The oil doesn’t burst into flame?
No flames. Why would it? It doesn’t burst into flames when you fry or any other applications. Here, you just apply a thin coat, and allow it to work into the iron.
Now, if you coated it with Mad Dog 20/20, that would be a potential pyrotechnic display.
But the oil in the pan isn’t being licked directly by flames.
Nah, the oil soaks into the porous iron. As long as you don’t over-oil, you should be fine. I just dampen a paper towel with veg oil, Crisco, or lard - whatever’s on hand - and give the skillet a good wipedown.
Stick a cookie sheet on the shelf under the cast iron to keep the extra drips from landing directly on the oven elements and yes, bursting into flames.
Oops, but it was just a *small * fire.
It’s possible to rehabilitate an iron pan that has been over-cleaned, so you could just do that. Still, I’d imagined baking it in a hot oven would kill any little beasties that needed killing. Either way, they’re reclaimable.
More or less - assuming it’s a plain iron wok, not one of those dreadful non-stick jobs. If you’re seasoning it in the oven and the handle is made of wood or plastic, you’ll need to remove it.
If you have a gas stove and wok ring, you’d probably be better of seasoning it on the stove top.
If you have smoke alarms, you’re better off seasoning it outdoors over a barbecue or camping stove.
Any cast iron pan that’s pretty beat up can usually be rescued by a pass through the oven’s cleaning cycle.
You’ve gotten a lot of good advice on the initial seasoning of a pan. I find the easiest way to keep up with it is to clean it immediately, lightly oil it and then put it back in the oven while the oven cools. I store my cast iron in the oven anyway because of lack of storage space.
VCNJ~
Can I re-season my cast iron? If so, how?
I already told my mother that I want her grandmother’s exquisitely seasoned chicken-frying pan (like a regular frying pan but deeper).
Just wash the pan, and then follow the above procedure. You should re-season ever so often anyway.
This is a good thread to tell this story. Back in early January, we were about to make cheese steaks in our nice, well seasoned, heavy, expensive!, cast iron pan. My hubby put the pan on the stove, turned the burner on high, then fiddled with the steak for a minute. Just as he was about to finally add them in, there was a deafening crack. For a moment I thought that a window had broken. But no, there was a huge crack nearly splitting the pan in half. Both of us goggled at it for a minute, having had no idea that that could happen.
OK, here’s a variant question. I have several iron pans that belonged to my great-great grandmother. I was always taught to scrub the pans with hot water, then to bake them to drive off the water (at just 200 or so), then to lightly oil them. Wipe off all excess oil with a dry paper towel, and then store as normal.
I have done it the other way, but the oil always seemed to gum up and be incredibly difficult to remove. I’ve got to say, the reverse method serves me much better. Food never, ever sticks. Hell, I’m convinced it hovers, since at this point, no matter what I cook, it cleans up with a rinse and a wipe.
Wow, that’s crazy!
But the craziest part… expensive? I’ve always thought one of the most wonderful things about cast iron, apart from cornbread, is how cheap it is! Twelve bucks for a pan your grandkids can have.
After you posted this, in a moment of doubt, I asked my husband how much he remembered it costing. He said “I don’t know, it was a gift.” :smack: Apparently I was thinking of the Calphalon pan (which is NOT cast iron) that we bought my mother-in-law a couple of years ago from Le Gourmet Chef.
The rest of the story is true, however. 
We use cast iron at work for all our steaks. Cast iron beats a gas grill in every way. Of course, for the volume of food cooked in it, ours gets dirty much faster and needs to be reseasoned more often. Rather then using water, (which I think should never be used) we use salt to clean it. Kosher salt works, but rock salt is better. Iodized salt is too fine. Vigorously rub the salt over the cooking area with a dry cloth. Salt is abrasive enough to scrape off the burnt oils and absorbs them as they come off the iron. discard the salt, and season the pan as you normally would.
Yours is the right way to store seasoned pans. The other way is the method you use to season a pan - and you cook that sucker (upside down) at very high heat for a long time in order to get the oil cooked on. It stops being sticky as it turns into carbon. A lot of sources tell you to season a pan at 350, but after doing a few of them, I swear by the Cast Iron Jack McGrew method. I also have learned to do it only in spring or fall, when I can open all the doors and windows and air the house out. Someday, when we get the grill working again, I’ll only season pans outside.
Ah, OK. Thanks. I’ve never had to season a new one, since all mine have been perfectly seasoned since the Civil War. 