Thrift store find - two cast iron skillets

[Duer 157099]

One is 6" or so, the other 10-12" -- I have read many prior posts about seasoning etc, but this situation is a little bit different.

First, the small pan has a seasoning on it that I've never ever seen or felt. It seems to me to be exactly how it is supposed to be -- when I wet it, the water just beads completely off it and dries almost instantly, it's that slick.

I took a nylon brush and some dish soap to just wash it down, and *nothing* came off, not even on the outside of it.

However, there are a couple places along the inside side where it's been scratched, like someone was trying to see if they could remove the black coating.

So here's the question: can I just sand down those small areas and re-season? I can't bear the thought of losing the rest of the seasoning on this pan!

The larger pan is similar, nearly as good but not quite, and with a few more spots that I would want to re-do.

Partial seasoning?

I saw these a few days ago at this store, and debated, but passed them up, thinking I could just reseason my own, but I went back today and got them, and now that they're home, I'm really glad I did! I've never been able to get a season on a pan like these have.

[NMDemDist2]

1. you used SOAP on it

:banghead:

don't use soap! and the "scratches" should reseason with little or no effort you so you shouldn't have to sand it at all, just grease it up good and stick it in a 250 degree oven for an hour or so and you should be fine!

[eleny]

3. Can you use hotter heat to help sanitize it?

Well, maybe not sanitize as that would take heat maybe hotter than regular ovens. I see great cast iron at the thrifts and have passed up quite a bit out of concerns over not knowing the history. I can clean found vintage heavy aluminum with bleach and hot suds. But cast iron has its own rules.

[NMDemDist2]

5. you can do cast iron in your oven's cleaning cycle

it will make all the flaky grunge fall off and it's gonna be sterilized for sure LOL

[Duer 157099]

7. Yeah. Even though it's cooled down to a chilly 80 degrees today

I'm not anxious to run the 3-hour oven cleaning cycle... although, since I've been doing my pizza baking at near midnight, I suppose I could do it then... :)

[eleny]

12. We had a cooler evening here a few days ago

I ran the self cleaning in the oven. It was getting groady in there and now it looks great. I hope you get a cool night soon! And congrats on your thrift shop finds. I've enjoyed learning in this thread, too.

[eleny]

11. Thanks, I really appreciate the advice

[Warpy]

9. Frying temperatures kill EVERYTHING

and I mean EVERYTHING. Well, maybe not prions, but you get the picture. Even clostridium botulinum (botulism) and the Hep B virus are destroyed at around 250 degrees F.

The best thing to do with cast iron is rub it inside and out with Kosher salt on a dry paper towel to get rid of any surface crud. Then rinse it out, dry it, and wipe a thin film of oil on it and throw it into a low oven for a couple of hours. Trust me, that will get rid of any bug that ever had a nodding acquaintance with that pan.

Well seasoned cast iron only LOOKS icky. Once you've gotten rid of any flakes of crud and heated it, it should be as clean as a brand new pan. Only it'll be BETTER.

[eleny]

10. Thanks Warpy!

I know I'll find some great cast iron and will be so happy now to get it home.

[Duer 157099]

4. I know, I know, the soap was due to it's unknown history

as eleny discusses -- that was also one reason I almost passed it up, because my instinct is to re-season from scratch, but the season on this was just unbelievable.

So then I thought: well, I could heat up some oil as for deep frying, that'd certainly "kill" whatever it is I'm afraid of, although there's also the concern about non-pathogens, like chemicals for example, that heat wouldn't do anything to.

That's the thing about thrift store stuff, you just never know where it's been, or what it's been doing. I can imagine some really odd stuff.

(here's an example: on the same trip, I found an ice bucket for $1 -- now, this isn't an ordinary ice bucket, and I'm sure the people at the store didn't know what it was or what it was worth. This particular type of bucket is commonly used in research laboratories, and retail for over $100. But here's what I'm thinking: I won't use it until I can check it over with a geiger counter! Most people don't realize that almost ALL of these types of buckets, if they've spent anytime in a lab, have held tubes or bottles that contain radioisotopes. I hope this one hasn't, but I'm going to check first.)

[Warpy]

2. Just ignore it

and make sure you dry the pan over heat and wipe a little oil over it when you're done using it.

And NO MORE SOAP. If you must scour it, use Kosher salt and a dry paper towel.

[Duer 157099]

6. I promise, no more soap

Although what's funny is that the soap didn't do a darned thing! That surface just sneered at the soap and said "oh? that's the best you've got? Hah!"

[GardeningGal]

13. What kind of oil?

Years ago, I took the cast iron skillets (2) my mom had and never used anymore. Then they got wet (long story) and I had to clean the rust off with Brillo type pads. I've never used them and now hearing all the good stuff about cast iron, I want to rescue them out of the cupboard and re-season them and start to use them. Just not sure what type of oil is appropriate.

[NMDemDist2]

14. crisco to start is what all the old grannies swear by

i keep a can of it around for two reasons only


1) cast iron pans
2) DH's favorite molasses cookies

[GardeningGal]

15. Thanks AZDem

Too bad you can't change your name to NMDem!

I assume I should use the regular Crisco and not the new "butter flavored"?

[NMDemDist2]

16. I actually buy the cheapest shortening the store carries

no use spending a lot of $$$ for pan seasoning (and the cookies don't seem to suffer)

[Arkansas Granny]

28. This Granny recommends Crisco, but I think probably any

pure vegetable shortening will work. I don't use oil of any kind to season my cast iron because I find that it leaves a sticky residue.

[Warpy]

17. I just use cheapo "vegetable oil" and have for years.

Some people claim it makes the pans sticky at first. That depends on how long you hold them in the slow oven.

In any case, it works.

[midnight armadillo]

24. I am a total cast iron newbie

But I've been using up a bottle of light olive oil and a bottle of high-temp (Spectrum Organics, I think) safflower oil for seasoning my two cast iron pans. They are the Lodge-brand ones that come pre-seasoned. So far so good, they're quite nonstick and get better every time I use them. No stickiness. I suspect that the veggie oils got their rep for sticky coatings a long time ago, but that modern refining produces a pure enough oil that it's no longer a problem.

My grill pan had one episode of really stuck on crud between the ridges, which I cured with a thorough butter knife scraping. adding a little oil to the pan when cooking (this is where the high temp safflower is handy, no smoking) has prevented a recurrence.

[NMDemDist2]

31. I'm so glad to hear you are enjoying them! n/t

[Stinky The Clown]

8. Okay, I'll letcha pass on the soap thing. Call it getting rid of the .....

.... 'ewww' factor.

Just ignore the scratches and use the pan. DO NOT USE SANDPAPER, FER KRISSAKES!

If you want to feel like you did something, put the pan in your oven at 400 for a half hour. No bugs can survive that. At all.

The scratch will fill in all on its own with normal use and won't cause any sticking unless its a canyon and not a scratch. You **may*** notice some of whateveritwas you cooked kinda stuck in the scratch. Leave it alone. That will soon enough become more seasoning; consider it as the scab that will soon turn to skin again.

A note about cast itron. Normally we preheat it and then add food. In that preheating process, the pan gets way more than hot enough to kill bugs. You essentially sterilize it each time you use it.

[babylonsister]

18. Question: no soap, check. But what if you just cooked a batch

of onions grilled in olive oil on the BBQ. The skillet is greasy. So you just rinse and return to the cupboard? Rub it with salt first?
Sorry, I'm slow, but I'd think the greasy surface would be an invite to cockroaches or any other assorted kind of bug we have in the bayou city. So I confess, I use(D!) soap also.

[NMDemDist2]

19. you scrub it out with a paper towel and salt and rinse it with HOT HOT

water then stick it on the lit stove til dry. Grease it lightly THEN stick it back in the cupboard

usually I just use HOT HOT water and the plastic scraper thingie on the back side of the brush I use on my dishes.

[babylonsister]

20. So you grease it again before storing it? Won't the bugs be

thanking you/me?

[NMDemDist2]

22. i've never had a problem and in bayou country you need to worry

about rust on the pans more than anything

[Arkansas Granny]

29. After I rinse my cast iron I put it on the burner and get it hot enough

to dry it. Then I take a paper towel with just a little Crisco on it and wipe it around the inside of the pan while it is still hot. By the time it cools, you won't see enough left to attract bugs.

[NMDemDist2]

30. that's exactly what I do granny! just like my old Kentucky grammy taught

me, God rest her soul! and since they are HER pans I darn well better or she'll haunt me for sure LOL

[Arkansas Granny]

32. That's the way I was taught to treat my cast iron. My skillets are

so slick that my daughter refers to them as "Mom's teflon". Absolutely nothing sticks to them.

[yy4me]

21. I am a 3rd generation cast iron pan user. None of my family

ever bought a new one. Thrift shops, yard sales etc are great sources but sometimes they must be cleaned up. We have all found the old, ugly, encrusted pans and no matter what anyone says, we all cleaned them up, either by putting them in the fireplace for a while or in a self cleaning oven. When they flaked off all that old gunk, a wash(yes, we use soap) and then a re-season with almost any oil will do the trick. Just cook a pound of bacon in the pan. A little will stick at first but after it is done, just drain and with some of the bacon fat, wipe the whole pan off. I have always washed my pans. Never had a "stick" problem. Maybe its just me but I would never "not" wash a pan. Plastic pads will remove any stuck-on bits. Towel dry so they will not rust. I think we all have ideas on how to treat cast iron but some of them are too inattentive for me. I need them to look clean, not that built-up crust.

[TygrBright]

23. OK, I have to wonder here...

...when you talk about it being "scratched."

I got fooled one time by (wait for it)...

a cast iron skillet COATED WITH BLACK ENAMEL.

In a matte finish.

Mind you, it was a VERY nice skillet. Wish I had one like that (my sister's.) But I assumed it was regular cast iron and cared for it accordingly.

She had a good laugh about that, and pointed out that she always soapy-water washed it, because she DIDN'T season it, and it DID have a few scratches, and she liked to be sure nothing was 'creeping into the scratches and breeding' so that if she cooked her eggs sunny-side up and runny (eeeeeeeyew, I know... gross, snotty eggs...) she was safe.

I by-heaven could NOT tell that skillet from ordinary cast iron.

Just wondering.

tentatively,
Bright

[eleny]

25. Just wanted to tell you....

I love your post closings with each one appropriate to the topic. Very cute!

[Duer 157099]

27. Hmm, never heard of such a thing

When I get a chance, I'll see if I can take photos of what I'm talking about.

But more than how it looks, it's the feel of the pan that amazed me. It was not like anything I've ever felt before. It was smoother than the smoothest, newest teflon or any non-stick surface I've ever touched. Truly unique. Which is why I immediately decided that this was *IT* -- the thing seasoned cast-iron afficionados talk about and love so much.

[mike_c]

26. oh the horror-- never never never use soap on your cast iron...!

Fry some bacon in them, pour out the excess fat, then let the remaining fat cool. Pour in boiling water AFTER the pan has cooled (no grease explosion). Pour out the water and residual grease. Wipe with a paper towel. You're done. The pan is sterile and the scratches will be reseasoned. Alternatively, warm the skillets in a 300F oven, rub liberally with oil on a paper towel, then return to the oven. Turn the oven off and let the pans cool slowly to room temp.

To wash, just use plain hot water and a stiff brush, followed by a wipe with a paper towel. Never use soap. Ever. No matter how dirty the pan is. If you can't loosen cooked on food, try rubbing with slightly dampened salt, followed by an immediate rinse and reseasoning.

[kestrel91316]

33. I season my cast iron the REAL old-fashioned way: with lard.

I don't allow those nasty trans-fats like Crisco and other shortenings in my home!!!!!!!