Cast iron cleaning

[Swamp_Yankee]

An old well seasoned cast iron pan is great to cook with, but sometimes the seasoning coating gets funky and you just have to start from scratch. You can use pure lye (used for drain cleaning, soap making, etc...) from the hardware store to dissolve whatever baked on oils are coating the pan. Oils and fats are acidic and even the hardest most baked on oils are easily dissolved by lye, which is sodium hydroxide, about as strong a base as you can get. It goes without saying that you are made of acids and fats and will easily be dissolved by sodium hydroxide as well, so use caution. Safety goggles and heavy rubber gloves are a good idea. I use just enough water to cover the pans in a plastic container-in this case, a garbage can. Then drop in the pans and the powdered lye. Here's what it looks like after soaking two old pans for three days:

Dropped into a bath (about 1:5) of vinegar and water to neutralize the sodium hydroxide-you can see that the baked on oil has become soft and gooey:

Scrubbing in the sink with soap and an abrasive pad:

After thorough rinsing with hot water and drying with paper towels. You want to get the iron as dry as possible as quickly as possible-it will start to flash rust no matter what you do, but the quicker you dry, the less rust you end up with:

When Mrs. Yankee gets home from the store I'll knock the patina off of them with a dry abrasive pad, wipe with a dry paper towel, coat them with flaxseed oil, and bake them at 450°F for a few hours.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Griswold made a great pan!

 

[Poindexter]

Nice job.

 

[PaulOinMA]

Nice!

Do you know about WAGS? I'm cooking forum moderator over there.

http://www.griswoldandwagner.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl

If people have trouble finding lye (Rooto or the equivalent) ask for it in the hardware store. Some places have it put away since it is used in making meth.

 

[PaulOinMA]

May want to reconsider using flaxseed oil. Looks great, but flakes off. Lots of discussion on the internet and in the WAGS forum. Many people that start with flaxseed end up restriping all their pans and switching to something else. I use Crisco.

http://www.wag-society.org/cleaning.php

http://panman.com/how-to-clean-season-cast-iron/

 

[PaulOinMA]

I use my 9/609 griddle a lot. Pancakes Saturday morning. Grilled cheese yesterday.

Perfect size griddle when I don't want to pull out the two-burner griddle.

 

[begreen]

Nice pans. Griswolds had a really nice smooth finished surface to start with. I sold my Lodge pans and found a good old cast iron one at a yard sale that was pretty smooth, but would have loved to have found a Griswold. I think ours is a Birmingham.

You're doing it right with flaxseed oil. There's some science behind it based on fat polymerization. But it will take several coats to rebuild the layers for proper seasoning.
http://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/01/a-science-based-technique-for-seasoning-cast-iron/

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I took a random orbit sander to a lodge skillet and have been thrilled with the results.

I can't get past using bacon to season the pans. Yeah, it doesn't work as well as some other stuff, but I'm committed to keep trying it. Eventually it'll work!

 

[semipro]

I left our CI griddle in our electric oven during the oven's high temp self-cleaning cycle once - not intentionally.
The griddle came out looking like it had just been cast new. The oven was clean too.

 

[PaulOinMA]

Roaster chickens are 59 cents per pound this week at my local supermarket. Roast chicken and vegetables in a no. 10 skillet (maybe a 12) tonight.

 

[Dobish]

we have a few folks at our shop that have machined down their cast irons so they are nice and flat....

 

[PaulOinMA]

Just played with the following Roast Chicken with Vegetables recipe and made a few changes. Very easy!

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/228844/roast-chicken-and-vegetables/

 

[PaulOinMA]

Pictures and what I did in the following. Very, very easy.

http://www.griswoldandwagner.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1540986857

 

[PaulOinMA]

If you have to join the WAGS forum to see the link above, I also posted it here.

http://www.obxconnection.com/outer-banks-forum/forum-thread.aspx?Thread=103568

 

[Woody5506]

I've restored a bunch of my own by plastic media blasting them, only because I have access to that equipment at work. Plastic works as a way of stripping whatever is on metal without leaving any type of profile or alteration on the metal, unlike sand blasting. If I didn't have access to the equipment then I would definitely set up an electrolysis tank which really is the best way to restore them. I've seasoned a bunch of mine with flax oil and it's a pretty time consuming 5 step baking process. The last couple pans I got didn't get any type of seasoning, basically they were plastic media blasted, cleaned when I got home and went straight on the stove to cook, and they perform just as well as the flax seasoned pans, just as non stick even on their first time use. After I cook with any of them I usually clean them out, heat back up and re-season with Crisbee.

There is a 60+ page cast iron thread on the FHC board with tons of good info and pics which I attribute to my nerding out over this topic and building up my small collection.

 

[PaulOinMA]

Used a breakfast skillet this morning. Handy piece to have. Sausage, egg, and cheese on a buttermilk biscuit with Creole seasoning. Yum!

 

[PaulOinMA]

Done. Fast and easy breakfast.

 

[Dobish]

trying to decide if I should surprise my wife with a new square griddle, or a round griddle... i am thinking square, since french toast fits better on a square pan....

we already have a 12" pan, a dutch oven, a 20" flat griddle, and a small fry pan....

 

[PaulOinMA]

The round griddle in the pictures above is a Griswold 9/609. We use it a lot: French toast, pancakes, Egyptian eggs (toad-in-a-hole), grilled cheese, and so on.

I also have the larger two-burner griddles. Convenient if cooking for more people.

 

[Dobish]

i went with the square pan... we will see if my wife notices I like to buy her presents that I get to use, and then not tell her about them for a while

 

[rwhite]

I left our CI griddle in our electric oven during the oven's high temp self-cleaning cycle once - not intentionally.
The griddle came out looking like it had just been cast new. The oven was clean too.

This is the easiest and best way to get a pan back to new. Done it several times and it works great.

 

[PaulOinMA]

Millie's cabbage pierogi last night for dinner. BSR no. 8 skillet. Just grilled with onion. Much better than the mass market pierogi: https://milliespierogi.com/.

These from CT are excellent, too: (broken link removed to https://www.theoldcountrydeli.com/pierogi_queen.html). GREAT bakery right near there on the corner of Rt. 5: http://www.russosbakeryct.com/.

 

[PaulOinMA]

i went with the square pan... we will see if my wife notices

I was in a tire shop when I lived in NJ. Guy came in and said he really needed tires for his wife's car, "the tires could be square, and she wouldn't notice!"

 

[PaulOinMA]

My wife is coming home Friday from a 2-week business trip to SLC. She wants beef stew on Saturday. Already have 3-lb. stew meat in the freezer.

http://www.griswoldandwagner.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1481551364

 

[PaulOinMA]

Lots of beef stew leftovers for the week!

That's just a current Lodge 7-qt. Dutch oven. Played with the recipe above. Really good stew: beef, potatoes, boiling onions, carrots, celery, peas, limas, barley.