Posted on 12/26/2023 12:50:58 PM PST by Red Badger
So what exactly is the official preferred cleaning method for a cast-iron skillet? I see a lot of “don’t do this, don’t do that”, but I must have missed the part about “do this, and only this”.
I gotta agree with “Lumi” here. Well seasoned cast iron is nearly impervious to soap or even a dishwasher. The key is it has to be truly seasoned, which is where the fat gets polymerized. Once that happens the fat becomes chemically similar to plastic, and it takes serious chemicals or sanding to get it off. If the “seasoning” is really just a layer of blackened food bits suspended in grease then, yeah, hand washing with soap will take it off. But a pan that is truly seasoned will just laugh at soap.
Bkmk
A sandblaster works wonders
I like a guy who’s that sentimental over his cast
iron pan.....warms the cockles of my heart.....sigh.
Yes, I use soap and water on mine, too, and I always dry it immediately. At least once a year I season all my cast iron pans, including the Dutch oven which sees frequent use. They are all in great shape.
I usually just wipe mine out with a clean paper towel, but even though eggs or cornbread won’t stick, if I fry a steak or a hamburger in it, it gets a hard crust on it that I have to scrub off with a steel pad. Then I heat it up on the stove top, and add a little cooking oil on it when it gets really hot, then turn it off and wipe off the excess. Any FReepers know how to avoid getting a crust on it with steaks or burgers? I’m pretty sure its the moisture in the meat that does it.
Out of the will?
A pauper..... but w/ a scrubbed cast iron pan
I did this to my mom’s iron skillet. I had KP duty and got reamed out the night before for washing the dishes good enough.
Well, the next night I washed and scrubbed everything in Dawn liquid soap, including the iron skillet which was used to bake corn bread.
You would have thought I had crapped in the pan! Mom scolded me”You NEVER wash a skillet like that!”
But Mom, it’s really clean! I scrubbed it really good!
“You scrubbed the season right out of it!”
She was so exasperated and explained you never wash an old skillet like that and preceded to tell me the “what fors” and “do nots” of cleaning every pot and pan in the kitchen.
In my defense I was 17.
“You s
It’s incredible, isn’t it? Pick the subject...carpentry, personal finance, etc. I’m always amazed at how “violations” elicit online experts to scold others for failing their perfect methodologies. This does far more to stroke egos than to teach.
The joke or grandma’s skillet?
I’ve washed many a cast iron skillet, by hand and in a dishwasher. Often in Winter mom used to throw them in the wood stove to burn the built up grease off of them. We pulled them out red hot and took them outside to cool.
They are easy to reseason. Mom bought her set in 1945. I still have them.
Hey! It’s grounds for divorce if a hubs did that. So, yeah.
Almost all these are intended to be humorous, or simply helpful, unlike some grammar police!
How old are you? (smile). Others will tell why, but a seasoned heavy cast iron pan is the most important (and only essential-type) pan (not pot) here. It best cooks evenly, without sticking (forget Teflon but I just give it a little non-stick spray first) and resists burning (though it can also do that - all on you).
And with a good cover can double as a small oven, and can slowly cook breads as well as meats etc,, poultry, etc. and on low heat even from a frozen state without turning over.
Last week I put about a pound of frozen ground turkey in my heavy cast iron pan and covered it, over the lowest heat, and go busy outside, and forgot about it for about 2.5-3 hours, then remembered and came back and turned it off, then stuck it outside to cool off, and when I took it out later none of it was burned at all, and fine to eat. And you can just wipe the pan clean, maybe using a soft pad on some spots. Thank God.
After drying, I have the cover on it.
And if you do really burn something, then unlike some pans I have know, you can soak and scrap it clean and re-season it.
LOL!
My younger brother, whose a trained chef (which apparently didn’t include a lesson on cast iron) left my cast iron pan in the sink “to soak” before he was going to clean it. Yes, I almost DID have a heart attack. It was my mother in laws. He had no idea you don’t “soak” cast iron. AArrgghh!! I also had a cast iron dutch oven that disappeared at a big gathering I was at. Had to hunt it down, all the while thinking “Whoever has it had BETTER not have washed it!” Luckily, when I found it, the person who had it knew better, he just thought it was his grandma’s dutch oven and had taken it into the cabin so she wouldn’t have to carry it. That’s when he realized there were TWO dutch ovens in the kitchen.
Hot water and a plastic scrubby are as radical as I go.
Dry, put on low heat on the cooktop, put a little avocado oil on it and spread around.
I’ve revived CI stuff I found rusty as could be in my MIL’s basement, the fruit of some yard sale or relative passing, then forgotten. A wire rotary brush on a 1/4” air rotary grinder takes the rust right off, rinse well, then go thru some heat/oil cycles at about 200F in the oven.
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