I’ve only bought the pan a week ago and used it three times. Hot dogs, eggs, and steak.
When I’m done I clean it with a scrubby sponge and once with a little bit of detergent, then put it on the stove to dry quickly. Then while it’s hot I smear maybe a teaspoon of vegetable oil on it with a paper towel “brush”.
In between uses it’s wet with oil, as you can see in the picture. How much residual oil should there be? I had the impression that it would be dryer.
Also, how much should I scrub? I am not going to leave crust of beef on there, but I also don’t think it’s supposed to be scrubbed back to new smoothness.
Clean the pan like you’re doing. Some say don’t use detergent, but I do. Once the heavy food bits are gone, I dry it off. Then put a tablespoon of avocado oil in the pan and crank up the heat until it’s hot and shimmering. I then wipe it, let it cool and put it away. This builds up the seasoning so that the surface is protected from rusting and to maintain a non stick surface.
You want to make sure you aren’t using a lye-based soap. Dr. bronners falls in this category and can take a bit of your seasoning off, at least if they haven’t changed their soaps in 10 years. It shouldn’t ruin your seasoning, but it can remove some of it and leave it a matte finish. Dawn and normal grocery store dish soaps won’t hurt anything.
Thank you, I appreciate the advice.
Youre going to get a million and one recommendations of oil on this thread as well. For example I use grape seed oil since it has a very high smoke point.
Some oils don’t work, but if it’s mentioned in this thread it’s likely fine.
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Nb4 steel wool
I rarely oil my cast iron pans, only when I notice they are “less shiny”. When needed, I clean them thoroughly, dry well, then, put a little olive oil, just enough to cover all the surface and put it to high heat for around 5 to 10 minutes. To apply oil it’s better to use a cloth than paper towels because some paper particles could stick to the pan. Wash your pans as soon as possible with not much of dish soap, preferably with warm water and dry immediately.
While the type of oil isn’t critical, I would use something with a higher flash point and less flavor than olive oil.
Peanut, canola or vegetable oil are my preferred oils for seasoning.
I don’t want to burn the oil, just keep it hot, right? Below the smoke point, I mean.
Scrub it back to the seasoning, which shouldn’t take a lot of scrubbing. I use the blue sponge and I know I’ve got off all the food bits when the water just slides off the surface but doesn’t look slick afterwards. If I wipe a little oil onto it then the cloth or paper towel should not look dirty.
Thank you, that helps.
i put about a pea sized worth so its shiny and not dry
Thank you.
In the restaurants I worked we used salt for cleaning, never a detergent. Couple of tablespoons of salt and for scrubbing cloth, spunge or half a potato. Scrub, discard salt, rinse with water, dry and apply a liitle arachide oil afterwards.
Interesting, thank you for the tips!
I commit all kinds of cast iron crimes, but honestly, just re-seasoning pans is fine. Oil and wipe with a paper towel. Cast iron can absolutely take a cleaning.
I fully clean mine with soap because I make spicy tacos at night in it, then flapjacks the next day. Nobody wants spicy flapjacks.
The real key is unscented/unflavored soap. then, reseason with just enough oil to keep it shiny. If you make it your main pan, it will get nice and seasoned from years of use. :)
Thank you very much!
Uncle Dave Macon says keep my skillet good and greasy all the time
Topical, thank you! I wonder how often people hear that song so many years later.
I’ve had a few cast iron pans and a carbon steel pan for a few years now. I just wash them with dawn dish detergent (make sure whatever soap/detergent you use doesn’t contain lye) and a sponge until all the food bits are gone and the water cleanly skids off the pan. After, I shake the water off and hand dry with a cotton dish towel. I don’t put oil on them unless I’m gonna store them for months at a time.
You mentioned your pans are new so the water may not slide off like a well used and seasoned pan so just scrub and rinse until the food bits are off. If there are any difficult bits, you could buy a plastic dish scraper or just gently scrape at it with a metal spoon. Don’t worry too much about damaging the pan when washing; cast iron has lasted many families many decades of cooking and abuse.
Just make sure not to drop it or heat/cool it too quickly and it’ll be fine
Thank you very much. I was hoping this pan would be less work than the nonstick we have already, but so far that’s not been the case. Hopefully I settle in to a good routine!
Look, realistically, it’s never going to be less work than a new non stick pan - it’s heavy, might need some oil now and then and can’t put it in the dish washer.
But if you are like me, once you settle into a routine that you’re happy with you’ll be glad with the freedom that you don’t have to babysit this thing: that it can take a beating the non stick never could, that you don’t eat pfas, that you can stab it, scrape it, wash it, stack it, throw it in the oven, cook at any temperature, heavy mass means even heat and that you’ll never have to buy another one and will probably pass it on to your grandkids or even let it rust and come back to it and will be fine with a bit of love.
I meant “less work” in the cooking phase, because I’m a poor cook.
I see. The first mistake I was making if I remember correctly was using the same continuous high heat as I would in a non stick and not wait long enough for the pan to heat evenly.
The difference in the amount of mass it carries makes it a different beast to cook in: it takes a while to warm up but also for the same reason it maintains and exceeds the temperature a non stick if you maintain high heat under it.
So try either starting at a low heat and waiting a while to warm up - maybe 3-5min. Or start at a high heat wait 2 mins to get it warm fast and then lower the stove to what would have been a simmer so you don’t overshoot.
that’s really helpful. So far I’ve slightly or very burnt everything I’ve cooked!
You also need to be aware that it doesn’t like acidic sauces like heavy tomato as it strips the seasoning and you’ll the taste it in the food. You are better off using stainless steel for those.
Noted, thank you.
You can scrub a cast iron pretty hard if you’re just using soap and a sponge. I’m sure you’ve heard that you shouldn’t use soap with cast iron, but that advice comes from a time when lye was an ingredient in most soaps. Dawn isn’t going to strip the seasoning off your pan.
You can scrub the hell out of it too, but you have to be care about abbrassives in the pan. A new dish sponge will scrub burnt stuff from your pan. A new dish sponge plus something coarse like a bit of kosher salt will strip the seasoning. That is useful if you want to entirely strip and redo the seasoning, but for routine cleaning you want to make sure you’re scrubbing it, not sanding it.
Oil in the pan between uses: I’m super neutral on this one. I leave mine dry between uses, and I have to touch up the seasoning every three months or so. My parents store theirs with a very thin sheen of oil (pour in a drop of oil, wipe it away with a towel until there are no visible pools or raised lines of oil) and they almost never need to re-season. Imo both are reasonable, I personally prefer the dry storage because occasionally touching up the seasoning feels like less work and less waste than oiling it after every use for storage.
I imagine there are many ways to nicely clean cast iron but I ended up buying that little chain mail scrubber that Loge sells. I rinse it, sometimes with hot water, scrub it fairly well, then put it on the stove and heat the water away so it doesn’t rust.
That’s the neat part. You don’t need anything between cooking sessions. If you always cook with a bit of fat, the seasoning will build up over time and will keep the pan protected from rust. I deliberately reseason maybe a couple times a year.
The truth is, cast iron and carbon steel don’t need excessive babying. My only tools to keep mine in top condition are a flat spatula and a thick bristled brush (natural fibers, no plastic as it could melt). After cooking, I always do the following :
- Deglaze the pan over high heat and unstick everything left with the spatula
- rinse, scrub with the brush, rinse again
- dry with a dish rag
- store somewhere dry
- repeat the next day
No need for soap, reheating, constant seasoning upkeep or oiling. If your seasoning isn’t flaking off, which it shouldn’t, it’s good to go. Even a few rust stains or gouges in the seasoning can be brushed off and seasoned over.
Just to add to this, a flat steel spatula was a game changer when I got my cast iron.
I bought new cast iron with a very coarse surface and the spatula helped grind down the larger imperfections and that helped the seasoning build up smoother.
There is so much wrong information in this thread. It’s insane.
Just scrape all the buildup off the pan with a plastic scraper. Lodge makes one. Do this under hot water. Scrape it as clean as possible and rinse it. Your goal is not to remove the patina. Think of it as scraping everything smooth. Feel the surface with your fingers. If it feels smooth you are good. There may still be an oily residue. Rince off as much as you can; the rest is fine. Never use soap. Remember, oil is good for the pan. If for some reason you need to remove oil just wipe it off. Anyways, put it back on the stove and heat it over med/low heat until dry. This will not cause rust. This dries it quickly and prevents rust. Now that your pan is hot and dry, add a tsp of oil and rub a thin layer all over with a paper towel. Paper towel bits will not hurt you or the pan. The oil will add to the season and prevent rusting. Use only enough oil to make the pan shiny.
I’ve done this for years and it works fantastic.
Link to the scrapers I’m talking about but anything similar will work - https://www.lodgecastiron.com/products/pan-scrapers
Hope this helps. I love cast iron. Good cookin!
I use an old wooden spatula to get anything stuck off my pan. Wouldn’t want more plastics in my food than what is already in there.
Also, don’t use heat to dry iron/steel. Heat accelerates rusting, you might just cause yourself to have to clean it again, but including steel wool this time.
Yeah when I put mine in the dishwasher I turn the heat off so it doesn’t wreck them.
People clean with regular table salt “sodium chloride” but I swear by this sodium hydroxide stuff. Bonus points that my hands feel kinda smoother after using the stuff.
Dishwashers tend to leave behind a lot of hard water deposits. That’s why I like to scrub my pans with vinegar after the dishwasher.
How does that work? I’d imagine it would be the opposite. Less time with any residual water particles means less chance it will sit there and react with the iron. Or at least be the same.
Good question! Rust, or iron oxide, is made from oxygen forming an ionic bond with the iron. Water is great at getting into the pits and cracks and crevasses of things like cast iron and will sometimes release oxygen to bond with the iron.
Creating iron oxide requires a decent amount of heat an energy, although less than the reaction puts out, allowing for runaway heating. Adding heat to your cast iron and the water can make the iron-oxygen ionic bond easier to facilitate. On top of that, adding energy to water makes it easier for it to break down into hydrogen and oxygen, leaving the oxygen available to create rust. The runaway heating from the rust reaction can cause small bits of water that you can’t see continue rusting even after you remove the skillet from the heat of your stove.
Since the whole process of drying your skillet using heat works by increasing evaporation, you’re freeing up more oxygen to bond with the iron, heating up the iron to more easily facilitate the ionic bonds, and expanding the metal to allow more water into areas that’ll continue holding the water after the skillet has cooled.
Oddly enough, if you needed to clear rust from cast iron, you can more easily melt or break ionic bonds using even more heat, like a flamethrower or torch.
