Cast Iron observations & questions

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vilasman

Senior Cook
Joined
Sep 6, 2004
Messages
323
First I want to attest to several things that I have read here.
1 Cast Iron really is as non stick as calphalon or analon if you treat it right.
2 Treating it right includes seasoning it, which is throughly discussed else where, but I am finding that repeatedly cooking bacon on it helps both in seasoning it and if you taste the metallic of the pan, cooking bacon will fix that
3 You never wash the pan. Primarily you drain the excess oil off while the pan is still hot. You just leave whats left. I have it on good authority from a CIA trained Chef that the oil won't go rancid. Now the wash the pan with salt instead of soap works. I you get gunk in your pan sprinkle it with salt like you would ajax and lightly scrub. Well right now I am alternating cooking bacon on a C. I. pizza pan and a 2 burner grill pan. Both live in the oven. I clean the fat off the grill pan when I think it will start over flowing to the bottom of the oven. The pizza pan when it looks like what I am going to cook next will be swimming in fat and the 2 burner is full of fat and the 2 other grill pans and 3 other regular pans are too small or to buried away.
But, point being, I can rub almost anything out of the bacon pans with my finger and salt. Occasionally I have to take a butter knife to a grill pan but even then it's not a fight.

Questions
1 occasionally I cook fish or chicken in the oven. For now I use a different pan cause I didn't know how the flavors would work together. Now can I do fish or chicken on the bacon pans?
2. My CI wok, can cook bacon in it to season it and not totally jack up the flavors of asian food ?
3. Since the grill side of my pan is always up and the griddle side down I am noticing that the coating on that side is flaking off . Should I be concerned about that? If I flip it there's all that bacon fat.
 
First I want to attest to several things that I have read here.
1 Cast Iron really is as non stick as calphalon or analon if you treat it right. I Agree


2 Treating it right includes seasoning it, which is throughly discussed else where, but I am finding that repeatedly cooking bacon on it helps both in seasoning it and if you taste the metallic of the pan, cooking bacon will fix that I Agree.


3 You never wash the pan. I Disagree. I always wash Cast iron. From a quick rinse/wipe out of a corn bread skillet to being as aggressive as I need to be to clean it. Up to and including mild soapy water, and a plastic scrubby.

Primarily you drain the excess oil off while the pan is still hot. You just leave whats left. I have it on good authority from a CIA trained Chef that the oil won't go rancid. I Question this. I’m thinking oil that has been cooked in, and left un-refrigerated will go rancid with time. If you use the pan the next day maybe not…days later…Hmmmmm! :ermm:

Now the wash the pan with salt instead of soap works. I you get gunk in your pan sprinkle it with salt like you would ajax and lightly scrub. Well right now I am alternating cooking bacon on a C. I. pizza pan and a 2 burner grill pan. Both live in the oven. I clean the fat off the grill pan when I think it will start over flowing to the bottom of the oven. The pizza pan when it looks like what I am going to cook next will be swimming in fat and the 2 burner is full of fat and the 2 other grill pans and 3 other regular pans are too small or to buried away.
But, point being, I can rub almost anything out of the bacon pans with my finger and salt. Occasionally I have to take a butter knife to a grill pan but even then it's not a fight. Like I said, I wash after every use.

Questions
1 occasionally I cook fish or chicken in the oven. For now I use a different pan cause I didn't know how the flavors would work together. Now can I do fish or chicken on the bacon pans? Yes. If you are concerned about flavors mixing…Wash the pan after each use.


2. My CI wok, can cook bacon in it to season it and not totally jack up the flavors of asian food ? Yes, if the pan is clean when you begin your Asian cooking


3. Since the grill side of my pan is always up and the griddle side down I am noticing that the coating on that side is flaking off . Should I be concerned about that? Somewhat! You are burning the seasoning off. Try cooking on the griddle side more often.


If I flip it there's all that bacon fat.
 
I don't wash after every use. It depends. If my CI skillet was used for frying egg, just wiping it up with a paper towel and re-oiling suffices. If I browned chicken in it, I rinse it with hot water while the CI pan is hot. If there's still gunk, I scrub it lightly with my sponge with whatever little residual soap is in the sponge. Rinse then re-oil.

Yes, the residual oil on the CI pan/skillet gets rancid if not used for sometime. When this happens, I rinse it with very hot water before using. Add a little new oil.

If your griddle's coating is flaking off, I think you'll have to scrape it down and re-season.
 
I have a wok brush (looks like bamboo slats tied together. HOT water and that brush is what I use on my cast iron and carbon steel pans. I don't always use water if what I know I will cook next is similar (bacon sausage scrapple for example) I would after fish unless I were cooking fish again right away.

Oil and grease stays in the pores of the metal so obviously will flavors.

Cast iron is a fabulous metal for many applications. But I wouldn't cook sugar in it, such as fried apples to go with pork chops.

Why are those old pans so much better than my new preseasoned one? Well, it's had 75 to 100 years of seasoning, passed down from great gramma to gramma to mom to me. (yup, got three Griswolds! spider, 10" skillet and a rondeau (what some chefs still call a "griswold"))
 
Traditionally, lard was used to season the cast iron, pork fat. Bacon has a lot of pork fat in it, but also has sugars and flavorings from the curing process. I often was my cast iron with hot water and a stiff brush while the pan is still hot. It cleans up in a breeze. On the rare occasion that I do burn something to the pan, I use a stainless steel scrubby and immediately dry and rub alight coating of oil over the pan. I rarely have to re-season (have only had to re-season once in 15 years, and that was to get the smoke flavor out of a pan my daughter took camping.

Tomato and other acidic foods don't pick up a metallic flavor from my pans as the seasoning keeps the acids away from the metal. I rub a thin coating of oil on any of my pans before cooking, and virtually nothing sticks, not even burned in baked beans.

Cast iron is the only pan material I know that is durable enough to last multiple generations, even when badly abused. Even good stainless steel requires more gentle treatment than does good cast iron.

All food oils go rancid over time. But solid fats, such as lard and beef fat are more stable that their mono and polyunsaturated fats, and therefore take more time to pick up the molecules that make them rancid.

Seeeeeeya; Goodweed of the North
 
vilasman,
Similar to Uncle Bob, I wash my cast iron skillet every time after using it.
After I am done cooking, I pour a quart of hot water on the pan before eating, and by the time I am finished with my meal is a matter of light scrubbing it.
After cleaning and washing, I dry it, rub a light coat of oil and place a paper towel on top in case I need to store something on the cooking surface.
I season this pan twice a year with safflower or soybean oil, looks like these oils maintain the slick surface longer (I am guessing is due to higher flash point), the pan, a 12 in. Lodge, is fairly new but nothing sticks to the surface.
 
I have a whole battery of CI pans small to omg large including a CI wok all are seasoned and I wash every time I use them I like to put a quart or so of water in them the minute
I am done cooking and they wash with warm water real well. Treat them very well and your grand children will be using them
 
I also wash my cast iron skillet - it is the same skillet my husband's mother used every day when he was growing up (and we are in our 60s, so it is VERY old). I often just pour water in it when I'm done cooking, and then swab it out, but I occasionally use soap. I re-season about every six months. In between, it is basically nonstick. Gotta love it.
 
One reason the old cast irons work better is because they were made better to begin with. The new Chinese ones are not as smooth inside as the old one.

I wash my pans with soap, dry them on the stove burner, and rub a little oil in each time.
 
One reason the old cast irons work better is because they were made better to begin with. The new Chinese ones are not as smooth inside as the old one.

I wash my pans with soap, dry them on the stove burner, and rub a little oil in each time.

Ditto. I hand dry, then bring pan to low-medium heat for final dry, lightly coat with peanut oil while hot, let cool and then wipe out any excess oil.
 
I was all mine after each use. The washing has done nothing to the pots and pans, I have no problem with things sticking. I was with regular dish soap, after cleaned, I put onto the stove top heat it up to dry it (not hot - hot) then while still warm I take a paper towel with oil and rub them lighty. all set for the next use. I have had them for years.

I also found some at garage sale that OMG disgusting filt. brought them lil to nothing.
took them home - hosed them down outside. took a electric drill with a wire brush and wired brushed the heck out of them. washed out good in hot sudsey water - then took it back outside on my grill and let it heat up in there and kept rubbing oil in it- you can't hurt cast iron. the one pot -dutch oven I got for 50 cents and when i saw it in a store it sold for 45.00. i think I got a bargin
 
One thing I am noticing is that washing seems to mean 2 different things here.
Some of you are more or less using hot water, while the pan is still how, and using salt or baking soda for a cleanser but no soap under any circumstances.

Some of you are using soap on a regular basis. Now I guess if you use something less than Dawn, it dosent matter to much. I say dawn because I know Dawn will cut and clean up car motor oil cause I have used it to do it.

My two burner griddle, generally only cooks bacon, so I tend to let oil build up on it until I become afraid that it will over flow and drip to the bottom of my gas oven. Which wouldn't be healthy for the kitchen.

I have also been cooking bacon on my pizza pan. I am trying to cook the bacon flavor into the pizza pan cause bacon flavored pizza crust has a certain appeal to me.

The rest of my pans, I have been using my wok lately, hmmm, wok oil and rice wine vinegar, cooking that flavor into the wok might not be such a bad thing.

Now, for another thought, for those of you who are using soap on your pans, I can see that if you have a good seasoning on your pans, a little soap wont hurt that. But, I have to assume that it will strip any flavors, that are in the pan. Now if you have more than one pan, having a flavor in a pan isn't such a big deal.

I am not leaving my pans filthy. I am just trying to get a good seasoning on several of them that I dont mind having...... a good flavor to them.

Look at it this way... I was watching Rachel Ray this morning and she was talking about cassoulets that had been cooking stews for generations and I have also heard of woks that had generations of patina on them.

I want to start a pizza pan and a griddle and maybe a fish pan that my grandkids will look at and think... grandpa used this...
 
Vilas man, you certainly seem to be on the right track with your cast iron. And there is something very satisfying about using important items like cookware into the next generation. I use my MIL's stainless steel pots and pans, as well as cast iron skillet. Bought in the 40s-50s, you can imagine the great quality. I love using the same pans to prepare meals for her son that she used when he was a child. Nice feeling of continuity.
 
Animal fat (bacon, butter) seems to work best.

I regularly rinse with water but also use detergent in varying degrees with a nylon/ polymer brush.

When I get a used pan I burn it out. I build a fire out back, put a grate over the fire and the pan on the grate. I wire brush the loosened stuff off. I do this not only to remove the crud but I don't know where the pan has been. I hope burning it removes contaminants.

One thing about a burn out, oil it before it gets cold, seems iron starts rusting while the item is still smoking hot.

I suspect new pans are made of recycled materials so they are not a true, raw cast iron. I'm guessing this is why they don't season well.

What is it with these new pans and the rough finishes? The last few pieces of iron ware I cared to look at seemed to have a rough almost bumpy orange peal finish on the inside bottoms.?? One thing to have a thin veneer of carbon, another to promote the capture of chunks of carbon.

Just checked the carbon steel wok. The wok gets washed with detergent and nylon/polymer brush just about every time its used. Its the nature of using sauces in hot cookery. This wok has a Nice seasoning. But 1) I don't use a flat bottom wok. If I wanted to use a pan I would use a pan. OTOH, Wife brought home a nicely built anodized aluminum piece, I may see how well it works, and 2) My burners are rated 28k BTU, may have something to do with the nice finish.
 
Wart said:
What is it with these new pans and the rough finishes? The last few pieces of iron ware I cared to look at seemed to have a rough almost bumpy orange peal finish on the inside bottoms.?? One thing to have a thin veneer of carbon, another to promote the capture of chunks of carbon.

Check the country of origin...Out sourced iron from abroad tends to be very rough. That could explain what you are seeing...Buy new or old lines of American made iron if possible.
 
Right on sparrowgrass, whenever I can find an old cooking utensil that is better than the new equivalent, costs less, and has some history, I am going to buy it. I have a new Lodge, and every time I clean it, the iron shows through on the hills, and the gunk collects in the valleys.
 
I want to start a pizza pan and a griddle and maybe a fish pan that my grandkids will look at and think... grandpa used this...

This weekend I scored an old cast iron pot of my grandmothers. No way am I going to strip all of her seasoning. I will give the pot a good scrubbing and reseason lightly (it has been in storage awhile) but I am not going to strip it down to the metal. I like the idea that somehow this woman's awesome German cooking has a legacy in my pot. The skillets I acquire used from unknown souces get taken down to the metal becasue I have no idea where they have been or what they were used for.

Old cast iron is definitley the was to go... they just simply dont make them the same way. They ground the cooking surface of the old ones smooth the new ones are left rough.
 
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Congrats, the old stuff is definitely better, particularly if you know the history. Grandma's grease didn't come out of my favorite skillet either. I would make a test batch of something after seasoning just to be sure that there are no off flavors. Try cornbread. Some have suggested that the butter in fat in the cornbread aids in seasoning. Haven't tried it.
 
I wash my iron skillets and pots every time I cook something that will leave behind a specific taste. I use soap and a dish cloth or plastic scrubber. Then I dry on top of the stove, add a little oil or pam while pan is still very warm and use a paper towel to lightly rub in over surface and dry excess oil. I store them in the bottom of my oven to insure dry air.

With that said . . . Older pans were made better because I have a much older skillet that this process works fine for but my newer one that is now about 8 years old, it continues to stick pretty badly with some food.
 
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