Changing the oil in your car every 5000 miles is a method for keeping your car’s engine running well. Sharpening the blade on your lawnmower at the end of the season and oiling it so it doesn’t rust is a method for keeping your lawnmower in good repair.
Seasoning a pan is not a throwback to the superstitions of the middle ages. It’s a time-tested method for making your cooking device work better. If you don’t agree with it, don’t do it. I’ve followed the method, and find it works for me. But if you want to wash your pan in detergent, go ahead. You’re free to do whatever you want with your stuff.
It’s not that it is the one and only method-doing it other ways undoes the quality of the surface one is trying to achieve and hopefully maintain. Of course you can scrub your skillet with soap to gray metal, and with great effort, get a new seasoned surface. But why do that time and again, when the “one true way” gets the surface to cook on and you don’t have to start from scratch.
If I may answer your question with a question: Why talk about “scrubbing with soap to gray metal”, when none of the soap advocates here, or anywhere else I’ve seen, are doing that or suggesting it?
I’m talking about the limit of scrubbing with soap, not suggesting one do it. Depending on what one uses, it can happen easily, especially on a new skillet; say to remove a lump burned on a pan, you get to bare metal using a stainless steel pad. Even if you didn’t go to bare metal with a pad, the use of soap attacks the oil/carbon/black iron oxide film, the “seasoning” that gives cast iron skillets their no-stick quality. Why have to do it over and over again?
Just my two cents on how I maintain my pre-seasoned cast iron skillet.
Leaving a pan greasy is never a good thing, especially when I store my pans stacked on top of each other in a drawer. Soap gets rid of grease, yet is a danger to removing the seasoning on the cast iron skillet. So, I use as little soap as possible, and re-season where necessary. It seems only common-sensical.
After use, I use a spatula to scrape the pan free of any stuck on food, rinse my cast iron skillet with some very hot water (using the hose attachment on my sink), wipe dry with a paper towel and heat for 2-3 minutes to evaporate the water. I then wipe again with a paper towel/napkin and check it for residue, usually, that’s it: it’s good to put away.
If I did something like fry bacon and the pan is still greasy to the touch after such a rinsing (i.e., the paper towel comes off colored black or dark brown), I wet a sponge, put a little bit of soap on it, do a quick wipe-down of the pan surface and re-rinse with hot water. I use the skillet about five times a month, and I don’t want the grease to get rancid.
If the pan has some really crusted on black stuff after use, like when I fried battered fish fillets recently, I’ll use the scouring side of a Scotch Brite sponge along with some soap and hot water to get it off. Then, I quickly re-season the pan by heating it on a gas burner at a nearly max fire, and rubbing the surface with a paper napkin lightly dipped in lard (OK, it’s congealed bacon grease). After five or 6 minutes I turn the fire off, wipe the pan down and let it cool, then give it the paper napkin test. If I can wipe the pan surface with a napkin and it comes back without being blackened, it’s good.
I still think you’re tilting at windmills - the folks advocating gentle and/or occasional cleaning with detergent/soap in this thread don’t seem to be noticing any significant depletion to the seasoning.
In my experience and apparently the experience of others, and quite inconsistent with the received wisdom on this subject, moderate cleaning with soap/detergent does no significant harm to a well-seasoned iron pan. I know this because it’s what I do. Those of you that have stated you never do it, can’t know it’s as harmful as you allege - because you don’t do it.
Hilarious. Isn’t that exactly what some random internet guy actually said? You know, the part about soap removing the oil? The two positions are not at odds with each other.
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Mangetout**, I’ve had to do it both ways; the no-soaped cast iron seems to have a slicker finish. But rather just drying out even my best seasoned pan, I coat it with Crisco when warm, and set aside. Some of my less used pieces might not be cooked in for months; Crisco or coconut oil doesn’t seem to get rancid at room temp. My mother-in-law swears by food grade mineral oil for long term storage of cast iron pots. I suspect as you say, a really well seasoned pan may not be affected grossly by soapy water, but you have to re-oiled it under modest heat to maintain it’s finish. The more I use my skillet, the less oil I have to use in cooking. I’m sure there real science involved in this: and it depends on how you treat your skillet.
For searing meat, on high heat, it’s going to smoke. That’s the nature of searing meat on high heat.
I do find, however, that cast iron pans require lower heat settings than other pans. The iron has a high heat retention capacity, so having the burner too hot will just add more heat to the pan, making your cooking surface too hot.
Once hot, my cast iron pans generally cook most items in the lower half of my stove’s dial. My other cookware needs heat more towards the middle.