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Chainmail is a bit aggressive for cast iron seasoning; I use kosher salt and a paper towel. That said, I don't think thats whats causing your issues. Can you snap a pic or two of what you're talking about? The only flaking I've ever seen on cast iron was from ANCIENT seasoning that was actually too thick, and starting to delaminate from itself.
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Jun 4, 2020 17:06
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Tonight! I made breakfast for dinner - scrambled eggs/sausage over a dutch baby It came out pretty good! Puffier than expected, though. Base Emitter posted:I'm using a Lodge cast iron skillet on a gas rangetop and the bottom of skillet looks like its more bare metal than seasoned. Is this normal or is the flame removing seasoning that should be on the bottom of the pan? Is it a problem and should I be reseasoning the bottom/sides? No problems with seasoning on the inside of the pan.
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Aug 28, 2020 02:13
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I've started making tortilla's at home and have been using my cast iron skillet as a comal. My problem is that after a half dozen or so the residue starts to burn and stick. I've tried lowering the heat which helps that problem but then the tortillas aren't as nice. Any tips for preventing this from happening? The seasoning usually seems fine, it's just this one application.
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Sep 24, 2020 18:58
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Carillon posted:I've started making tortilla's at home and have been using my cast iron skillet as a comal. My problem is that after a half dozen or so the residue starts to burn and stick. I've tried lowering the heat which helps that problem but then the tortillas aren't as nice. Any tips for preventing this from happening? The seasoning usually seems fine, it's just this one application. It may be cheating and inauthentic, but I've taken to adding a little fat in my corn tortilla dough, just a glug of canola oil, and I don't get the stuff stuck on my cast iron griddle now. That's not why I add the fat, just a convenient consequence.
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Sep 24, 2020 19:26
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I feel like I may be mistreating my cast iron skillet. It looks pretty bad, with holes and stuff. Apparently "just cook a lot in it" isn't really sufficient advice. What can I do to fix things?
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Oct 1, 2020 15:27
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Describe your usual care and cleaning routine.
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Oct 1, 2020 15:34
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Maybe take a picture too?
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Oct 1, 2020 17:55
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... holes?
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Oct 1, 2020 19:16
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Brawnfire posted:... holes? Probably means pits or craters in the seasoning, as if it's flaking off.
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Oct 2, 2020 01:04
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  for comparison, here's what it looked like when freshly seasoned:  I often cook things that leak a lot of liquid into the pan and harden there, so I will rinse the pan with water, gently scrub it with (what I call) a kitchen sponge (link to approximately what I mean, because apparently an american kitchen sponge is generally softer?) then dry with a paper towel (which now start to tear due to the holes in the seasoning). Putting the pan back on the heat so as to evaporate any water (and occasionally adding a bit of oil, heating the pan back up, then turning off the heat and wiping when the oil starts smoking) doesn't seem to work.
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Oct 3, 2020 11:36
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Looks like flaking seasoning. What did you season with originally? For now, go at it with some wire wool/a brillo pad and take all that seasoning down to the bone, then start again. If you can't get it off or you're not happy with it, oven cleaner works very well and might be what I'd go for. Using vegetable oil or lard to reseason works fine, if you were using flax then the finish tends to be a little more fragile. Reseason it either way, cook with it, then each time you feel it needs a proper wash scrub the poo poo out of it, before heating and oiling. Any seasoning that doesn't make it through the scrubbing didn't deserve to live, that sponge isn't harsh enough to damage it. Always do the heat + oil step after washing it. Long term, you're probably just not cleaning it viciously enough and anything that builds up enough to flake off is then taking what's underneath with it. It might also be that cooking liquids in it isn't the way to go and you'd be better off with a saucepan sometimes, use it for the initial step of frying veg and stuff, then tip the veg into a saucepan, deglaze with some water and tip that in too, then wash the cast iron if it needs it and cook that way. Try not to cook in it without adding a little oil or butter first. You can generally clean off anything that's stuck to it by heating it on the stove a bit to dry it out, throwing in some coarse salt and a little oil and scrubbing it with some paper towels, just to mix things up and so you don't have to wash it in the sink so often. Nettle Soup fucked around with this message at 12:28 on Oct 3, 2020 |
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Oct 3, 2020 12:24
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I take a near-opposite approach to good success. First, the easiest thing to change about your care is the type of fat. The best oils for good seasoning readily "dry" into polymerized oil. Lard used to do that, but factory-farmed pigs just make different lard these days. The theoretical best choice is organic flaxseed oil (must be 100%, must require refrigeration), but that smells fishy and so I only use it for the very first seasoning of a pan. For everyday cleaning & re-seasoning, it's best to stick to, in order from best to worst: safflower, soybean, sunflower, canola (sort descending). "Just cook on it, clean with salt" AKA grandpa's method will get you something that works decently for cooking meats, but it'll be far from true non-stick, it'll be fragile (soap will dig past any weak layers, which is where "my roommate used soap, do I kill y/n?" comes from), and everything you cook on it will taste like bacon (mostly a good thing, sometimes not). Don't try to cook anything delicate or particularly sticky in it. If that's fine with you, keep cooking, gingerly scrub it, never use soap, and treat it like gramps used to: add more oil and grease on top of the old stuff. If your pan is oily, you'll get a bit of nonstickness, but it's a much nicer experience with "real" seasoning: Real seasoning is polymerized oil, which has bonded with your pan to the point that scrubbing hard with soap doesn't damage it. You should be able to wipe a dry cast iron pan with a napkin and your napkin should come off 100% clean, no oil or crud. I got this from an oft-cited guide, which was verified by the ATK guys. It also happens to agree with this thread's OP: Bob Saget IRL posted:It's cast iron. It's a metal that's been used to conquer peoples and forge empires. You're not going to destroy it on your stove, grill or campfire. You may screw up the seasoning, but chances are, you will only ruin what wasn't really any real seasoning anyway. Why? Because you don't wash your pan. (I added bolding to that last bit) It's a lovely thing to be able to scrub a pan with cast iron and soap with impunity, and to not have rancid old oil in my pan. Bacon fat is good for flavoring, but I can easily add some from the jar in my fridge if I need it. Here's my testimonial: Back when I used grandpa's method:   1 year of weekly use:  4 years of nearly-weekly use:  one small dry spot, I might try copper wool to scrub that part down and re-do the flaxseed oil.
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Oct 3, 2020 23:01
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I think we basically agree, you're not beating it enough, wash it more. Here's a cute little thing I never posted:   It says "Matthew Swain LTD, Cottage Cookware, Made in England" on the bottom and it's lived a hard life... Nettle Soup fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Oct 4, 2020 |
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Oct 4, 2020 15:51
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Is this the place to talk about carbon steel skillets? I just purchased a Matfer Bourgeat 26cm one to be my new non-stick stovetop pan as well as my stovetop-to-oven pan.
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Oct 5, 2020 08:19
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Why am I so bad at this?  My old Lodge pan has had this kinda dull, spotty pattern of rust colored dots on it for the many years I've owned it. I haven't been using it regularly or taking good care of it, but I haven't been leaving it out in the rain either. I scrub and scrub, then reseason 3+ times with vegetable oil, but I can't seem to do anything about this dull, spotted, red-brown layer all over the thing. Is this even rust? Do I just need to scrub harder? Should I break out the sand blaster? I know "use it more" is the solution for all cast iron problems, but if this is actually rust, then I'd like to take care of it before I start using it regularly.    Here's a pic with flash. It makes the spotted rust (?) pattern easier to see: 
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Oct 5, 2020 08:25
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I think, just cook on it and that'll go away. My little pan looked like that after I reseasoned it, just hadn't had enough layers build up. From what I gather, Lodge aren't the smoothest of pans to start with.
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Oct 5, 2020 11:04
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I seasoned my new carbon steel pan, following the directions with doing some potato peels, salt, and oil. And then I took an oil soaked paper towel and oiled up the rest of the pan and stuck it in the oven at 400° for an hour. It looks like I had too much of a layer of oil as there were some tacky spots on the cooking surface. I stuck it on the stove top to try and cook those tacky bits into the rest of the seasoning. I guess it sort of worked but now I have bumps all over. And a bit of the seasoning flaked away. Should I just start over with a brillo pad and re-season this thing?
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Oct 6, 2020 14:00
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Nitrousoxide posted:I seasoned my new carbon steel pan, following the directions with doing some potato peels, salt, and oil. And then I took an oil soaked paper towel and oiled up the rest of the pan and stuck it in the oven at 400° for an hour. It looks like I had too much of a layer of oil as there were some tacky spots on the cooking surface. I stuck it on the stove top to try and cook those tacky bits into the rest of the seasoning. I guess it sort of worked but now I have bumps all over. And a bit of the seasoning flaked away. Story as old as time. Got the oil on too thick. If you don't want to be annoyed every time you use it, brillo down those high spots and reseason. Make sure the pan is warm (or hot) when you apply the oil as that will let you get it on more thinly. Then wipe it off before it goes in the oven. What you're looking for is a sheen from the oil, but if you can see any depth or streaks or whatever, it's too thick and needs to be wiped before you bake it.
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Oct 6, 2020 15:06
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so, here's a totally hypothetical question. which would of happened to my friend, not me, if it did but it didn't. let's imagine someone who isn't me made their spouse a delicious pair of Birthday Steaks. and then, in their wont of coarse kosher salt, attempted to clean the surface by leaving it under a broiler until the fire alarm went off. obviously my monkey's uncle has then taken the straight edge of a metal spatula and attempted to physically scrape off the crust, to limited success. should m- my friend just keep broiling it again with an open window? i can't buy kosher salt, it burns my hands to touch.
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Oct 6, 2020 15:24
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i mean my friend.
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Oct 6, 2020 15:24
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If your friend doesn't want to do the salt thing, just wash it with fairy like a normal pan. And take it off the grill, the fire alarm is annoying the neighbors and your gran is trying to sleep!
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Oct 6, 2020 15:45
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My favorite cast iron cleaner is still copper wool. Doesn't scratch the surface, though it can scratch your seasoning if it's not properly polymerized or if there are already bumps.
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Oct 6, 2020 16:08
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Nettle Soup posted:If your friend doesn't want to do the salt thing, just wash it with fairy like a normal pan. And take it off the grill, the fire alarm is annoying the neighbors and your gran is trying to sleep! maybe this person ended up eventually doing the salt thing and it, uh. didn't quite work enough.
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Oct 6, 2020 16:39
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:maybe this person ended up eventually doing the salt thing and it, uh. didn't quite work enough. Steel wool, reseason. Or put it in your oven on the oven cleaning cycle and then wash and reseason immediately.
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Oct 6, 2020 16:59
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Nettle Soup posted:Looks like flaking seasoning. What did you season with originally? ... There's no way to rebuild the seasoning in the spots where it flaked off? And what caused the flaking to begin with, so that this doesn't repeat? (I don't really have a large enough kitchen \ energy to juggle two pans, using one for everything makes much more sense)
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Oct 6, 2020 18:25
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I'm new to cast iron/carbon steel but I've read olive oil is not as good for seasoning as just standard vegetable oil.
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Oct 6, 2020 18:38
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The best seasoning I've done is with crisco, though I normally use canola oil. I don't think I've ever seen someone recommend olive oil.
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Oct 6, 2020 19:09
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Xander77 posted:Olive oil. Pan, high heat, oil, paper towel, upside down in the oven for an hour. 6-7 times until my family threatened to disown me. It's not worth keeping, and you want it to be one solid layer, not overlaid old and new. The flaking is because your original seasoning was weak, and probably because you're not scrubbing it enough so more weak layers are surviving over the top when they shouldn't, adherding to the weak layer and then taking it off with it when it flakes. It's like a thick blob of paint can be chipped or peeled off, when a very thin layer might be harder to remove. Use lard or flax or sunflower oil, a couple of passes through the oven should be enough to get a thin seasoning, then just cook with it and wash it afterwards until it's good, 6-7 times is probably overkill. It might look like that guys above, kinda orange for a while if you really took it down to bare metal, but it'll darken up as you use it. Take advice on reseasoning from above. v Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:Story as old as time. Got the oil on too thick. If you don't want to be annoyed every time you use it, brillo down those high spots and reseason. Make sure the pan is warm (or hot) when you apply the oil as that will let you get it on more thinly. Then wipe it off before it goes in the oven. What you're looking for is a sheen from the oil, but if you can see any depth or streaks or whatever, it's too thick and needs to be wiped before you bake it.
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Oct 6, 2020 23:05
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The smoke point of extra virgin olive oil is 410 degrees, so if you're seasoning at 400 it very likely will not polymerize and will instead become gross and flaky. Regular olive oil is higher I think, like 470 or so, but it's definitely not recommended for seasoning cast iron.
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Oct 6, 2020 23:06
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BrianBoitano posted:My favorite cast iron cleaner is still copper wool. Doesn't scratch the surface, though it can scratch your seasoning if it's not properly polymerized or if there are already bumps. How do these compare to those hard nylon/plastic pan scrapers? I've got a couple of those that are like giant guitar picks that I've been using for a few years with reasonably satisfactory results. I know people also swear by the chain mail pan cleaners.
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Oct 7, 2020 00:50
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I've got a couple of those and they're not useful to me. Anything they'd get, so would the brillo side of a sponge. The stubborn stuff like steak fond doesn't budge, and actually cuts into the plastic, unless I get the copper wool. I'd guess salt would be next best as an abraisive, and chainmail sounds dumb as hell. Isn't it all round edges? Sure, it won't catch on your delicate seasoning if you've got a poorly seasoned pan, but it also won't catch on crud. I'm probably missing something there.
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Oct 7, 2020 04:11
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I have a chainmail scrubber and it seems to work great.
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Oct 7, 2020 04:12
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I've gone through the gamut of cleaning methods with my pans. Started with salt, then steel wool, then chain mail, but none of them really seemed superior to the others. Nowadays I just get some water boiling in it to loosen stuff up and just use my normal dish scrubber thing (nylon brush with scraper) with some soap. When I'm done cleaning I still wipe it down with some oil and leave it on low heat for a while and occasionally do another proper round of seasoning. It's way less hassle and the pan is in as good of shape as it was with any of the other methods.
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Oct 7, 2020 04:22
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Inspector 34 posted:Nowadays I just get some water boiling in it to loosen stuff up and just use my normal dish scrubber thing (nylon brush with scraper) with some soap. ...   No matter how much I scrub, I can't seem to get the rest of the seasoning off, even with oven cleaner. What happens if the seasoning is uneven, old and new? (Also, what temperature do you heat the pan to when seasoning?)
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Oct 7, 2020 18:02
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Xander77 posted:I really felt like boiling water \ liquid either damaged the seasoning or emphasized the spots where it was uneven (by boiling in a very weird way). Does your oven have a cleaning cycle?
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Oct 7, 2020 18:18
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Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:Does your oven have a cleaning cycle?
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Oct 7, 2020 19:30
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When I used the oven cleaner I left it overnight in the bag and everything just came off in the morning. Well, most of it, and only where it'd been sitting, not on the sides so much. 50+ years of seasoning right there.
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Oct 7, 2020 19:42
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Vinegar should also work to get the seasoning off. Just submerge it for an hour in it, give it a good scrub with some steel wool and that should get it all off so you can start over.
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Oct 7, 2020 19:43
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Took a stainless steel scouring pad to the carbon steel pan which took a bunch of parts off that were probably less well adhered to the pan and smoothed out the sections that were from the tacky parts. Then I did another seasoning in the oven with a super thin layer, even wiping it down with a clean paper towel after I put it on there to make sure it was not too much. 500° f for an hour. This is how it looks. It feels smooth but it doesn't look great. Is this an okay seasoning job or will I need to somehow completely nuke this thing and start over. I don't have a oven that has a self-cleaning option.
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Oct 7, 2020 23:19
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Do another couple of coats and see how it looks then.
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Oct 7, 2020 23:25
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