10 ms·
When I first got into cast iron, I spent a lot of time on oven-seasoning. It turns out that your daily practice is much more important than that oven seasoning,
by JASchilz 12y ago
When I first got into cast iron, I spent a lot of time on oven-seasoning. It turns out that your daily practice is much more important than that oven seasoning, and the two important steps are:
1. Get the oil hot before you add any foods.
2. Use a sheet-metal spatula/flipper
Humanity has known for a long time that when you get your cooking oil hot, it repels food instead of binding it to the cooking surface; but the amateur cook has forgotten because of a reliance on non-stick surfaces.
The sheet-metal spatula/flipper lets you clean the cast iron with each pass of the tool. A rubber/wooden tool will leave small, burnt on bits of food, which accumulate more bits of food; a sheet-metal tool with scrape those off before they become a problem. Also, a sheet-metal spatula will scrape the roughness of the cast-iron from the bottom of your pan over the course of decades, moving you towards that inky-black mirror of grandma's old pans.
I can cook anything on my cast iron, just by following those steps, even fried eggs: the surface is totally non-stick. And cleaning is simple too: sometimes I'll make a few passes with the spatula to scrape off any food that has dried on, but that's all I ever do.
- vosper 12y agoDo you consider oven-seasoning to still be important?
- JASchilz 12y agoIt's nice in that it might let you get away with less oil day-to-day. My best answer is that you can get away with skipping oven-seasoning if you follow the daily practice, but not vice-versa.
- encoderer 12y agoMy understanding about the "grandmas old pans" comment is that new pans are cast, i believe using sand?, in a way that leaves the "pebbled" texture. It's unfortunate, the smooth cast is certainly better, but I believe it doesn't have as much effect as you might think.
- JASchilz 12y agoYeah, they've definitely started out closer to smooth than ours. As you say, I don't know if mirror smoothness is terribly important, but it might let you get away with a bit less oil.
- derekp7 12y agoI've got two of them that I bought about 15 years ago (Lodge brand) -- they both had that roughness to them. One I use daily (the round one), the square one not that often. Looking at the round one now, and it is perfectly smooth, just like grandma's. So it can be done, it just takes a bit of time.
- sampo 12y agoIf you want your pan smoother, you can always sand it smoother. Will need to re-season it afterwards, though.
- jdbernard 12y agoAs I understand it most of the old pans were sand cast too, but they then polished them before selling. Modern manufacturers skip the polishing step. You could always sand it down yourself as abakker detailed.
- davorb 12y ago> moving you towards that inky-black mirror of grandma's old pans I really don't think that will happen. The reason your new cast iron pan doesn't have that shine is because they've changed how they make them.
- zhte415 12y agoAgree on hot oil. Not only non-stick, it also keeps meats moist and vegetables fresh (actually fried, not fry-boiled). A few things I do: Use wire mesh to clean, quickly, immediately after cooking. Only use tap water to clean it. No detergents. This allows the pan to develop a literal taste of its own after a few months or years. Heat the pan after cleaning, evaporating all water.
- ars 12y ago> Heat the pan after cleaning, evaporating all water. Don't do that. It causes rust. Metal rusts MUCH faster when hot than when cold. If you have wet metal that you are worried will rust get it as cold as possible, and let it dry. Best place is in the fridge - it's cold, plus low humidity helps. A fridge is not necessary for cast iron, but don't heat it when wet.
- learc83 12y agoHow is heating it up for 2 minutes to dry it off going to cause rust compared to the 20 minutes you spent cooking with liquid in the pan?
- ars 12y agoMuch more oxygen as it dries. You are not supposed to boil water with cast iron, you need oil when cooking which protects it from air. The point is don't warm it to dry thinking it will rust less since it's wet for less time. Just let it dry in regular air.
- learc83 12y agoI suppose that might be true, but have you actually done the math here? If it dries say 50 times faster, does iron rust more than 50 times faster at 400F than at 70? I have no way of knowing either way, but I've got a cast iron pan that belonged to my great grandmother and I remember my grandmother heating it to dry it off. My mom did the same with it, and now I've done the same--no rust.