Two questions: 1) I just bought a cast iron skillet and on the box it says that it was seasoned. What does that mean and 2) does this question belong in GQ or CS?
Cafe Society is where you are headed. The cooking Arts.
Hopefully, they told you to not scrub it with a Brillo pad after use. 
samclem
either CS or GQ works for me, but I’m just a member, not a mod or admin.
Mmmm…seasoning.
Basically, a cast-iron skillet or other cookware can be finessed to be very much like a teflon pan, but it takes a while. Trust me, it’s not esp. “seasoned” from the factory, but it has been “pre-seasoned”. Find a grandmother somewhere to show you her pan. Each time you are done frying something, you basically wash/ lightly scrub the pan out with scalding hot water - but no detergent. After many uses, a layer of, well, grease will have built up to make your skillet “seasoned”, filling the pores of the cast iron to make a no-stick surface. Cast iron isn’t really very “fashionable” but it can’t be beat for even heating and durability.
Roger that Common Tater, esp for cornbread.
Screw fashionable…cast iron is the only way to cook some things.
I love my skillets. I’m still trying to figure out if I can convince my parents to hand over a few more of theirs.
My dad’s always been in charge of seasoning the skillets, so I don’t know details, and it’s been a while since any of these skillets were seasoned, but I know this much. First, you scrub the skillet, make sure you get all the dirt from the flea market or wherever off it, then, you put a light coat of oil on both sides, inside and out. Then it goes inside the stove to be cooked, and that’s where I got lost. They’re iron, and you want to get things going, so I’d crank it up there to 450 or 500. And then the smoke alarm goes off and the afternoon is complete.
-Lil
I was working in our church kitchen yesterday, and one of the two big cast iron skillets has rusted, probably due to one of the control/clean freaks scouring it with soap. So I’m going to be bringing it home to re-season it before someone needs to use it, and I’d forgotten the procedure. This thread is perfectly timed.
I have lots of cast iron; I’m a fiend for the seasoning.
Scrub it clean, but only mechanically; not chemically. I.e., water and elbow grease only. Wipe it down with some oil–lard is best, but even canola oil will do. Bake it in a 300 oven for an hour or so.
After this, just keep using it; it will accumulate more seasoning as you go. To wash, scrape bigger chunks off with a spatula. Then scrub with water, and dry on the stove top–put it on high until the water sizzles away. This is important: if you just let it drip dry, it’s likely to rust.
Too true; I bake cakes in mine when we go camping.
That you paid too much for the pan.
No, just kidding. But the pre-seasoning that they do to cast iron in the factory is a joke. Plus it smells bad. I bought one pre-seasoned pan once and I ended up stripping it down and seasoning it properly before I used it.
I have two skillets, and I don’t even remember where they came from - I’ve just always had them.
Are little bits of iron supposed to flake off the bottom forever? The inside cooking surface is fine, nice and smooth and non-stick. But the bottom of the pans are rough, and I am always brushing off little flakes of iron.
The pans don’t look rusty, but I have to be careful where I set them to dry or else I’ll get a ring of rust stains left behind.
A friend of mine doesn’t even do that; she wipes out the excess oil and any food bits and hangs the pan back up. Should I be scared?
Nope. The heat will kill anything that tries to live on the inside, and the oil keeps bad things from penetrating the iron. I usually just wipe and store unless I’ve been cooking something that siezes to the iron. In that case, I wash with water and a plastic brush, then lightly oil and store.
Here’s a question, when it comes to seasoning a wok, is the process the same as described above for cast iron?
I have another question to add to the questions. I inherited a little skillet and big skillet from my grandma. When we dug them out of the cupboard (they weren’t used for a long time, she had been in the hospital for awhile), they had mouse turds scattered on them. I’m assuming I should at least clean them with soap or soak them in some disinfectant before I start seasoning them? Or would the heat kill all the Hanta virus cooties?
Lorie, I’d give the skillets a good soaking and scrubbing with detergent, then re-season them. That will sterilize them completely, and you get a freshly-seasoned skillet to boot.
You have to season the outside, too, to keep it from rusting. Consult the Lodge website about removing rust before reseasoning the outside.
Yes, it is. I recently got a new cast iron wok from www.wokshop.com and the procedure they prescribed is the same. You may get stickiness around the rim where the oil dripped down during seasoning; that’s normal. It will solve itself over the first ten or so uses.
Remember, though, when you oven-season cast iron, turn the pan upside down.
Cast iron pans are supposed to be covered with burned oil. To keep it from marking shelves and other pans, I use pieces of parchment paper.
BTW, when they say “seasoned” on a cooking show, it means salt. Like “overseasoned” means “too salty”. I’m not sure why.