Love Casting

My great grandmother just sent over a few old cast iron skillets and a kettle – and a good number of them have old grease and rust on them. They also have some worn off over time – is there any effective method to clean them? We want to keep them in the best condition possible, any information is helpful.

Thank you for all answers, they’re all appreciated.

Initial cleaning with (soapless) steel wool and cooking oil (do NOT use oven cleaner, WD40, or any solvent/oil you’re not willing to eat!) to remove all rust. (Alternately, you can burn the pans, as others have suggested, but if you don’t have a location for a bonfire, steel wool is the way to go.) Rinse under HOT water if needed. If you really must, you can use soap at this stage, just to get the skillet clean. However, never, never, use soap or detergent on your skillets after you get them cleaned and seasoned. It damages the coating of oil you’re trying to build up, and the taste of soap tends to "stick" to a seasoned pan… which doesn’t make your food taste very good.

Dry thoroughly and heat on low heat over burner to make sure no water remains.

Season skillets by coating lightly (ALL surfaces, inside and out) with oil or lard (don’t use butter for this). Place the pans, upside down, in a 350 degree oven for an hour (I’d put a baking sheet on the rack right below, just in case you get drips), then turn heat down to 200 and leave for several hours. Let cool. You might want to repeat this step 2-3 times to speed up the seasoning process.

For the first month or so of use, cook only low-acid, high-fat foods in the skillets. Preferably bacon. Lots of grease and low sticking potential.

Subsequent Cleaning: Unless food is stuck to the skillet, don’t try to wash it. Just wipe it out with a clean cloth or paper towel. Add a light coating of oil or lard and hang back up.

If a skillet has something stuck to it, scrape gently with a plastic scraper or scrub under hot water with a nylon-bristled brush. Do NOT scrub with steel wool, unless you want to go back and reseason the thing from the beginning. If you wash the skillet, use only hot water, no soap or detergent. Dry thoroughly and heat on low heat over burner to make sure no water remains. Once dry, but while still warm, coat skillet with a thin layer of oil or lard and hang back up.

If food burns to the skillet (which may happen once in a while), while the skillet is HOT, pour BOILING water in and scrape the bottom gently with a plastic or wooden spatula until the food releases. Whatever you do, never, never put COLD water in a HOT skillet– and don’t scoop a hot cast iron pan off the stove and drop it in a sink of cold water! The iron can, and will, shatter.

I bought a new cast iron water fountain a few months ago..it is beautiful…but I am disappointed that it is going rusty in some spots. It is a large outdoor fountain.

Take a wire brush and scale it and then purchase some POR-15 from your local auto store for about 30.00 a quart. ( stand’s for "paint onto rust") Once you have painted it wait for it to tack up and take a Krylon or rustolium of your color and cover the POR-15 thoroughly and let it dry. The Krylon will give it UV protective qualities and keep it from breaking down in the sunlight. The POR-15 will inhibit the rust and should keep it nice for quite some time. It is used in automotive use and farm vehicles a lot. I just redid my jeep frame and many people use it on 4×4’s all the time and swear by it for years of use!!!

iron casting in Finnish evening

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So which material is better, and why is steel better then cast iron, or visa a versa! Also are there any disadvantages to either?

Cast iron is not very strong, so has to be made thicker to compensate, therefore good heat retention, steel can be rolled and shaped to almost impossible shapes, so is a firm favourite with manufacturers.
As far as stoves are concerned always go for iron, they also last for years
As far as moving them around is concerned, how many times do you move a stove ?

An A20 crucible of cast iron

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I just brought a cast iron reversible griddle. For some reason , the seasoning instructions were missing. I want to season the griddle. Now, do I need to spray it with oil and let it cook on 425 for about an hour? How do I do this?

Here’s instructions for one (may not be your brand, but probably works the same). Also, from personal experience, don’t use vegetable oil to season cast iron, as it causes stickiness. Use shortening or bacon grease.

"Seasoning cast iron pieces isn’t as awful as people make it out to be, and you should have to do a full seasoning only ONCE in the lifetime of the piece (forever, as far as I can tell).

How to do it? Melt a bit of shortening in a small bowl, grab a piece of paper towel, dip into the melted shortening and rub it onto the Lodge Pro Cast Iron Reversible Double Grill/Griddle. Just a thin coat — no puddles.

Heat your oven to 350º, place the grill/griddle on the top rack and place a piece of aluminum foil below it on the lower rack (to catch any drips of excess shortening). Close the door and time it for an hour. You may want to open a window and/or use the exhaust fan over your range, because the iron and its beauty-mask coating of Crisco smell "hot" — and that isn’t a complimentary term, in this case.

When the timer goes off, turn off the oven and allow the Lodge Pro Cast Iron Reversible Double Grill/Griddle to cool inside the oven. When cool, remove it and you’re set to use it.

What you’ll see is a brownish hue on the iron surface, and it will feel smoother. With each use, the color will darken (usually in splotches, depending on how/what you cook) and the iron will become even smoother. It will never be 100% non-stick, but you’ll swear it’s 99.9%.

Upkeep is simple. After a cleaning just spread a little shortening on the Lodge Pro Cast Iron Reversible Double Grill/Griddle and stow it again. I don’t rub on a coating of shortening every time, but more like 3 times a year. Works, and my cast iron looks and cooks exactly as it should.

You’ll see the grill/griddle needs a rub-down when it looks like it has some dry patches. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to "moisturize" the whole thing every time you use it, but it isn’t necessary."

Since the dish has wine and the dutch oven is bare cast iron (I just bought it a couple weeks ago, so the seasoning is pretty new), will cooking boeuf bourguignon (which has wine and requires extensive prolonged stewing) in a bare cast iron dutch oven give it an off flavor, dissolve the seasoning, ruin the dish, or ruin the entire dutch oven completely?

Hey, if the pot isn’t fully seasoned yet…NOW is the time to just grease it up and pop it in the oven for an hour or so. No biggie. Every now and then pull it out, grease it some more til it doesn’t absorb any more oil. No more wondering…

Yes, a cast iron dutch oven is the PREFERRED pot to use!!! It is what the french cooks have been using for ages and ages….

Man, thanks for the idea! I just got a delivery of Organic meats from a local rancher…and there is a Pot Roast in there that is now designated to be poked with garlic and smothered in wine…

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I need a new cast iron cover in imperial dimentions, where can I get one in the UK? Everywhere seems to have pressed steel ones in metric dimentions.

Try the Peter Savage company – Google will give you the details

Manufacturers of Gray Casti Iron Crucibles & Auto Parts.

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