Brokennock]

For seasoning cast iron.

Oh. Okay.

I'm glad I don't have to explain bioavailability again.

 

[Dave Marsh]

I clean mine, oil them and heat them on the stove. Wipe out the excess grease and then put them on the gas grill which hits 450 to 500 for an hour or so. Repeat that 3 or 4 times. Reason for the gas grill is so I don't have to listen to my wife complain about the smell when I do them in the oven.

 

[D.Summers]

Every young person I know is eating flaxseed in everything these days! Supposed to be very beneficial

 

[D.Summers]

The oil, too, is supposedly good for most people. But I'd prefer not to have linseed oil added to my diet!!

 

[tenngun]

Three POUNDS of bacon?

Do you have your own bacon mine?

The only time I've ever seen three pounds of bacon in one place is in a food store, and even then, we had to pay to go and look at it.

Should i have said three packages.
Of course last one I did was 1 BC( before covid, 2019) when you didn’t have to mortgage your home to fill a gas tank or sell your first born to buy groceries

 

[Caniborrowsomeammo]

Should i have said three packages.
Of course last one I did was 1 BC( before covid, 2019) when you didn’t have to mortgage your home to fill a gas tank or sell your first born to buy groceries

Ha, have you noticed most packages of bacon are now 12-14 ounces? And since the Plandemic bacon has gone sky high? Mo money for less product and almost the same amount of packaging, sheesh!!!
I think I'll go make me a grilled cheese and baloney samich with plenty of mayo (30 ounces instead of 32 nowadays) slathered on the outside of the bread (I make my own-60 cents a loaf) in my cast iron pan. Golden brown deliciousness.
For those of you that don't have a cast-iron pan, get one, season it, use it, you won't be sorry.

 

[Billy Boy]

Three POUNDS of bacon?

Do you have your own bacon mine?

The only time I've ever seen three pounds of bacon in one place is in a food store, and even then, we had to pay to go and look at it.

Bacon, the perfect source for, well, vitamin B

 

[Are. M.]

Since this link has nothing to do with muzzleloaders, I feel it is safe to post in the forum.

https://www.castironcollector.com/myths.php
See number 10.

Check out the rest of that forum for theres some serious cast iron on there.

I season mine by coating in avocado oil then baking on 400 for 30 minutes. I turn the oven off and let it cool down til I can bare-hand it out of there.

As far as cleaning after seasoning, I clean my cast iron like I do my rifles.

hot water, half a drop of dawn, scrub with a chore boy, rinse with clean water, dry, lube with your favorite lube, put away for a later use.

I usually turn a burner on high for about 30 seconds to get the skillet a little toasty before I apply my lube.

A friend of mine from that cast iron forum says the best way to build and maintain the season is to just use the cast iron.

 

[Howard Pippin]

This video is short but to the point, and the host isn't wrong about how to do seasoning.
Restoring Rusty Cast Iron and Seasoning Cast Iron
LD

Good morning Loyalist Dave. I've dealt a lot with cast-iron frying pans and have about 30 of them, from three or 4 inch up to about 15, including a few square ones. I like to buy used ones, the dirtier they are the cheaper they are, and to clean them, if you have a gas barbecue, is take the grate off put in place a frying pan right close to the fire and just burn it. I have done it with propane burners too, you can heat them until their dull red without hurting them, just don't take them out when they're hot, but shut the heat off and don't handle them until you can do so with bare hands. If you heat them till their red, I then cover them, maybe a large cardboard box, and leave them until they cool down. You don't want to chill cast-iron or heat it on unevenly as you can break them. Never dump water into a cast-iron frying pan that you just take off the stove.

If you do clean one with fire, Then it's just a matter of washing them up, coating them with a light coating of Crisco and baked upside down in an oven or barbecue grill for at least an hour. The new ones that are being made today like Lodge, are too rough and using a high-speed sander I have smoothed many of them, then clean them up with soap and water and retemper them with Crisco. Using a high-speed grinder you can make them fairly smooth fairly fast and it sure makes a difference in the length of time it takes to make them nonstick. You can go to a secondhand store and find some older Wagner frying pans, which are fairly reasonable, or Griswold, which are pretty expensive, they are generally already very smooth. It really makes a difference in the ability to make them nonstick.
Squint

 

[Mangonboat]

I make no claim of a 'best' seasoning technique /materials but I agree that 1) most of the old ones were made so much better and can be had for a very reasonable price if you are willing to go to garage / estate sales and clean up a bit of rust; 2) using them regularly to saute or deep fry and wiping them rather than washing them is the best care routine. I really appreciate the suggestion about using a cast iron pan to defrost frozen food; makes total sense.

 

[Bucolic Buffalo]

If you use your fry pan about every day, no need to re-season after washing in hot water. Just set it on the stove, get it good and hot. You just need to get rid of the moisture. I like a little lard in the fry pan when I go to cook sausage. Bacon makes enough good grease all by itself. My Dutch oven gets the same treatment. If I was to put them away for a time, I would then give them the lightest wipe of vegetable oil. But then wash them in hot water before use.

I have old Wagner, Lodge, Griswold, and Birmingham Stove & Range. But I am using modern Lodge pans. Because I like my bacon. You can fit more full-size bacon strips in an actual 13 1/4" fry pan than you can in those old little 10" & 12" pans. Use your pans a lot and they quickly become non-stick.

Speaking of bacon. We get our bacon in 1.5lb, 3lb, and 5lb packaging. Depending upon the brand. Those little packages in the store are mostly waterlogged bacon. We like a cure that produces a good and solid bacon.

 

[mushka]

For cleaning up a really rusty piece of cast iron I take t to a local auto shop and for about $20.00 have it sand blasted to bare metal. Silvery and shiny, then season the item. I'm not much for sanding or grinding a pan or dutch oven.

 

[Mogadishu Meanderer]

A new frying pan I like to buythree pounds of bacon. Put some butter in the pan and fry a pound, cooked it keeps well
Remove the bacon and let pot cook. Reheat and fry second pound, let cool and repeat.
After third pound pour off the fat an strain or filter it. So you get a good collection of clean bacon grease
Clean the pan in water only, no soap. You may have to fill pot with water and boil to deglaze the bottom
After clean dry and heat pot and dip a rag or paper towel in your clean grease and wipe down hot pot, let cool
When ever you use it clean and regressed or oil.
After some time lard, olive oil,vegetables oil, ghee, coconut oil, lard,tallow,canola oil all can be used to reoil i after cooking.
Wine deglazed a hot pot well
But always oil after cleaning

Three whole pounds???? Good Lord, people in California need not apply!!! I guess they will have to stick to Teflon pans, no pun intended! On a serious note, all we used in my house is cast iron and never had to wash that stuff, just rinse and wipe, yes, with bacon fat!!! Amen!

 

[jimairwin]

A million different ways. I’d follow the techniques quoted above. I personally use flax seed oil.

IOW Linseed oil. never heard that way before.

 

[Captndan]

Go to the Lodge website they will tell you exactly how to do it.

 

[kje54]

I read a while back that flaxseed oil used for seasoning cast iron has a higher tendency to flake then say canola or simply bacon grease. One thing I found is anything tomato cooked in cast iron can remove the seasoning. Re-seasoning a skillet now after having done that.

 

[Bighorserider]

I just cook bacon for breakfast every morning in mine.

 

[William Lincoln]

Howard Pippin is on the money above. Sand blasting will remove scale but pitting
will remain. A power sander will smooth it better--then season to seal the pores of
the iron. In times before non-stick the pans were factory machined and sanded to
a smooth surface. In days when families were big, they sold huge iron skillets that
today would be legacy items.