[HN Gopher] Chemisty of Cast-Iron Seasoning: A Science-Based How... ___________________________________________________________________ Chemisty of Cast-Iron Seasoning: A Science-Based How-To (2010) Author : Tomte Score : 269 points Date : 2021-01-10 15:44 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (sherylcanter.com) (TXT) w3m dump (sherylcanter.com) | krrrh wrote: | Contra to what most are saying here, I went through this | laborious and stinky process of taking my pans down to bare metal | and building them back up with flax oil a couple of years ago and | got great results. | | I did get poor performance after a few months and felt | heartbroken over it, but fixed it with another approach that | differs from received wisdom: use soap and a nylon scouring pad | from time to time. That's never damaged the seasoning, but | removes any caked on burned bits of food that dull the pan. I | read on /r/castiron that the idea of soap being damaging is a | hold over from when lye based soap was commonly used for dishes. | Modern dish _detergent_ isn't going to cause the same damage. The | other thing that helped was getting a straight metal spatula to | really scrape the pan which has resulted in a smoother surface | over time. | stouset wrote: | Nobody is saying you'll definitely get bad results from this, | but it is a large waste of time. I say this as someone who did | the same thing, always struggled to figure out why I had | problems, and had better results when I simply _stopped babying | it_. | | IMO your problem was likely the lack of washing. Soap and | scrubbing _will not_ damage your patina in any meaningful way. | What washing does do is removes the caked on, half-polymerized | bits that causes food to stick (and which creates a negative | feedback loop of problems). | | Your cast iron is not a precious flower. Your grandmother did | not fret over the decision of which oil to use for optimal | seasoning. Use it, abuse it, and clean it out like anything | else when you're done (if there's visible residue). If you | want, dry it out on the stove top afterward and wipe a thin | layer of oil on to it. | krrrh wrote: | I agree, things improved when I liberally used soap, | scrubbers, and sharp flat metal spatulas to scrape things | clean. | | But I also haven't seen any flaking of the flax base | seasoning like others have. With previous pans I have | accidentally scrubbed down to bare metal. Maybe I was just | starting with thrift store pans that had been too heavily | babied, and the process of cooking off the layers of | carbonized food and old seasoning and starting over helped | regardless of which oil I used. | 5ersi wrote: | Well, linseed is the same thing as flax: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flax | | So linseed oil is flaxseed oil, the question is only if the | process of extracting it is food-grade. | vikramkr wrote: | Mentioning a couple hypotheses (drying oils make for better | seasonings) with a couple hypothesized mechanisms does not make | this a science based approach. A science based approach (in this | particular chemical context) would involve controlled experiments | (off the top of my head, what about the roughness of the cast | iron? Carbon content? Time to warm up the oven? Why six layers | and not twelve? Etc etc). Claims like "youbneed to use 100% pure | oil, I think that's why it might not be working for you" would | not be present - science based involves testing that hypothesis | and seeing if the purity or brand or whatever of the oil matters | There! There would be some key metrics to measure, such as some | molecular analysis of the residue, some test for non-stick | ability, and perhaps a longevity test. | | It might seem like a bit much, but this is an article presenting | the conclusions of "science" as recommendations to pursue in your | every day life, and a lack of scientific rigor can create false | confidence in false solutions. For something as complex as | polymerization in the varied environment of home cast iron | seasoning, there's an enormous amount of work and confounding | factors you would need to sift through (seasoning on the stove vs | oven?). Without that rigor, you might have stumbled into the best | way of doing things, but as other comments suggest, its more | likely your lack of rigor has led to missing things like the | seasonings tendency to flake. | ahepp wrote: | Most popular "food science" falls into this trap, as far as | I've seen. Even my preferred resources such as seriouseats or | America's Test Kitchen. | | A teaspoon of vodka in the dough makes the pie crust flakier? | At the very least it seems like one could say "we cooked 5 pies | each way, and a blind taste test found that 4/5 tasters rated | the batter with vodka as flakier". | | That seems like the minimum amount of effort to call something | scientific. It doesn't require any specialized equipment or | training. We're not even getting into detailed methodology, or | significance testing. Yet still, even the best sources I see | make completely opaque claims such as "we found reverse | creaming makes the cake more dense and buttery, while | traditional creaming results in a traditional fluffy cake". | germinalphrase wrote: | An aside: America's Test Kitchen "Best Recipes" book taught | me how to cook in my early twenties. Having a page or two of | "we tried this, hated this, liked this tweak, so that's why | we do..." helped tremendously in learning how/why recipe | design and cooking technique matter. | smichel17 wrote: | As I mentioned in my other comment in this thread, the linked | article goes in the step in the right direction by _having | hypotheses at all._ That 's why this article remains so | influential despite its hypothesis (flax oil makes for better | seasoning) having been disproved. | | If someone wants to dethrone this article, they need to do it | with more/better science to support an alternative hypothesis | (e.g. a recommendation for a different oil). Without this, it | is impossible to establish the credibility of different | recommendations. | vikramkr wrote: | It then takes a step in the wrong direction by presenting the | hypothesis as a scientific conclusion. Everyone has a | hypothesis. Having a hypothesis doesn't make it special or | science based. Every anecdote driven article is presenting a | hypothesis, and an awful lot of them Couch their anecdotes in | potential scientific explanations to sound more credible. | Theres not a need to do "more" science - there's a need to do | basically _any_ science. I 'll grant that the societal | context means that someone has to do more work and then | present their findings in an equally engaging way (with the | necessary anecdotes etc), but science based? | jfoutz wrote: | 2020 taught me a lot more about cooking than I ever would have | gone out of my way to learn on my own. | | I've never cooked with what I imagine to be a perfect seasoning | on my skillet. I just cook with it. | | I sorta wonder if there's a kind of placebo effect. When you | really think about your tools, you notice lots of little things | to do better (or I did anyway). | | Getting the pan hot enough, and being aware of what parts are | hotter, like the ring where the burner heats the skillet, had a | huge impact on stuff "sticking" I don't know if the heat helps | seal up little micro holes and cracks, so food doesn't grab onto | those edges. Or perhaps The moisture turns to steam and creates a | little gap, letting food sort of float above the pan, never | really making contact. Maybe both. | | Just a tiny bit of lubrication helps so much as well. A spray of | pam or a few drops of oil work wonders. | | With a good understanding of heat and lubrication, I feel sorta | like I could cook eggs on a pie pan over a burner, and they won't | stick. | | I wonder how much is seasoning, and how much is understanding how | the tools work, inside and out, to get desired outcomes. | leetcrew wrote: | the thing about cooking is there are often many different ways | to achieve the same outcome. a cast iron skillet with an even | layer of seasoning has noticeably better (to me, at least) | nonstick properties than the same skillet with a half-assed | seasoning on it. but the former takes a lot more time/effort | and it really doesn't matter if you just add an extra pad of | butter. with enough cooking fat, eggs will slide around any | skillet as if it were an ice rink. | hawktheslayer wrote: | I'm halfway through a modified version of her method. Used her | oven cleaner idea and just using the high heat sunflower oil I | have on hand. Wish me luck! | kevinmchugh wrote: | You really shouldn't buy a special oil just got seasoning your | cast iron and carbon steel. It's not necessary. Pick an oil with | a high smoke point, a neutral taste, and plenty of easy | availability. That's often peanut. Avocado is great if you're | fancy. | | Keep a squirt bottle of oil on hand and make sure you're using | enough. Using soap to clean your pans will make maintaining your | seasoning easier, as you use less effort to clean them. See this | if you're skeptical: https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/11/the- | truth-about-cast-iro... | | I had friends dedicate years to flax seed oil. They're not happy | about it, as they've got flaking to deal with. I also had friends | disbelieve me that soap was okay, and they've mostly come around | after hearing me swear by it for years. | SoSoRoCoCo wrote: | Peanut oil has a flavor. Safflower and sunflower oils have | higher temperature and no flavor. | | Been using safflower for over 20 years on my day-use skillet. | dunham wrote: | Past the initial seasoning, I've found that just using the pan | helps a lot. My problem has been that I've a lot of rough (and | very hard) cruft built up on the outside and the upper part of | inside of the pan. | | +1 on the squirt bottle of oil, I started doing that a few | years ago and it was game-changing. Previously I'd just pour a | little out of the original bottle when I was cooking, which was | a lot less convenient than having something appropriately sized | and within arms reach. | Enginerrrd wrote: | >Pick an oil with a high smoke point | | This doesn't seem to agree with either experience or the | scientific understanding of the polymerization process that | needs to occur in a well seasoned cast iron pan. | p1necone wrote: | "Pick an oil with a high smoke point, a neutral taste" | | This sounds somewhat like "special" to me. | kevinmchugh wrote: | You probably want a neutral oil for salad dressings, or | mayonnaise. You want a high smoke point for any frying(deep, | shallow, or stir) you'll do. Every grocery store I've been in | has peanut, canola, or avocado, which will all do. | bch wrote: | > You really shouldn't buy a special oil just [for] seasoning | your cast iron and carbon steel. It's not necessary. Pick an | oil with a high smoke point, a neutral taste, and plenty of | easy availability. That's often peanut. Avocado is great if | you're fancy. Keep a squirt bottle of oil on hand and make sure | you're using enough. | | > I had friends dedicate years to flax seed oil. They're not | happy about it, as they've got flaking to deal with. | | I happen to have bought some flax oil specifically for | seasoning my cast iron - you're saying it's _contraindicated_ | though? (So "you don't need special oil, but _especially_ not | these" (leaving only peanut and avocado))? | | For the amount of times the word "science" is dropped there's | still a good amount of myth and legend associated with owning | cast iron. Short of having my own double blind statically | significant study and perhaps a microscope to observe the | polymerization effects, I'm still flopping back/forth a bit | about what "the best" or at least not leaving a simple | improvement on the table, is. What a journey. | | Still worth the trouble, though. Cooking is fun, and cast iron | is a good cooking tool. | nightski wrote: | I interpreted what he said as you don't need a special oil, | but here are some good options that do not have a strong | flavor and will work well. But you could just as well use any | other oil. I avoid nut based oils so I generally have olive | and avacado around. | bch wrote: | I guess the best oil (olive or otherwise) is highly | processed, to remove volatile (flavour and healthy) | components, since it's essentially just being cooked into a | polymer. Added bonus that these are probably cheapest - is | that your experience? | late2part wrote: | Olive Oil's smoke point is not terribly high. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Smoke_point_of_coo | kin... | bch wrote: | It looks to me like refined olive oil is in a range that | puts it near the top. I guess the question though, is: is | it sufficient? | BikiniPrince wrote: | I don't know if there was much interpretation. It broke | down the science well enough or at least offered theories. | | Having some good success and failure I am willing to try a | few ideas in the article. | | One variation a YouTuber offered was to heat the oil in the | pan on the stove and then wipe the excess. | | So far I have duplicated a lot of points in the article | with different success ratios. I do agree a long smoke | rate, upside down and long cooling period is ideal. | | I use the grill so I don't worry about the smoke | generation. | | More or less I've used this on the last successful project, | but with corn oil. I went with a hybrid seasoning oil | recently and I'm not impressed. I'll try flax next. | ethbr0 wrote: | > _You really shouldn 't buy a special oil just [for] seasoning | your cast iron and carbon steel. It's not necessary._ | | Source: lack of historic availability of avocado oil in the | South | smichel17 wrote: | As someone relatively new to cast iron (around a year of | cooking with it), I am inclined to believe the parts of this | article that I cannot validate through my own experience, | because the other parts match what I have learned through | experimentation. However, I must point out that a year ago, I | would have no way to recognize this. Whether or not this | article is correct, it is at the same level of heresay as every | other article, reddit comment, or youtube video out there (like | the carbon steel video linked in the replies, which says never | to use soap). | | Despite the flax oil article being bad science, it is still the | _most_ science of any of the cast iron information out there, | which is why it continues to enjoy such popularity. Even if it | is bad science, it at least provides some hypotheses to test! | | Here's my hypotheses on soap (edit: rephrased to better reflect | my meaning): | | 1) Soap is fine to use; it will not damage the seasoning. | | 2) Seasoning is often damaged (at least a little) while cooking | and it is important to re-season regularly to keep the pan in | good shape. | | 3) If you do not use soap, the amount of oil left on the | surface is similar to the amount you would want to wipe on when | re-seasoning. | | Basically, I think no soap + dry on stove is a shortcut to | avoid the process/effort of reseasoning the pan (especially if | you do the oil-and-salt-as-an-abrasive trick). Perhaps you'll | get better results using soap and then wiping on oil, but it's | more work and many people don't do the second part. Thus, they | see better results when they don't use soap. | | This would explain why some people tell you you need to | reseason after every use, while others say that's bubkis, and | why the same is true of soap avoidance. | | To test: try all 4 combinations of soap/no-soap and | reseasoning/just-drying (always dry the same way, on the | stovetop). | war1025 wrote: | You asked if I could look at this in a different part of this | comment thread. | | What you say seems more or less correct to me. I think if you | approach cast iron that way, you will have good results. | | Basically, you don't want the pan to look "not-oiled", and | how much effort you need to put into that depends on how much | you are removing the existing oil during the cooking process. | | I think the "looks oily" test is the proper determinant for | if the cast iron is in good shape. Trying to develop a | "seasoning" layer is likely to just cause frustration. | joshribakoff wrote: | 1 and 2 are a contradiction | smichel17 wrote: | Hm, you're right, thanks for pointing this out. There was | no contraction in what I _meant_ , but I didn't express | what I meant correctly. | | They don't conflict if the seasoning is already damaged | (during cooking) before cleaning it. Cleaning with soap | would not repair it at all (thus, reseasoning is required), | whereas if you don't use soap, the pan is reseasoned in the | same step as drying it on the stove. | | Part of the problem was that I was overloading the word | "reseasoning" to also refer to doing it in an explicit step | (ie, the wiping on/off of oil) as well as the effect of | rebuilding the layer of seasoning. | | I've edited my post to hopefully be more clear. | ska wrote: | As a data point, I use a little soap when it feels needed | (every few times, usually) and add seasoning when it feels | needed (less often). Seasoning remains great (fry eggs | without sticking). | | These are my most often used pans, and have remained that way | for many years. | | Fwiw I rarely need or use a scraper or salt while cleaning , | I'll "deglaze" if there is fond in the pan, even in the rare | case that I'm not using the result for anything. | fireattack wrote: | Great article, just one thing I don't quite understand: vintage | vs modern cast iron pans. | | I get his point about the older ones having smooth(er) finish | due to production methods change, but what stops _SOME_ modern | manufacturers to do the same? Surely for a community that is | essentially a cult, there should be enough people buying it to | worth the additional manufacturing cost? | war1025 wrote: | > what stops SOME modern manufacturers to do the same? | | I believe there are manufacturers filling that niche now. | Field [0] is one that I'm aware of. I think there are four or | five others. | | [0] https://fieldcompany.com/ | xKingfisher wrote: | Butterpat Industries is another. | | I have one of their pans and it's excellent. | cbsmith wrote: | Turns out, there are some: | https://www.foodandwine.com/lifestyle/kitchen/the-real- | reaso... | iamacyborg wrote: | I'm a simple man, I see a post linking to a J. Kenji Lopez-Alt | article, I upvote. | | Another good method is outlined in this America's Test Kitchen | video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-suTmUX4Vbk | | If you have a friend who runs a Chinese restaurant, you could | always try this, too | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGXGJD2xTzQ | | I do this regularly and always clean my pan with soap after | use. | steve_adams_86 wrote: | That wok seasoning video is what I do! I also use soap on my | pans, just not too much and with gentle scrubbing. | | The wok burner I have is this one: | https://www.amazon.ca/Eastman-Outdoors-37212-Gourmet- | Carbon/... | | It's a ton of fun to cook on, and useful for way more than | just the wok. When I go diving and get crabs for example, | this thing gets a huge pot of water boiling in no time and | makes prepping a lot of crabs really easy. | | And yeah, it'll season any pan like nothing else. I was | terrible at seasoning pans until I started throwing them on | this thing. | markgall wrote: | Although Kenji: "Whenever someone asks me why their cast iron | seasoning is weak or flaky, I ask if they followed that | popular (but wrong!) flaxseed seasoning guide [i.e. the | linked article]. The answer has been yes 100% of the time." | war1025 wrote: | As someone who owns more cast iron than is reasonable, I just | wanted to go a step beyond upvoting this and acknowledge in | writing that this is the correct view of things. | | You want oil soaked into the metal. This idea that you are | trying to build a non-stick surface on top of the metal is just | adding extra work that isn't needed. | | Wash with soap, dry of the stove top, put in some oil (I use | peanut), then take a paper towel and rub the oil around over | everything and at the end the metal should look shiny but there | shouldn't be any pooled oil left anywhere. | | If you are cooking something that doesn't leave a residue or | strong flavor, you can skip the washing all together and just | leave it there to cook with next time. | | If you try to go the whole "never wash this" route, you end up | with unhappy results going from cooking something with onions | and garlic to cooking something more neutral flavored. No one | wants onion flavored pancakes. | klyrs wrote: | > No one wants onion flavored pancakes. | | Somebody's never had latkes before. | stouset wrote: | Also, without washing, you end up with rough spots of non- | sticky partially-polymerized bits. Wash it with soap and a | scrub brush. Nothing short of steel wool is going to affect | the patina. | | For proof of this, check out your aluminum baking sheets. If | they've been used, they're almost certainly covered in a | shiny black substance that's a complete pain in the ass to | remove, even with abrasives. That's essentially what's on | your cast iron. | petre wrote: | I wash it with water and scrub with scotch brite. Will try | homemade soap. | chipsa wrote: | Do not use homemade soap. Homemade soap is made with lye, | which is the entire reason why people said not to use | soap, once upon a time. An unreacted lye will start to | strip seasoning. | | Use dish detergent (commercial dish soap). It's made in a | different way, so you can't get un-reacted lye. | DanBC wrote: | If you have unreacted lye in your soap you're going to | have more problems than just stripping the seasoning off | your pan. | chipsa wrote: | I mean, if you have a bunch, yeah, you're going to have | more issue than just stripping seasoning off. But most of | the problem is just the slightest hint excess from making | sure the entire volume of oil is saponified. | | It's part of why you had the rubber dishwashing gloves | get invented: soap used to be harsher, and one of the | reasons why is the fact that soaps were made with lye. | chongli wrote: | _Nothing short of steel wool is going to affect the | patina._ | | Actually, if you throw it in the oven and set it to self- | clean it'll strip the seasoning right off. I've done it | with my cast iron pan before. Washes completely clean and | ends up gun-metal grey; a non-oxidized pure iron surface. | This is a great way to start over with the seasoning | process if you're unhappy with it. | gnicholas wrote: | Apparently there is some controversy over whether the | self-cleaning cycle is bad for ovens. [1] [2] | | 1: https://www.thekitchn.com/why-you-should-almost-never- | use-th... | | 2: https://lifehacker.com/dont-use-your-ovens-self- | cleaning-fun... | mdtusz wrote: | I've tried this a few times and none of the ovens I've | had over the years have been successful in removing | seasoning with their self-cleaning, so at this point I'm | trying to find a machine shop that will be happy to bead | blast it and mill the surface flat again. So far, most | shops have given me quotes in the hundreds of dollars so | I've been waiting until I meet someone that has the | capability to just do it in their garage. | | Most new cast iron cookware now has a raw surface with | lots of pits and bumps from the casting process as well, | which doesn't seem to get nearly as smooth and non-stick | as "vintage" cookware. | BikiniPrince wrote: | You can stick the pan in a bag, spray on some easy off | and let it soak overnight. | jnellis wrote: | Our dog's food bowl is about the most mirror polished | metal in the house. Free labor. | ethbr0 wrote: | Just wait until you diamond-grit-coat Fluffy's tongue... | slacka wrote: | Since quarantine life, I've been cooking multiple times a | day. My oven's self-clean makes my pans look exactly like | new. Takes all of the black off leaving them with a | shiny, silvery shine. I then have to season them to | regain a nonstick coating as good as any Ceramic/Teflon | pan that I've used. | | As far soap. My experience is that it definitely damages | the nonstick coating, depending on how much you use. You | can get by with a soapy sponge, but putting detergent | directly on it and the nonstick coating will be lost. | | The best way to avoid need to avoid soap or scrubbing and | re-seasoning is to put hot water in the pan while it's | still hot and scrape. Meat is the worst for leaving a | coating and this technique removes 99% of it.(If not | blackened use that water for a delicious sauce with all | the best flavors of your cooking). This routine allows me | to use the same pan for months without a deep cleaning. | | I have tried to put cold oil on after heaving soaping, | but I'm not happy with the pan until I season it with | high heat. The only reason I'd do it for rust and still | would pan on seasoning it properly later. | ethbr0 wrote: | The biggest difference I've found (moreso on stainless | steel than cast iron) is food weight: which is to say, | time food is left without moving. | | Which makes sense. Essentially burnt-to-pan bits are | food-pan interface, as opposed to food-oil-pan interface. | | Give enough time, heavy food displaces oil and comes in | direct contact with pan. Given enough movement, oil is | able to reimpose itself between the two. | captrb wrote: | I used a propane grill and it was very, very effective. I | removed the grates and (if I recall correctly) rested the | pan on the heat deflection sheets. I left all burners on | for about 2 1/2 hours. After cooling, the previous | coating was reduced to a thin dust. After blowing it off, | the pan was gun metal grey. | | I then used a cheap corded drill and inexpensive flap | wheels and similar attachments from the hardware store to | make it smooth, wearing an N95 mask to protect my lungs. | chipsa wrote: | Self cleaning should reach a high enough temp for it, | because most of what you use the self-cleaning to take | off is effectively seasoning. If it's not getting hot | enough, use something else to get it hot enough | (blowtorch, maybe). | | For smoothing out the surface, you could just use a | flapwheel. You can get them for angle grinders. This will | also take off seasoning if necessary (but it's a bit | worse for the pan if you're not also trying to smooth it | out). Be sure to wear a respirator and googles if you're | doing this. | im3w1l wrote: | How does this work? | sircastor wrote: | Self cleaning ovens bake as hot as they can to vaporize | material. After the cycle is complete, you take a brush | and sweep out the ash. | gambiting wrote: | Yes, if you happen to own an oven that has this feature. | It's not exactly common. | | Edit: because of course I triggered a storm. Maybe it's | common elsewhere. I've lived in few EU countries, rented | then owned a few houses, exactly only one of them had an | oven with the self cleaning(by heating up to like 500C) | feature, I don't think we ever used it. When we bought | our current oven none of the ones we looked at had that | function. A fancy Candy we looked at had a function where | it cleans itself with steam(where you fill up a provided | container with water and then it heats it up to fill the | oven with steam and in theory that softens the gunk. No | idea if that actually works). | | If it's common where you live, then my apologies for this | comment. | chipsa wrote: | Mine doesn't, but that's because it's too fancy, and has | a special coating on the inside that's supposed to make | stuff just come off. Freaking Whirlpool. It doesn't work. | philwelch wrote: | I've never had a non-self-cleaning oven. | BikiniPrince wrote: | You can do it with a propane grill as the temperatures | are hot enthused to carbonize any polymers. | | Or just use easy off which is a spray on acid. | butterfi wrote: | Really? I figured most ovens had a self-cleaning | option... I did this trick to recondition several cast | iron pans and it works great, but be prepared for massive | amounts of greasy smoke. | onli wrote: | Afaik it's just not a thing in europe. Only high end | models have it, and even then it's an optional feature | that costs extra. Even in a kitchen I rented where just | the sink faucet did cost 1000EUR the self-cleaning module | of the oven was not installed. | iamacyborg wrote: | We tend to have pretty different ovens in Europe vs the | US. | ros86 wrote: | Just a random thought (lived both in the US and in the | EU): could it be that US ovens are more often gas ovens | while in the EU it's mostly electric? (might be easier to | get higher temperatures with gas). | | Couldn't find statistics on this with a quick search... | iamacyborg wrote: | I've lived in the US and EU too. My experience was we | have fan assisted ovens in the EU whereas ones I saw in | the US had a top and bottom element with no fan assist. | astura wrote: | Fan assisted ovens are also called "convection ovens." | They certainly exist in the US, but I think they are more | high end? I personally have one, it also has a self-clean | function. The stove part is gas but I think (?) the oven | is electric. | the_pwner224 wrote: | It's the opposite... my oven in the US doesn't have the | cleaning thing, turns out it's because it's gas only. The | gas stovetop + electric oven version of this model has | it. Seems to be a thing even with other manufacturers and | models. | slavik81 wrote: | I'm in Canada, but I don't think I've ever seen a gas | oven. All my ovens have been electric, and nearly all of | them had a self-clean option. | xxs wrote: | interesting - both electrolux ovens i have had in the | last 10y do have self cleaning. that just - heat as much | as possible mode. | soperj wrote: | I lived in some of the crappiest places, never had a | fancy oven. Every single one had a self cleaning option. | mikepurvis wrote: | Some wackos disable the safety latch and then cook pizza | in their ovens on the self clean cycle: | | https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=268.0 | giardini wrote: | Thank you for the most informative post on this HN | discussion! | nycticorax wrote: | Not sure where you're writing from, but it's very common | in the US. This article (https://www.thekitchn.com/why- | you-should-almost-never-use-th...) quotes someone who | works for an appliance store in Cincinnati who says it's | difficult to sell an oven without that feature. And as | others have said, every oven I have every owned (or that | my parents owned when I was around and capable of forming | memories) has been self-cleaning. | | Maybe it sounds fancier than it is? Is not like it has a | little robot that cleans the oven. It's just a mode where | the oven can get the internal temperature very high (up | to 1000 degrees F according to that article) that just | incinerates any organic material stuck to the oven walls. | astura wrote: | In my experience it was fairly uncommon 30+ years ago, | but common today. | saiya-jin wrote: | Its not fancy, but I guess it requires a bit more | resilient engineering/materials than 250C ovens. Its | definitely not a norm in budget/medium priced ovens in | Europe, even for new. I mean brands like Bosch mostly | don't have it here, I never had one (house, 2 apartments, | couple of rental apartments all with full kitchen, | kitchen < 10 years old). | AmericanChopper wrote: | Cooking anything acidic will strip all of the seasoning | right off. I can easily keep a seasoning on my carbon steel | woks, but it'll vanish if I cook one Pad Thai. For my cast | iron I can keep it there until I want to cook anything with | tomatoes. | gilrain wrote: | Incidentally, if your want your aluminum or stainless steel | clean again with almost no effort, use Barkeeper's Friend. | It's an oxalic acid product, and it wipes away stains with | a sponge that you'd work hard to sand out. | | Obviously, do not use on cast iron or carbon steel. | stouset wrote: | I don't know about your experience, but even with BKF, | the scrubby side of the sponge, and a _lot_ of elbow | grease, it takes ages to get it off an aluminum pan. I | did it once and it took two full hours, and gave me | blisters on my hands from the sheer amount of scrubbing. | cmckn wrote: | Try oven cleaner! I leave it on sheet pans for about 15 | minutes; it's amazing what wipes away. | AdmiralAsshat wrote: | I had similar issues with the AllClad pans I bought, so I | called them out of frustration. They recommend Dobie | sponges in addition to the Barkeeper's Friend. It seems | to help. | | What also helps is simmering something acidic in the pan | for about 10-15 minutes (wine, watered-down vinegar, | etc). The base then cleans pretty easily. It's the burnt | bits of fat that splatter up the walls of the pan that | are murder to get out. | mark-r wrote: | Burnt bits of fat don't come off with acid, they need | base. My wife pours ammonia into a baggie and leaves | things in it. | ethbr0 wrote: | Sponges come in all levels of abrasiveness. | | Here in the US at least, there tend to be scratch | (yellow/green) and non-scratch (blue/darker-blue). Along | with straight scratch pad (pure green) and steel wool | (silver metal). | | You can grind all day with a non-scratch pad, and all | you're really polishing with is the harder bits of gunk | you've managed to take off. | | Same way you can sand with 220 grit all day and barely | make a dent, but hit something with 60 grit and make | progress in 5 minutes. | | Afaik, Barkeeper's Friend is essentially microgrit in | some sort of liquid carrier. If you had the right shaped | sand, you could probably add that to something and get a | similar effect. | iamacyborg wrote: | > Obviously, do not use on cast iron or carbon steel. | | Unless your seasoning is flaking off because you followed | OP's instructions and you need to start again. | cpascal wrote: | Seconding this. Barkeeper's friend is like magic on | aluminum. If you use it regularly you can keep your | aluminum pots and pans looking like they're factory new. | zelon88 wrote: | I agree on 95% of this post. I think that's part of the | allure of Cast Iron. It's a personal thing where people | develop their own methods through experience. | | However I try to avoid using soapy chemicals on my cast iron. | If I do use soap it's literally one drop onto the scrub brush | instead of the pan. Although I'm sure that if you went | heavier on the soap nothing would come of it anyway. Most of | the time I use water and a scrub brush. I scrub with good | speed and not a lot of pressure to break off lingering | debris. | | And if I'm going to be using it the next day I'll leave it | shiny, but if it's going to sit for a couple days I'll leave | it on a little longer until it's a little more matte looking. | Not 100% matte, but not "shiny" either. Just a sheen. That | way it won't be sticky during storage where it will collect | dust and contaminants. | smichel17 wrote: | Huh. That's not it at all for me. I like cast iron because: | (1) It is extremely durable and can be repaired rather than | replaced. (2) It is general purpose, reducing the number of | pans I need to own. (3) It is well suited to cooking at low | temperatures, which are much more forgiving (I can walk | away and write a comment like this and come back to | something other than a charred mess). | | edit: I discovered cast iron about a year ago and now I do | roughly 90% of my cooking on it. If there were reliable, | _science-based_ information about how to care for the pan | best, it would have saved me a lot of trouble. As an | example, a lot of people caution against seasoning with too | much oil. They say that when you season your pan (e.g. | initially, in the oven), you should wipe the oil off until | the pan looks dry. I took this literally, and wiped until | it looked the same as before I put on the oil. As a result, | my seasoning had approximately no effect. After | experimenting, I 've decided that the "looks dry" advice | isn't _wrong_ exactly, but "dry" needs clarification. It | should look more like how you would like it to look when it | comes out of the oven -- dry, but darker and with more | sheen. | CBLT wrote: | Have you tried carbon steel? In my opinion it is superior | to cast iron in every way, especially durability. | leetcrew wrote: | as materials, carbon steel and cast iron are extremely | similar, except that carbon steel can be stamped rather | than cast. in practice, this means that carbon steel | skillets tend to be much thinner than cast iron ones. | durability would not be an advantage I would attribute to | the typical carbon steel skillet. a cast iron skillet is | pretty much indestructible; if you drop it from stove- | height, it would be more likely to damage your floor than | to shatter. a carbon steel skillet can easily warp if you | heat it up too quickly, which is not nearly as great a | concern with a heavy cast iron skillet. | petre wrote: | I like bith. Carboon steel for the pancake and omlet pan | and cast iron for the steak pan. Cast iron has more | thermal mass. I should probably also get a cast iron pot | for cooking stew. | smichel17 wrote: | Not yet. I plan to at some point. | zelon88 wrote: | I have a Blackstone carbon steel griddle and it is very | nice. A little uneven but it gives me areas to keep stuff | warm around the outside. | war1025 wrote: | > If there were reliable, science-based information about | how to care for the pan best, it would have saved me a | lot of trouble | | I think the trouble here is that the people who best | understand cast iron are probably also the least likely | to care about the science of it. | | The main reason not to leave too much oil in the pan is | that it will go rancid and get sticky and generally | gross. That's not something you run up against if you use | the pan several times a week, but if you have something | like a dutch oven that you use maybe once or twice a | month, you will come back to a mess that you have to deal | with before you can cook in it. | | The whole "you're making a polymer coating that mimics a | teflon pan" idea is something that sounds fancy, but is | impractical and unnecessary in practice. | smichel17 wrote: | > I think the trouble here is that the people who best | understand cast iron are probably also the least likely | to care about the science of it. | | Hmm. Perhaps. I said _science-based information_ because | while I find the science (chemistry, polymerization, etc) | of cast iron interesting, I primarily care about the | results. For example, knowing that flax oil gives the | non-stickiest finish but is prone to flaking and thus | high maintenance. Perhaps _empirical_ would have been a | better word than _science-based_. I suspect there are a | fair number of people like me, who would like to know | more about the trade-offs involved in different oils and | maintenance procedures. But perhaps these aren 't the | people who _best_ understand cast iron, as you say. | | Two things of note: | | - The best answer in the FAQ in the top comment of this | thread, _by FAR_ , is #2, about heat spreading. It gives | numbers and additional information (about radiating the | heat) that I didn't know before. | | - Flax is the only oil that I understand even some of the | trade-offs of using. That is a direct result of the post | linked in this thread publicly making a hypothesis and | providing detailed-enough steps for (some people) to | reproduce its results. | | Speaking of, as a cast iron enthusiast, would you be | willing to share your experiences and/or do some | experiments to help test my hypothesis on cleaning | methods, here? | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25716850 | GordonS wrote: | So I understand correctly, do you mean to wash it after every | (most) uses, and apply a little oil after washing? No need to | bake in the oven or anything like that? | jasallen wrote: | If you're trying to add a little more seasoning you will | need to bake. You'd do this after a rough cleaning or | cooking something watery or acidic. If you're just | protecting it from ambient moisture just a teensy coat. | war1025 wrote: | > No need to bake in the oven or anything like that? | | Correct. | | I will sometimes do the oil and bake thing for our Dutch | oven if it has been neglected a while and has bits of rust | or other questionable-ness to it. | blueline wrote: | Totally agree except that onion flavored pancakes can be | delicious. | | Scallion pancake with pork belly is one of my favorite combos | :-) | tharkun__ wrote: | Absolutely correct. There are many usually sweet recipes | that are actually great when done savoury instead. I | personally like it when the last thing I made in the pan | was something that had onion and then I gotta make | pancakes, precisely because the first pancake will have | that flavor. Then I put chorizo and cheese on it too and | call it a day. Next pancake will be 'normal' again anyway. | Win-Win! | ethbr0 wrote: | I'm a huge fan of savory fried any-cake (e.g. hoecakes, | [0]). Just because something is normally made one way is | no reason to limit ourselves. | | You can make sweet or savory crepes, so why not pancakes? | | But then, I'm not a big fan of actual-cake and don't have | much of a sweet tooth. | | [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnnycake | blincoln wrote: | > You want oil soaked into the metal. | | Is there solid evidence that this is actually possible, as | opposed to creating a layer on top of it? The only people | I've ever heard suggest that it's possible were talking about | cast iron pans, and it's always struck me as the sort of | thing that would have major implications for a lot of other | fields. | | I tried some web searches before posting this, still not | finding anything suggesting it's possible other than cast | iron pan aficionados. | BikiniPrince wrote: | Yes, this isn't a mystery. There are lots of coated steel | products that use the crudest of coatings that need grinder | off. Unless the material is polished to a high shine it | will absorb oil. | ethbr0 wrote: | Yuan, Z., Xiao, J., Wang, C. et al. Preparation of a | superamphiphobic surface on a common cast iron substrate. J | Coat Technol Res 8, 773 (2011). | https://doi.org/10.1007/s11998-011-9365-7 | | I don't have a subscription or SciHub link to pull up the | underlying, but it looks like there have been folks who did | electron microscopy on seasoned cast iron. (Note: more | relevant and profitable to study in the context of | machinery / engine design) | gorgoiler wrote: | Tangential but related: Oilite: | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oilite | war1025 wrote: | > Is there solid evidence that this is actually possible, | as opposed to creating a layer on top of it? | | I doubt that's actually what happens, but if you think of | it that way, you'll end up with the right result. | ethbr0 wrote: | "Soak into" is probably an engineering approximation | converted to lay language. | | What we're really talking about is surface-gap-filling. | | So yes, "into" at some level of magnification. "Onto" at | another. | BikiniPrince wrote: | Indeed! I was avoiding describing the surfaces at high | detail . | neild wrote: | The main thing I've learned that most advice about seasoning | pans doesn't tell you is that how you use the pan to cook | matters more than how well seasoned it is. Cast iron is | really forgiving of seasoning, you don't need the perfect job | to cook with it. | | However, cast iron will never be as non-stick as a good non- | stick pan, and if you treat it as one, you're going to have a | bad time. | | Put bacon in a dry, hot pan, and it'll leave crispy fond | stuck to the pan. (Nothing you do will ever create fond in a | non-stick pan.) Cook bacon starting with a cold pan, and | enough fat will render by the time it heats to keep it from | sticking. | | Eggs will stick to cold, dry cast iron. Fry eggs in a | moderately hot pan with plenty of grease. I had the devil of | a time with fried eggs until I realized I wasn't letting the | pan heat enough. Also, it's very easy to burn butter in a | cast iron pan; use a more forgiving fat like bacon grease or | a neutral oil. | | Cast iron behaves differently than non-stick or stainless | steel. Different heat density, different emissivity. Just | like any other cookware, you need to learn how to work with | it; it's not just a matter of getting the magical perfect | seasoning and pretending it's Teflon. | sk5t wrote: | While you can eventually develop a very non-stick surface | with cast iron or carbon steel, there's also the option to | make a "spanish egg" with a medium amount of hot oil; e.g. | https://youtu.be/mL-w_OegewU?t=215 | captainredbeard wrote: | Keeping an IR thermometer by the stovetop is handy if | you're cooking with cast iron. It removes the guess work | around things like "Am I going to burn this butter if I | drop it in the pan?" | colechristensen wrote: | Putting a drop of water on the pan is a good indicator of | temperature. It will either sit there in a small puddle, | wander around a bit, or zoom around in a frenzy. | lmeyerov wrote: | for most medium/high, when an oiled pan, you can see the | super faint smoke. for some oiled, even based on the | viscosity from shaking the pan. water test is good for | learning this point. but water in an oily pan can hurt | later so good to learn to do without :) | | some startups have been experimenting with built-in | thermometers, so I can imagine this classic design being | different 10yr from now :) | Yetanfou wrote: | I use only cast iron, always cook on a wood-burning stove. | The way I season pans is simple, I just put the thing on a | medium fire, dab some canola oil on it, rub it in, wipe it | off, repeat this once or twice after which I just use it with | enough oil (canola or olive). I clean them by rinsing them | while hot with cold water which starts boiling immediately, | wipe them with some paper and put them away. As long as | they're kept dry they don't need reseasoning. No fancy oils | needed, no special rituals, just use them regularly and | that's it. | GordonS wrote: | Forgot to ask in my other comment, does all this apply for | carbon steel too? | [deleted] | atombender wrote: | Pretty much, yes: https://www.seriouseats.com/2019/06/how- | to-season-carbon-ste... | leetcrew wrote: | general consensus on reddit (and my personal experience) | seems to be that seasoning on carbon steel is a bit more | delicate than on cast iron, possibly because carbon steel | skillets tend to have a much smoother surface. | | chemically, carbon steel is very similar to cast iron, so | all the info regarding cleaning is still applicable. you | should probably expect to do a little more work to maintain | the seasoning on a carbon steel pan though. | aksss wrote: | > no one wants onion-flavoured pancakes | | :/ | axaxs wrote: | Agree with everything except the oil. I use Avocado a lot for | cooking but not on a brand new pan. I've certainly tried to | season with it specifically when I was new, but find it flaky | and cumbersome. | | I find fatty meats(bacon, sausage) or just canned lard to work | absolutely best for seasoning. It's also what our ancestors | used before they probably even knew what an avocado was. For a | vegan, I'd assume shortening is ok as well, but I've never | actually tested that. | hedora wrote: | Rather than soap, I use a pampered chef plastic scraper (It's | for stone ware; don't know any other name for it), and a | stainless steel scouring pad (not steel wool; instead it's | coils of flat stainless steel tape or something). The scraper | removes the bulk of stuff, keeping the scouring pad clean. | | This is less effort than using soap, and more effective. The | stainless smooths out any imperfections that form in the | seasoning over time, and cooking with oil continuously | reseasons it. | | I found that I had to re-season my pans every 5-10 years if I | used soap, and that the seasoning was an inferior cooking | surface (more food stuck to it). With the technique I described | above, I can cook eggs and they don't stick. (be sure to | preheat, use plenty of oil, and then don't touch for a minute | or two at the beginning of cooking) | beervirus wrote: | I did it once. Flaked like crazy. Never again. | [deleted] | war1025 wrote: | I read somewhere a year or two ago that basically compared | cast iron to wood, which has helped my intuition of things a | lot. | | Here is a blog post [0] I read a few months ago about wood | finishes. I think the following applies just as much to cast | iron as to the wood he is talking about: So, | when I choose a finish, I ignore the industry-standard | scratch and adhesion tests. Instead, I separate finishes into | two buckets: 1. Finishes that look incredible | immediately but look like crap in 20 years (the short-run | finishes) vs. finishes that look incredible when worn/abused | (the long-run finishes). 2. Finishes that want | me dead vs. finishes that I can apply while buck naked. | | Basically I would equate Polyurethane with Teflon, and | furniture oil with cooking oil. | | Teflon will be great to cook on initially. As soon as it gets | damaged, it will be hard to fix without stripping and redoing | everything. | | Oil will take more maintenance over time, but if it starts | looking bad, you just put a bit more on. That's exactly how | you should treat cast iron as well. | | The trouble people run into is they try to use oil to create | a teflon surface. That's not what it's for. | | [0] https://blog.lostartpress.com/2020/11/30/rip-the- | anarchists-... | idlewords wrote: | Just here to give a shout-out to any other people on this site | who scrub their cast iron with soap and water after each use and | live their lives in peace. I'm a high-octane computer | professional and I don't have the time or predisposition to | coddle large lumps of metal in the pursuit of an effect ("it | doesn't stick!") that can be achieved by using cooking oil. | war1025 wrote: | How to season cast iron: | | Cook with it. Use oil / fat. | | Honestly, cast iron is about the most forgiving cooking surface | you will find. People love to make it more difficult than it is. | | Edit: | | Some additional tips on cast iron: | | Setting 4 / 10 (slightly below medium) is the default heat | setting, and you have to really have something specific in mind | to ever go above 5. I find that people who are used to teflon | pans like to go up into the medium-high range. Things don't end | well up there with cast iron. | | Also buy a metal spatula. You aren't going to hurt anything, and | it will be a more satisfying cooking experience. Plastic + cast | iron is just going to leave you with a melted spatula. There used | to be a ubiquitous metal spatula design, but I can never find | them anymore. I've found it is much better to use something small | like a cake / bar server than something big like a grilling | spatula. | | Don't cook on cold cast iron. The trick my mom showed me is you | always wait until a splash of water (get your fingers wet and | flick it on the pan) will start boiling on contact. If it boils | into nothing immediately, you are too hot. If it just sits there | and does nothing, you aren't hot enough yet. | walshemj wrote: | That my view - a quick dip in warm water with a bit of soap and | lightly whip of any bits and let it dry. | | Ill try the water test next time | SoSoRoCoCo wrote: | > Also buy a metal spatula. | | Without sharp corners. You will cut the polymerization layer | otherwise, if not careful. | | > Don't cook on cold cast iron. | | You literally can't cook on cold metal. :) | | Dancing water is too hot for some things, IMHO, like eggs. Once | it is that hot I'm past the point of good eggs. | | I put the oil in and bring it up slowly until the oil runs | faster than cold oil, but way, way, way before the smoke point. | I like my eggs to have zero brown crisp, so I use low temps and | a good olive oil. Also have to use fresh eggs so that the white | doesn't spread more the 4-5". On a good day with good eggs if | I'm paying attention, I get a perfecty-set white with no brown | crisp, and a slow-run yolk with no cooked bits, and after one | quick flip to the top to sear the yolk. Perfection. | kova12 wrote: | Dollar stores are still carrying metal spatulas | hansthehorse wrote: | My cast iron set is 20 years old now and used almost every day. | One thing cast iron isn't good for is when you have to change | temps mid cooking. If doing something that needs mid heat then | going to low heat cast iron will fail you as it won't go to the | lower heat easily. | | When oiling the pans take the time to try to wipe out all the | oil you applied. This leaves just a tiny layer of oil and your | pans won't get sticky. I clean with diluted Dawn and a sponge - | dry on burner - then oil / wipe out each use. | GordonS wrote: | > Setting 4 / 10 (slightly below medium) is the default heat | setting, and you have to really have something specific in mind | to ever go above 5 | | Do you do any chinese cooking with a carbon steel wok? | | For stir frying you _generally_ want things as hot as you can | get them. I only have a Teflon wok, and my biggest problem with | it is that it just doesn 't get hot enough. The other problem | is that Teflon really doesn't like very high temperatures, so | I'm lucky if a wok lasts a year before bits are peeling off. | I've always been put off a carbon steel wok though, because of | all the faffing about with seasoning, but reading some of the | comments here it might be simpler just to wash and oil it after | every use. | adrianN wrote: | Heating Teflon to high temperatures and preparing food on it | is a good way to get Teflon into your bloodstream. | robocat wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_fume_fever | cbsmith wrote: | You have to get to _really_ high temperatures though. Like | over 300 Celsius. | p1necone wrote: | A stovetop cranked high should be able to achieve that | though shouldn't it? Not something you can discount | entirely. | war1025 wrote: | We have a Lodge cast iron wok [0]. | | That said, I don't know that I'd recommend it to anyone as we | rarely use it. | | I read somewhere that unless you have a commercial-grade gas | range, you are unlikely to hit the temperatures needed to | really properly cook with a thinner metal wok. Cast iron is | supposed to be a bit of a compromise because it can hold the | heat better, but you can't toss it around the way you would | with a normal wok. | | As to carbon steel, I'd say go for it. I think you'll find it | a lot less fussy than you have been told. | | Also, I'd say stir fry definitely qualifies under the | "something specific" where you would want to use the high | heat settings on the stove. | | [0] https://www.lodgecastiron.com/product/cast-iron- | wok?sku=P14W... | cascom wrote: | Agreed, would add just don't scrub off your seasoning with | soap/scouring pad. | SteveNuts wrote: | Soap is fine anytime, scouring pad is never fine unless | you're deliberately trying to scrub off the seasoning for | some reason. | taeric wrote: | Meanwhile, I have a chain cloth that I use when cleaning to | make sure no food is left behind. Remarkably hard to actually | get the seasoning off. | | Granted, if you still use soap that warrants the use of heavy | plastic gloves, probably a bit easier. | duxup wrote: | Agreed. | | The advantage of cast iron is that you just cook on it and over | time (if it isn't already seasoned) it seasons itself. That's | all there has to be to it... fussing over how you season it and | then throwing whatever food in there seems a little silly. | | I cook a great deal and once in a while it's time to scrape | down (often because I made a big mess in the pan) the cast iron | pan and 'start over'. | | My starting over just means ... I clean it thoroughly, oil it a | bit when I cook on it the next time. That's it. Pretty quickly | it will be plenty seasoned. | | If folks want to take a deep dive into seasoning their cast | iron pan in a complicated fashion, awesome, but it's really not | necessarily. | grenoire wrote: | Carbon steel gang here, I just cook with it, if the coat flakes | then I just keep cooking with it. Run under hot water when I'm | done, scraping with a dish brush. | | I don't see the point to the perfect coating; occasionally | using it in the oven already gets you to the perfect slick | season. | RamRodification wrote: | My dish brush gets really yucky with this method (not using | dish soap). Greasy and soot:y. Do you just not care about | this issue or do you spend some time cleaning it afterwards? | chipsa wrote: | I usually scrap my cast iron with a plastic scraper before | I start with the dish brush. Soap and warm water help too, | while you're doing the initial scrape. | alliao wrote: | i chuck it in the dishwasher, comes out brand new! try it. | It'd even "reanneal" the plastic if that's the right term | lol. The bent brushes will return to it's virgin position, | try it! | iamacyborg wrote: | > If it boils into nothing immediately, you are too hot. If it | just sits there and does nothing, you aren't hot enough yet. | | That is actually slightly misleading due to the Leidenfrost | effect. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leidenfrost_effect | war1025 wrote: | It could be, but in practice I've found that you can tell the | difference between "too hot" and "still cold" very easily. | chipsa wrote: | A drop of water affected by the Leidenfrost effect looks | different from one in a too cold pan. | | If I'm doing something that requires a ripping hot pan, one | that's actually hot enough for the Leidenfrost effect is | where I am for. This usually requires that I use a high smoke | point oil, like refined peanut oil. | derekp7 wrote: | I find that my skillet comes out really nice when I make a | batch of cornbread. You grease it real good and get it hot | before pouring in the batter, and during cooking the right | amount is absorbed by the cornbread. This leaves behind a hard | slick surface. | mindcrime wrote: | _Cook with it._ | | Exactly. No reason at all for all of these crazy rituals | involving 42 different kinds of oil (2 or 3 of which are made | of Unobtanium anyway), ovens, salt, baking soda, owl urine, | black cats, graveyard dirt, the Necronomicon, or whatever other | weird shit people are throwing out there. Just cook with the | darn thing. I don't know why people feel the need to | overcomplicate this. | Spinnaker_ wrote: | It takes months of continuous use to develop a great seasoning | by just cooking. Or you can accomplish the same in an | afternoon. | war1025 wrote: | The youtube algorithm decided it needed to recommend a whole | hose of cast iron videos to me over Christmas and they kept | repeating this. | | So I went and washed my skillet down to a matte surface, | rubbed oil into it, and cooked an egg. Worked perfectly fine. | | You won't ever get the "slippery" coating like with a teflon | pan, but I also find cooking on that type of surface to be | absolutely maddening since any time you try to chop or scoop | in such a pan, the food just slides out from under you and | you have to chase it about. | | I want my food to "not stick" in the same way that a book | doesn't stick to a table. I don't want an ice rink. | fideloper wrote: | Completely agree. My "pre-seasoned" cast iron from Target was | the best purchase I ever made. | 1970-01-01 wrote: | I've always wondered why other seasoned heavy metals aren't used | in cookware? I know they would be ultra-expensive, but they would | also be nearly invincible to daily wear and tear; and they should | last for generations. | travis_brooks wrote: | Cheap cast iron pans are basically invincible and can last for | generations | bluedino wrote: | Carbon steel is pretty popular | bluedino wrote: | This is a great example of a topic that has been taken over by | "internet experts" | | Talk about over-complicating the treatment of cookware that has | been around for hundreds of years. | | I have about 8 pieces of cast iron cookware, but I really only | use one: my grandmothers pan. It's not a fancy brand, it's 65 | years old, and it just works. | | My mother never used it because "it was hard to clean and heavy". | | Use a little oil with it and stuff doesn't really stick. I can | cook lbs of bacon, make steaks, bake a whole chicken, sliced | potatoes, make gravy, put an apple cobbler in the oven... | | I use a metal spatula to scrape anything off (after boiling some | water in it to loosen it up), or a lodge plastic scraper, and | scrub it lightly with a sponge and a bit of dish soap. Don't put | it away wet. It's simple. | girzel wrote: | > I use a metal spatula to scrape anything off (after boiling | some water in it to loosen it up), or a lodge plastic scraper, | and scrub it lightly with a sponge and a bit of dish soap. | Don't put it away wet. It's simple. | | This is pretty much what I do, except I use a nylon brush | instead of the scraper - same deal. I think the boiling water | and brush are perfect because they leave just the right amount | of oil still on the pan. | niccl wrote: | If you're interested in the science of cooking, I heartily | recommend 'On Food and Cooking' by Harold McGee. Also his website | https://www.curiouscook.com has interesting stuff | | The book changed the way I cook (for the better!) | systemvoltage wrote: | I find these how-tos boggling. It's not that difficult to season | cast iron cookware. Just cook on it. Same thing with soldering - | there are countless videos of people teaching others on how to | solder. If you can wear clothes that morning, you can solder. | | Also, what if I told you its ok to use soap on cast iron pans? | The hardened coating isn't prone to soap interaction. It removes | all the grime and gives you a clean non-stick surface if you use | soap. | | I blame all this on hipster culture which is based on nothing but | making things more complicated than it should be, getting | viewership and generally misleading people into thinking | something is more difficult that it really is. In turn, making | people spend more money on useless shit that they don't need. | war1025 wrote: | > If you can wear clothes that morning, you can solder. | | I got a good kick out of this. | kemitchell wrote: | I tried flax oil on some pans for a couple years. It didn't work | out well. One cheap pan I gave away. All the rest I've stripped | and reseasoned. | | Vegetable oil works fine. Shortening works fine. Don't overthink | this. | simonboulton wrote: | Well, I bought a cast iron skillet about 40 years ago at a local | department store (remember them?). Can't remember seasoning it, | but probably did way back in the day. I just wash it out with hot | water and a bit of liquid soap and a scourer to remove the | occasional bits. As good as teflon, cheaper and less poisonous. | My favourite pan. I think the main thing is to use it a lot, and | don't overclean it. The type of oil seems not to have mattered | much, but it's mainly olive, sunflower or rapeseed. As always | YMMV. | taivare wrote: | I use a bamboo wok scrubber for cleaning built up debris on my | carbon steel pan ( cowboy pan ) may be as old as late 1800's it's | at least from the early 1900's. I can't find this type of wok | scrubber anymore . . if anyone knows where they sell them? | mod wrote: | Can you take a picture of it? | cascom wrote: | Get a metal chain mail pot scrubber, it will change your life. | Allows you to dislodge 95% of what's stuck to your pan quickly | and without a super abrasive cleaner, the rest can usually be | taken care of with a paper towel. | gilrain wrote: | "metal chain mail pot scrubber" ... "without a super abrasive | cleaner" | | Um. | smichel17 wrote: | Chain mail scrubbers are not very abrasive. This is because | the links are rounded. As an extreme example, imagine trying | to scrape off gunk with the rounded back of a spoon. I've | used mine (gently!!) on teflon with no damage. | giardini wrote: | Blog spam for cast iron cookware periodically appears here and on | other forums. Following you will encounter (if you continue here) | a seemingly-endless thread of posts from people claiming to have | "no problem" with their cast-iron cookware (e.g., "Just rustled | up a dozen eggs for my family using my granny's cast-iron skillet | from Custer's cooking wagon at Little Big Horn. Wipes clean with | a washrag!"). Best to ignore them. This posting pattern will | repeat about twice each year. | | Buy a cheap teflon skillet at your local store. When it becomes | worn and no longer operates flawlessly then buy a new one. Never | pay $17 for 17 oz. of "flaxseed oil" that becomes rancid two | months later. Save hours of time cooking and cleaning! | | Best of all, avoid buying a cast-iron boat anchor that you will | endlessly _try_ to "season". "Try" is all you'll do, b/c | _nobody_ knows really what a "properly seasoned* cast-iron pan | is (i.e., there is no science here, folks). If you own cast-iron | cookware, throw it away and move into the 21st century: get | teflon pans. | | Cast-iron cookware is a sucker's purchase suitable for only one | scenario: old cowboy movies depicting cattle drives. | permo-w wrote: | Seems like you're really quite desperate for people to buy pans | covered in a probable carcinogen that, as you note, slowly rubs | off into your food | | Rather like someone trying really hard to get me to fire-proof | my house with asbestos | vkou wrote: | I can't disagree more strongly. | | I paid $40 for a cast iron pan a decade ago. I clean it with | water, and scrubbing a metal spatula. I don't do any black | magic to season it. I use it for cooking almost everything... | And I'll never touch teflon, because of health concerns with | it. | | The only stuff that sticks to my pan is food that I burned into | it, because I had the heat too high. A sharp scrape with a | metal spatula gets it off. | na85 wrote: | >Cast-iron cookware is a sucker's purchase | | Gotta disagree with you there. Cast iron is great for dishes | that you want to sear, or that you want to finish in the oven | or under a broiler. Searing on most stainless pans doesn't work | nearly as well because the metal doesn't retain its heat as | zealously, and if you whack your little teflon pan in the oven | you'll ruin it. | | Sure, there's a lot of mythology around how to season the pans | and how you need to baby them, etc. That's all BS. The "secret" | is to cook on your pan regularly, using a little more | oil/butter than you would on teflon, and don't let your pan | soak in soapy water. | | If you scrape away the memes and the hype on blogs and on | reddit from astroturfing accounts they're dependable, versatile | cookware and they're not particularly expensive. What's not to | like? | xKingfisher wrote: | A lodge cast iron pan will last forever and isn't that | expensive. And maintenance isn't terribly hard. Just rub down | with oil after using (I use plain canola) and keep it dry. | Serious eats has a lot of information on this. Modern soaps | make the whole thing much easier. | | For some people Teflon isn't an option. Bird owners for example | can't use pans with PTFE coatings, cooking with them releases a | compound that is toxic to parrots. | giardini wrote: | Pretty desperate move there, warning bird owners! | | OK, for the bird owners: buy a stainless steel skillet and | use it until your bird dies. _Then_ buy a teflon skillet. | kleinsch wrote: | Blog spam for hammers appears here all the time. Best to ignore | it. | | Buy a cheap screwdriver from Home Depot. If it breaks, buy | another one. | NikolaeVarius wrote: | I've never quite understood how something that is supposed to be | "don't give a shit", became something that hipsters/whoever gives | many shits about. | leetcrew wrote: | it's important to understand that pretty much anything useful | can also be someone's hobby. I don't really understand the | pursuit of the perfect cast iron skillet either. I just want to | cook some eggs. at the same time, I don't expect people to | understand why I spend hours trying to find the lowest stable | voltage for a 300 MHz overclock. if you just want to use the | damn thing, ignore the hobbyists. | mymythisisthis wrote: | I never season my pans. Use soap, water, and aluminium foil (if | food is baked on) to clean them. Dry in the oven to prevent rust. | | A couple of times after I made eggs, I let the water sit for too | long, and the pan got a bit rusty. No problem with cast iron! | Just a bit of steel wool and it was as good as new. | | A cast iron pan is the easiest pan you'll ever use. | dang wrote: | If curious see also | | 2017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15915502 | | 2014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8611468 | joshribakoff wrote: | Anecdotally I find soap strips the seasoning. When food gets | stuck to the pan, it also technically becomes part of the pan in | the sense the atoms of the food become bonded with the atoms of | the pan, just like how seasoning technically becomes part of the | pan. | | When you use soap and put copious amounts of oil, and wait for | the heat to release the food, of course it's possible to cook, | because the oil forms a barrier between the pan and food. You're | basically creating a half assed seasoning layer | | However the notion that soap can unstick bonded food atoms but | doesn't also unstick bonded polymers is an oxymoron. You can | still use soap, just know it will strip food and seasoning both. | Even using metal scrubbers and metal utensils can strip the | seasoning, in my experience, which is why I re-season frequently. | Anecdotally acidic foods strip large amounts of seasoning, | happened just the other day with taco seasoning for me. | | I can definitely tell the difference between a good seasoning | layer and a layer of oil simply poured. It's better for the | cooking process and better for the flavor to "properly" season in | my subjective experience | chipsa wrote: | You don't want bits of food stuck to the pan. Bits of food | still stuck to the pan go bad. The oil that sticks as part of | seasoning has much smaller molecules as it polymerizes, so you | don't have bits of stuff that goes bad. If it comes up with | soap, it's not bonded to the pan. | [deleted] | alliao wrote: | Yeah it's not needed, here's what I do after watching Cantonese | cooks treat theirs. | | Just buy this (obviously not at that price). | | https://www.amazon.com/Sunrise-Kitchen-Supply-SYNCHKG102693-... | | After cooking, while the cast iron is still hot, give it as | little water as possible and just scrub all the food off. | | rinse with plenty of water, by the end of cleaning it'd still be | warm. | | wipe dry then put it back on the stove I still use electric stove | so it's still warm by then and residual heat will dry it. | | Never needed to season... I use mostly lard/olive oil. Vegetable | oil tends to leave a really nasty sludge that's really hard to | clean so I stopped using them. | qpiox wrote: | How is flaxseed oil different from linseed oil, when flax and lin | seeds are in fact the same thing. | nightfly wrote: | > Some recommend bacon drippings since lard is no longer readily | available | | Lard might not be _popular_ anymore, but it's definitely readily | available (for cheap!). | tedivm wrote: | All of the castiron geeks say Flaxseed oil but from experience I | can tell you it doesn't work great- eventually you get chipping | in your seasoning. I ended up stripping my seasoning and redoing | it using crisco which has given me the best results so far. | Exuma wrote: | This is wrong, as someone very heavily invested in carbon | skillets and iron skillets, people in the "seasoning community" | (lol) literally hate this article because it spreads so much | disinformation about flaxseed oil. | RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: | Seasoning seems to be the "all-natural" alternative for non-stick | pans. However, have there been any studies on the substances | typically produced and if they are dangerous long term? | | It seems like taking and bunch of long chain fats, heating them | up to high temperatures in cycles and then cooking all sorts of | foods in that has a chance of producing carcinogenic molecules. | | For the synthetic non-stick pans we have studies of their | biological effects. I don't think we have any studies for the | patina that results from seasoning. | randallsquared wrote: | I ruined the finish on a cast iron last year by burning some | steak pretty badly. I spent a couple hours total mechanically | stripping the char. I read this article. I bought the flax oil. | | I kept putting off actually doing it. Why? | | It's gonna smoke. I have a small one bedroom apartment. | | It's gonna take an hour of baking and two hours of cooling for | each coat. | | It's gonna need at least six coats. Just the time investment | seemed insane on a one-pan scale: 18 hours of oven use, plus | applying the coats, plus a risk of starting over if something she | thinks is obvious wasn't mentioned (this happens to me quite a | lot, since "Reality Has a Surprising Amount of Detail"...). | | A pre-seasoned replacement cast iron pan is like $50. | | I bought a dutch oven cast iron set and donated the old pan to | whomever picked it up in the waste room of my building, with a | note on it. | pantalaimon wrote: | Just use a bit more oil next time you use it and let it soak in | a bit. | | There is absolutely no reason to micro-optimize cast iron pans, | they are great because they are pretty much indestructible. | randallsquared wrote: | I am skeptical that more oil would have taken out the burnt | odor/flavor next time I used it, but I didn't try, for sure. | nsxwolf wrote: | Why do mine never come out black? | joshu wrote: | I was under the impression that flaxseed oil for seasoning is a | bit of a fashion thing and that it tends to chip easily. I use | grapeseed oil. | SeanLuke wrote: | There's basically no science in this "science-based how-to". | | This was the article which started the flaxseed oil cast-iron | fad. I think that has now faded: apparently flaxseed oil has a | tendency to deteriorate and flake off over time. | adamors wrote: | I can confirm, I've tried flaxseed (based on this article and | other ancedata) and while the seasoning came out really nice | after 6 months or so it has started to flake and after a year | it looks really bad. | [deleted] | markgall wrote: | Agreed. This article started a fad when it came out 10 years | ago, and now everybody agrees flaxseed oil is a bad choice, | "science-based" as this may claim to be. | mcguire wrote: | How the heck do you get a thick enough layer to flake off? | hindsightbias wrote: | This seasoning fad is some post-teflon madness IMO, after weeks | of trying a dozen odd formulas there was always someone with | another oil or temperature setting. Might as well be working on | inertial confinement. | sk5t wrote: | Indeed, no science at all here--only conjecture. | macksd wrote: | Yes it seems like a very flawed assumption to assume that the | other uses of linseed oil would make flaxseed oil a perfect | candidate. I've never tried it. Personally I just use canola | oil but it can leave a sticky residue as the author says. It | lessens if I heat it for a longer time, but I just store it | wrapped in a cloth anyway. | mtalantikite wrote: | Agreed, please don't season with flaxseed oil -- it doesn't | last. Obsession over the smoke point is unfounded, you just | want polymerization and carbonization, which any unsaturated | fat coated in a thin layer will do for your cast iron. | | I did the flaxseed thing when this blog post came out some | years back and ended up having to redo my seasoning on the | couple pans I tried it on. The seasoning easily flaked off. | Just use canola oil and call it a day. | smichel17 wrote: | There's basically no science -- in the broad sense of | hypothesis testing -- around cast iron _at all_. It 's all | tribal knowledge. "I do it this way because that's how my | grandma did it and it works for me." That's fine enough, but it | makes for a frustrating experience as a newcomer with no way to | evaluate the credibility of different sources; it's just | everyone's word against everyone else. | | This is especially confusing given how long cast iron has been | around; you'd think that someone would have taken an interest | in cataloguing what actually works, by now. | | So while this post may not be good science, or very much of it, | I still appreciate that it exists. | taeric wrote: | I think the confounder is that cast iron is just rather | resilient and cooking is dominated by other choices and | technologies. Such that much of what folks think were needed | just didn't matter. | | The page linked in another top comment is worth reading in | full. | iratewizard wrote: | > I followed your directions to the letter using flak-seed oil | and several coats done in the oven and yesterday when attempting | to cook eggs, they stuck terribly. Please advise. | | Does anyone successfully cook eggs in cast iron? | kd0amg wrote: | After trying this flaxseed thing, I could get an egg to skate | around in the pan while frying in a small amount of oil. In the | long term, it's still more hassle than I want with all the | flaking. | mod wrote: | I cook eggs most every day in cast iron without it sticking. | | It's a vintage Wagner pan, from when they used to mill flat the | cooking surface. Modern lodge has a porous surface from the | cast. | | Anyway I just cook them in butter, they basically float. I | think they would slide across the pan if I tilted it. I'm | cooking them fried/"over medium" | xenocyon wrote: | Yes. A well-used pan is quite non-stick. In my anecdotal | experience, immediately after stripping/seasoning is not the | best time; it gets better after a few weeks of use as more | oil/fat bonds to the surface after repeated use. | | If you find your pan is too sticky: use lots of oil/fat, cook | at medium temperature (not too cool nor too hot), and be | patient for a couple weeks; the problem will sort itself out, | and eventually you'll be able to cook eggs with just a little | oil. | selimthegrim wrote: | Yes with plenty of oil | chipsa wrote: | I have a little square lodge cast iron pan. Fits two egss | perfectly, and makes the perfect shape to fit onto regular | sandwich bread. Works great. | markgall wrote: | I do it every day. Another tip maybe not mentioned yet is to | make sure you get it good and hot before you put in the egg. I | usually leave it on the burner for five minutes or so to | preheat. | krrrh wrote: | Yes. I just cooked some eggs in my pan which I reseasoned using | this method a couple of years ago. I added a teaspoon or two of | butter and got it hot first. After cooking the eggs and | hashbrowns I barely need to clean it because nothing sticks. | mynameisash wrote: | There's something amusing about cast iron lore that scares so | many people away. So many folks - myself included before I | actually started using it - think that you _must_ properly season | it or it 'll rust up, and you'll never get it back. And that it | takes so much effort to do just right. Honestly, it seems pretty | hard to get wrong. My ~$20 Lodge skillet from Target has lasted | eight years in the kitchen and camping, taking tons of abuse | without any apparent wear. | | I have a friend who literally didn't even scrape food off his pan | when we was done cooking - just let it cool and put it away. When | he took it out weeks later, it was green and fuzzy, and he just | cranked up the heat until it smoked, and _then_ scraped it clean. | That 's more than a bit extreme for me, but perhaps an example of | how rugged it is. | | I also really like my De Buyer high carbon steel skillet, but if | I leave it out for 15 minutes without thoroughly drying it, it | starts turning orange from rust. It's a bit finicky for me now | that I've come to love my cast iron. | giardini wrote: | says _> There's something amusing about cast iron lore that | scares so many people away.<_ | | No, it is simply a major PITA in the kitchen and no match | whatsoever for teflon. It is such a PITA that the cast-iron | venders are marketing "enameled cast-iron" which, of course, | has a coating of enamel atop the cast-iron. | | And get this: there are beaucoup WWW posts on "seasoning" the | enamel! | war1025 wrote: | > if I leave it out for 15 minutes without thoroughly drying | it, it starts turning orange from rust | | The thing cast iron has going for it is that it's black, and | black hides a multitude of sins. I'd guess the orange isn't a | huge deal, maybe it is though. | [deleted] | joshu wrote: | Anyone tried carbon-steel pans? They're smooth like glass instead | of the pebbled Lodge surface. Alternatively, older cast-iron pans | are smooth as well. | | I quite like my carbon-steel pan but the seasoning instructions | (salt, oil, and potato peels?) left a mess, and instead I used | the normal cast-iron method. | grzm wrote: | Could you link to the carbon steel pan you have? I like my | carbon steel pan, but it's not that much smoother than cast | iron (both Lodge). The only "smooth like glass" ones I've used | are ceramic, which haven't weathered as well. | etaioinshrdlu wrote: | So isn't the coating basically | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycyclic_aromatic_hydrocarbo... ? | Are we sure that's such a good thing to be cooking with? | travis_brooks wrote: | Special $17 oil to season a pan, a multi day oven drying process, | wtf?? I'm sort of baffled by this because I can buy a perfectly | usable Lodge cast iron skillet for about $20 and not go through | any of this nonsense. Is the inefficient recycling of old pans a | thing now? | traviskeens wrote: | at the risk of polluting the conversation with my $0.02 ... but | maybe someone will find this useful: | | I have a (found) cast-iron pan I'd basically given up on: thick, | cracked, chipped coating. With a tiny kitchen, I'd stored it in | my oven, and after baking a dozen or so loaves of bread while it | was in there I discovered that the coating had almost completely | burned off. I obsessively researched cast-iron seasoning | (included Sheryl Canter's article), heard about the flaking | flaxseed oil (not to mention the insane price of the stuff), and | ultimately opted for high smoke-point grape seed oil ($4 @ Trader | Joe's), the science-y logic being the goal of exceeding the smoke | point at the highest possible temp, and indulged in $6 worth of | lint-free (blue) shop towels (hardware store), and then: | | 1. preheat oven to ~ 200deg F; 2. give pan a vinegar/water bath | (~50/50) for 30 minutes, then steel-wooled it for a minute to | ensure it was down to the bone; 3. thoroughly dry ... and crank | the oven to 450+; 4. using lint-free towel: thoroughly apply a | coat of oil to the warmed pan, then wipe almost completely dry, | then bake for about an hour; 5. apply another coat (yeah, | silicone oven mitts), another wipe-off, another hour ... at most | 3x; | | The thing is now the gem I always wanted it to be; eggs slide | around like on teflon. I wash after use in hottest water using a | chainmail scrubber for any tiny stuck bits (almost none ever), | and don't mind if there's a drop or two of dish soap. Dry | thoroughly, on the fire for a minute to be sure, and then a quick | wipe of oil - no re-seasoning, just protection. So the cleanup | and maintenance is a bit of a ritual but for me it's well worth | the performance. | mcguire wrote: | Having a big thermal mass in the oven doesn't hurt, either. | jarenmf wrote: | I don't really think the science is that conclusive on seasoning. | I haven't been able to find any publications to support this | opinion that flax seed oil or any other oil is the best for | seasoning. It seems also that the health effects of ingesting | parts of the patina is not fully understood ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-01-10 23:01 UTC)