So I’ve had a couple scary giant flames recently shooting out of my cast-iron pan when I am attempting to sear my food (I think this is still a science question not a cooking question) on my gas stove.
My typical procedure: heat up cast-iron pan on medium-to-high for a few minutes (2-4?), add Almond Oil (or another oil with a high smoke rate). After a minute or so I add my food (lately chicken) and then what I’ve seen lately are giant terrifying flames shooting out of my pan.
Two questions I guess
Why is this happening? Is it common for oils (even high-smoke-point oils) to ignite if the pan is too hot? I’m trying to do rapid ‘sears’ after sous-vide so the high heat is generally useful (b/c the food is already cooked just trying to get the Maillard reaction on the outside)
What should I do when this happens? Should I get a special fire extinguisher? There is an exhaust fan (off) above and cabinet above that so it could be pretty dangerous pretty fast.
Tonight when it happened I turned down the heat, moved the pan off the heat and away from the cabinet above and when the heat was lower put it back and finished it without issue. But was still very scary.
One quick point: have a lid that covers the pan next to the stove, when there are flames, cover the pan immediately with the lid and turn off the gas or pull the pan off the burner it it’s electric. Without oxygen the fire will die right away.
How high are the sides off your pan? Are they straight up or more like a saute pan? That may be the problem. Other than that, is your oil splattering over the sides when you put the food in? Too much oil and too hot. IMO
The beauty of cast iron is that it can get so much hotter than other types of pans. As with many things in life, the beauty of it is also its primary danger.
Smoke point - the temperature at which the substance begins to rapidly oxidize. It’s most talked about with regards to cooking oil.
Flash point - the temperature at which vapors begin to rise from the substance. Depending upon the constituent chemicals, this may rise with the heat and then sink as it cools, or even turn to droplets.
Ignition point - the temperature at which the substance will combust in air.
What I assume is happening is you have very hot oil in the pan, the meat is wet (a no-no for oil cooking), the water flash boils into steam and takes droplets of oil with it, the gas flame ignites that atomized oil and you have a flame that carried back to the pan, or perhaps due to the smaller droplets vaporized and autoignites, but I think it’s the gas igniting it, but most of the flame will be in the pot.
You can try turning off the gas when you add the meat, the cast iron should hold heat enough for a sear. Or you can try without oil and wait for the meat to release the pan which it will when it chars a bit.
Try just drying the chicken off and oiling up the chicken itself and searing it that way, instead of adding oil to the pan, heating it up, and THEN adding the chicken. Like kanicbird says, that’s a recipe to vaporize and ignite that oil.
Pat the meat dry with a paper towel before adding it to the pan. The meat won’t sear until it is dry; it will boil the liquid off first – dropping liquid into hot oil cause very dangerous flare ups.
There is some controversy on one point – some cooks say “Hot pan, cold oil.” and that is the way I learned. Other cooks want to heat the oil to shimmering just before it starts to smoke before putting the meat in the pan – I don’t do that.
I have a gas range and use cast iron quite a bit. I have a drawer right next to the range, and I keep one of those Etekcity infrared thermometers there to see the surface temperature of the skillets. It’s very handy to know exactly when the pan is ready, as they can overheat rapidly.
Another alternative is to use the broil setting on your oven instead of the cast iron pan and set the meat close to the flames/heating coil. A gas grill also can be used, but most of them today won’t get hot enough for a reverse sear and you will end up cooking it in the process.
I agree with what a few others said. Turn the gas off before you add the meat. As soon as the big puff of steam/oil vapor is gone, you can turn it back on. It’ll only take a few seconds.
I do that when I’m deglazing pans with liquor (ie brandy). While I was ready for it and expected it, seeing flames make it all the way up the ceiling was a bit more overwhelming than I thought it would be.
At the flash point a material CAN ignite given an ignition source. The temperature at which you can sustain a fire is called the fire point, which is a little higher than the flash point.
You can put out matches in gasoline below its flash point.
The point at which a substance will ignite without an outside ignition source is its autoignition temerature.
Who knew that AS in Fire Science would come in handy one day.