I searched a lot of cast iron related threads, but I couldn’t find the specific answer I’m looking for. I’ve had cast iron cookware for quite a while, and I have reseasoned it a couple of times, but I keep seeing spots where the seasoning flaked away.
In my mind, this means I should remove all the old seasoning (and I just spent an hour scrubbing with a wire brush while the pans were soaking in vinegar+dawn dish soap, I got some caked charcoal off the bottom, but the old seasoning still clings to the cooking surface in spots). But my wife got mad at me, saying that grandma’s old seasoning is what makes cast iron work best, and that I was ruining the pans. I told her that is a myth, and a single coat of seasoning is all you need, not a hundred years’ worth, but now I’m second guessing myself.
Should I throw these pans in a fire or the oven’s self cleaning cycle until they’re totally gray and season-less before reseasoning them? Or is it fine to put a new layer of seasoning over an older layer, even one that is worn off in spots?
The seasoning in a cast iron pan isn’t a thick layer of carbon. It’s cooked-on oil. The chunks of carbon that are flaking off aren’t seasoning - they’re burnt food.
Could be either - seasoning is a layer of polymerised, carbonised oils (oils contain carbon) - and it is possible for this to flake.
However, in my experience, people seem to take the ‘no soap, no scrub’ rule too far though (and so food traces may be left on the pan and you may be right that this is what’s flaking off)
Really, if any seasoning layer you add to a pan isn’t baked hard onto the pan, you might as well scrub it off and try again - and if it is baked on hard, it isn’t delicate.
When I was in a college fraternity our house manager took our iron cookware to a machine shop and had it sand-blasted prior to reseasoning. They came back looking like brand new.
Another recommendation for the link to Sheryl’s seasoning steps. That’s how I seasoned mine.
I used a lye bath to strip them down to the bare metal. I tried oven cleaner but was not successful. Two days sitting in lye and they were a beautiful gunmetal grey.
I think you have to go down to metal every once in a while. If the bottom layers of seasoning aren’t good, then you won’t get a good layer on top either. Think of it like paint. If there’s a problem with a low layer, you can’t fix it by painting another layer on top.
+1 for this. But actually I have a wire brush that goes into my drill ($5 at Ace) that takes about 20 seconds to remove all of the chunks and get back down to a smooth(er) surface. I had to do it one when my better half boiled and burned tomato sauce in a cast iron pan and on a ~40 year old griddle that I got off craigslist. Reseasoned them and they were better than new.
I understand that the other thing is how old the pans are. Mine are old - probably far older than 60 years - they were my grandmothers and she would have gotten them when she got married in the 1920s - and the old way of doing cast iron creates a better surface for polymerization than the newer way.
If you are buying something at a thrift store, you have no idea how old they were.
For some reason even the manufacturer instructions on how to season cast iron are almost always wrong. Somebody doesn’t like all that smoke I guess. It’s definitely a carbon based coating, the way to tell a proper seasoning is the pan will be jet black. Usually they will say turn the oven to 150 or something like that to season, this will result in a culinary atrocity, a pan that will both rust and has a sticky, rancid coating. Blech. Fairly high temps are necessary, and a fair amount of smoke. Several lighter layers are better than trying to lay it on thick. Once a good coating is laid down regular use will maintain it.
No, this is on the under side of the pan, the side that touches the flame. I assume it is some sort of carbon buildup. I couldn’t see the Wagner “W” until I took a wire brush to it.
This is exactly what my pans look like, inside and out. Like several layers of chipped black paint showing on an old fence. Except no actual flakes are coming off that I can tell, it just looks as if they already did.
I think the early 20th century Wagner ware was die cast, so it was molded to a flat piece of metal, while modern Lodge pans are sand cast, so they have been molded on a pebbly surface.
I have one cast iron pan. I’m no expert at cast iron, but I always thought that the “seasoning” was just enough to fill the pores, hence instructions to heat at lower temps, just enough to open the pores. This business of having layer upon layer of carbonized fats is a new concept to me. What is the benefit of so much stuff layered on the surface? Mine works great without all of that.