You really shouldn't buy a special oil just got seasoning your cast iron and carbon steel. It's not necessary. Pick an oil with a high smoke point, a neutral taste, and plenty of easy availability. That's often peanut. Avocado is great if you're fancy.
Keep a squirt bottle of oil on hand and make sure you're using enough. Using soap to clean your pans will make maintaining your seasoning easier, as you use less effort to clean them. See this if you're skeptical: https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/11/the-truth-about-cast-iro...
I had friends dedicate years to flax seed oil. They're not happy about it, as they've got flaking to deal with. I also had friends disbelieve me that soap was okay, and they've mostly come around after hearing me swear by it for years.
As someone who owns more cast iron than is reasonable, I just wanted to go a step beyond upvoting this and acknowledge in writing that this is the correct view of things.
You want oil soaked into the metal. This idea that you are trying to build a non-stick surface on top of the metal is just adding extra work that isn't needed.
Wash with soap, dry of the stove top, put in some oil (I use peanut), then take a paper towel and rub the oil around over everything and at the end the metal should look shiny but there shouldn't be any pooled oil left anywhere.
If you are cooking something that doesn't leave a residue or strong flavor, you can skip the washing all together and just leave it there to cook with next time.
If you try to go the whole "never wash this" route, you end up with unhappy results going from cooking something with onions and garlic to cooking something more neutral flavored. No one wants onion flavored pancakes.
The main thing I’ve learned that most advice about seasoning pans doesn’t tell you is that how you use the pan to cook matters more than how well seasoned it is. Cast iron is really forgiving of seasoning, you don’t need the perfect job to cook with it.
However, cast iron will never be as non-stick as a good non-stick pan, and if you treat it as one, you’re going to have a bad time.
Put bacon in a dry, hot pan, and it’ll leave crispy fond stuck to the pan. (Nothing you do will ever create fond in a non-stick pan.) Cook bacon starting with a cold pan, and enough fat will render by the time it heats to keep it from sticking.
Eggs will stick to cold, dry cast iron. Fry eggs in a moderately hot pan with plenty of grease. I had the devil of a time with fried eggs until I realized I wasn’t letting the pan heat enough. Also, it’s very easy to burn butter in a cast iron pan; use a more forgiving fat like bacon grease or a neutral oil.
Cast iron behaves differently than non-stick or stainless steel. Different heat density, different emissivity. Just like any other cookware, you need to learn how to work with it; it’s not just a matter of getting the magical perfect seasoning and pretending it’s Teflon.
However, cast iron will never be as non-stick as a good non-stick pan
a NEW non-stick pan. The advantage of cast iron is it gets better with age where a non-stick pan gets worse. Not to mention I have never gotten good self release of stuck food from a non-stick pan where as cast iron works a treat.
Also I always put bacon in my pan dry and hot, never have an issue
While you can eventually develop a very non-stick surface with cast iron or carbon steel, there's also the option to make a "spanish egg" with a medium amount of hot oil; e.g. https://youtu.be/mL-w_OegewU?t=215
Keeping an IR thermometer by the stovetop is handy if you're cooking with cast iron. It removes the guess work around things like "Am I going to burn this butter if I drop it in the pan?"
Putting a drop of water on the pan is a good indicator of temperature. It will either sit there in a small puddle, wander around a bit, or zoom around in a frenzy.
for most medium/high, when an oiled pan, you can see the super faint smoke. for some oiled, even based on the viscosity from shaking the pan. water test is good for learning this point. but water in an oily pan can hurt later so good to learn to do without :)
some startups have been experimenting with built-in thermometers, so I can imagine this classic design being different 10yr from now :)
Also, without washing, you end up with rough spots of non-sticky partially-polymerized bits. Wash it with soap and a scrub brush. Nothing short of steel wool is going to affect the patina.
For proof of this, check out your aluminum baking sheets. If they’ve been used, they’re almost certainly covered in a shiny black substance that’s a complete pain in the ass to remove, even with abrasives. That’s essentially what’s on your cast iron.
Nothing short of steel wool is going to affect the patina.
Actually, if you throw it in the oven and set it to self-clean it'll strip the seasoning right off. I've done it with my cast iron pan before. Washes completely clean and ends up gun-metal grey; a non-oxidized pure iron surface. This is a great way to start over with the seasoning process if you're unhappy with it.
Yes, if you happen to own an oven that has this feature. It's not exactly common.
Edit: because of course I triggered a storm. Maybe it's common elsewhere. I've lived in few EU countries, rented then owned a few houses, exactly only one of them had an oven with the self cleaning(by heating up to like 500C) feature, I don't think we ever used it. When we bought our current oven none of the ones we looked at had that function. A fancy Candy we looked at had a function where it cleans itself with steam(where you fill up a provided container with water and then it heats it up to fill the oven with steam and in theory that softens the gunk. No idea if that actually works).
If it's common where you live, then my apologies for this comment.
Not sure where you're writing from, but it's very common in the US. This article (https://www.thekitchn.com/why-you-should-almost-never-use-th...) quotes someone who works for an appliance store in Cincinnati who says it's difficult to sell an oven without that feature. And as others have said, every oven I have every owned (or that my parents owned when I was around and capable of forming memories) has been self-cleaning.
Maybe it sounds fancier than it is? Is not like it has a little robot that cleans the oven. It's just a mode where the oven can get the internal temperature very high (up to 1000 degrees F according to that article) that just incinerates any organic material stuck to the oven walls.
Its not fancy, but I guess it requires a bit more resilient engineering/materials than 250C ovens. Its definitely not a norm in budget/medium priced ovens in Europe, even for new. I mean brands like Bosch mostly don't have it here, I never had one (house, 2 apartments, couple of rental apartments all with full kitchen, kitchen < 10 years old).
Mine doesn't, but that's because it's too fancy, and has a special coating on the inside that's supposed to make stuff just come off. Freaking Whirlpool. It doesn't work.
Really? I figured most ovens had a self-cleaning option... I did this trick to recondition several cast iron pans and it works great, but be prepared for massive amounts of greasy smoke.
Afaik it's just not a thing in europe. Only high end models have it, and even then it's an optional feature that costs extra. Even in a kitchen I rented where just the sink faucet did cost 1000€ the self-cleaning module of the oven was not installed.
Just a random thought (lived both in the US and in the EU): could it be that US ovens are more often gas ovens while in the EU it's mostly electric? (might be easier to get higher temperatures with gas).
Couldn't find statistics on this with a quick search...
It's the opposite... my oven in the US doesn't have the cleaning thing, turns out it's because it's gas only. The gas stovetop + electric oven version of this model has it. Seems to be a thing even with other manufacturers and models.
I’ve lived in the US and EU too. My experience was we have fan assisted ovens in the EU whereas ones I saw in the US had a top and bottom element with no fan assist.
Fan assisted ovens are also called "convection ovens." They certainly exist in the US, but I think they are more high end? I personally have one, it also has a self-clean function. The stove part is gas but I think (?) the oven is electric.
Yes it is, it's marketed as 'pyrolytic', it's the norm above roughly £350 and unusual roughly below.
But yes, it is just an element that can go hotter and a shell that can withstand it. Ovens are incredibly overpriced for how rudimentary they are IMO. Ripe for 'disruption' if you had something non-bullshit to compete on but price - sizing is already standardised.
`pyrolytic` does not exist as a keyword for ovens in my country. I just checked at the biggest retailer for such stuff.
The cleaning module of the one oven I'm aware of that had that option was more than just a heating thing. The manual talked about foam and how to refill it. Different countries, different mechanisms I assume.
I've tried this a few times and none of the ovens I've had over the years have been successful in removing seasoning with their self-cleaning, so at this point I'm trying to find a machine shop that will be happy to bead blast it and mill the surface flat again. So far, most shops have given me quotes in the hundreds of dollars so I've been waiting until I meet someone that has the capability to just do it in their garage.
Most new cast iron cookware now has a raw surface with lots of pits and bumps from the casting process as well, which doesn't seem to get nearly as smooth and non-stick as "vintage" cookware.
Since quarantine life, I've been cooking multiple times a day. My oven's self-clean makes my pans look exactly like new. Takes all of the black off leaving them with a shiny, silvery shine. I then have to season them to regain a nonstick coating as good as any Ceramic/Teflon pan that I've used.
As far soap. My experience is that it definitely damages the nonstick coating, depending on how much you use. You can get by with a soapy sponge, but putting detergent directly on it and the nonstick coating will be lost.
The best way to avoid need to avoid soap or scrubbing and re-seasoning is to put hot water in the pan while it's still hot and scrape. Meat is the worst for leaving a coating and this technique removes 99% of it.(If not blackened use that water for a delicious sauce with all the best flavors of your cooking). This routine allows me to use the same pan for months without a deep cleaning.
I have tried to put cold oil on after heaving soaping, but I'm not happy with the pan until I season it with high heat. The only reason I'd do it for rust and still would pan on seasoning it properly later.
The biggest difference I've found (moreso on stainless steel than cast iron) is food weight: which is to say, time food is left without moving.
Which makes sense. Essentially burnt-to-pan bits are food-pan interface, as opposed to food-oil-pan interface.
Give enough time, heavy food displaces oil and comes in direct contact with pan. Given enough movement, oil is able to reimpose itself between the two.
I used a propane grill and it was very, very effective. I removed the grates and (if I recall correctly) rested the pan on the heat deflection sheets. I left all burners on for about 2 1/2 hours. After cooling, the previous coating was reduced to a thin dust. After blowing it off, the pan was gun metal grey.
I then used a cheap corded drill and inexpensive flap wheels and similar attachments from the hardware store to make it smooth, wearing an N95 mask to protect my lungs.
Self cleaning should reach a high enough temp for it, because most of what you use the self-cleaning to take off is effectively seasoning. If it's not getting hot enough, use something else to get it hot enough (blowtorch, maybe).
For smoothing out the surface, you could just use a flapwheel. You can get them for angle grinders. This will also take off seasoning if necessary (but it's a bit worse for the pan if you're not also trying to smooth it out). Be sure to wear a respirator and googles if you're doing this.
If you're planning to re-season an old pan, easily the best way of stripping off old crud is caustic soda. Leave the pan in a bath of caustic for 24 hours, then scrub with wire wool.
Voila - a clean iron surface. Use rubber gloves, and wash off any splash with lots of water - caustic soda is nasty stuff.
I use flaxseed oil. It works. Unless you have an awful lot of pans, your small bottle of flaxseed oil will only be 10% used by the time it goes rancid; swallow the cost.
I've tried this on a goood carbon-steel omelette pan. The result was mixed; a grubby-looking polymer layer that comes off in the wash, but a pan that still works well, and has reasonable non-stick properties. I suspect that with carbon steel, the oil only needs to get into the pores in the metal, and doesn't need to form a layer on the surface at all.
But my best experience has been with cast iron: a mexican comal, to be specfic. I stripped and seasoned my comal about 8 years ago, and the finish is still flawless.
Incidentally, if your want your aluminum or stainless steel clean again with almost no effort, use Barkeeper's Friend. It's an oxalic acid product, and it wipes away stains with a sponge that you'd work hard to sand out.
Obviously, do not use on cast iron or carbon steel.
I don’t know about your experience, but even with BKF, the scrubby side of the sponge, and a lot of elbow grease, it takes ages to get it off an aluminum pan. I did it once and it took two full hours, and gave me blisters on my hands from the sheer amount of scrubbing.
I had similar issues with the AllClad pans I bought, so I called them out of frustration. They recommend Dobie sponges in addition to the Barkeeper's Friend. It seems to help.
What also helps is simmering something acidic in the pan for about 10-15 minutes (wine, watered-down vinegar, etc). The base then cleans pretty easily. It's the burnt bits of fat that splatter up the walls of the pan that are murder to get out.
Here in the US at least, there tend to be scratch (yellow/green) and non-scratch (blue/darker-blue). Along with straight scratch pad (pure green) and steel wool (silver metal).
You can grind all day with a non-scratch pad, and all you're really polishing with is the harder bits of gunk you've managed to take off.
Same way you can sand with 220 grit all day and barely make a dent, but hit something with 60 grit and make progress in 5 minutes.
Afaik, Barkeeper's Friend is essentially microgrit in some sort of liquid carrier. If you had the right shaped sand, you could probably add that to something and get a similar effect.
Seconding this. Barkeeper’s friend is like magic on aluminum. If you use it regularly you can keep your aluminum pots and pans looking like they’re factory new.
Cooking anything acidic will strip all of the seasoning right off. I can easily keep a seasoning on my carbon steel woks, but it’ll vanish if I cook one Pad Thai. For my cast iron I can keep it there until I want to cook anything with tomatoes.
> For proof of this, check out your aluminum baking sheets. If they’ve been used, they’re almost certainly covered in a shiny black substance that’s a complete pain in the ass to remove, even with abrasives. That’s essentially what’s on your cast iron.
I'd never made this link before, thanks for pointing it out! We have plenty of baking sheets like this and I thought it was a form of black rust or something but your explanation makes so much more sense.
Do not use homemade soap. Homemade soap is made with lye, which is the entire reason why people said not to use soap, once upon a time. An unreacted lye will start to strip seasoning.
Use dish detergent (commercial dish soap). It's made in a different way, so you can't get un-reacted lye.
I mean, if you have a bunch, yeah, you're going to have more issue than just stripping seasoning off. But most of the problem is just the slightest hint excess from making sure the entire volume of oil is saponified.
It's part of why you had the rubber dishwashing gloves get invented: soap used to be harsher, and one of the reasons why is the fact that soaps were made with lye.
Homemade soap is soap. The only way to make soap is the saponification process. Which involves lye. The oil used can vary, but a strong alkali is required, and any strong alkali you use is going to do the saponification process on your seasoning.
Commercial dish soap can be soap, or it could be detergent. Detergent is made differently, and doesn't necessarily involve lye.
> The production of toilet soaps usually entails saponification of triglycerides, which are vegetable or animal oils and fats. An alkaline solution (often lye or sodium hydroxide) induces saponification [...]
i.e. that's the usual process, and it often involves lye. (It elsewhere mentions potassium hydroxide too.)
Anyway my point really wasn't too disagree about how to make soap, I've never done it, it just seemed weird to me to tell someone how they made something and that it's a problem, vs. 'Did you use lye? If so...' or even 'Assuming you used lye, ...'
For example, I think what you call 'commercial dish soap' I would call 'washing up liquid' (never soap, not would it cross my mind if someone else said 'soap') so a slightly different conversation could easily have been based on a wrong assumption about what the created thing was or was used for.
Absolutely correct. There are many usually sweet recipes that are actually great when done savoury instead. I personally like it when the last thing I made in the pan was something that had onion and then I gotta make pancakes, precisely because the first pancake will have that flavor. Then I put chorizo and cheese on it too and call it a day. Next pancake will be 'normal' again anyway. Win-Win!
Is there solid evidence that this is actually possible, as opposed to creating a layer on top of it? The only people I've ever heard suggest that it's possible were talking about cast iron pans, and it's always struck me as the sort of thing that would have major implications for a lot of other fields.
I tried some web searches before posting this, still not finding anything suggesting it's possible other than cast iron pan aficionados.
Yuan, Z., Xiao, J., Wang, C. et al. Preparation of a superamphiphobic surface on a common cast iron substrate. J Coat Technol Res 8, 773 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11998-011-9365-7
I don't have a subscription or SciHub link to pull up the underlying, but it looks like there have been folks who did electron microscopy on seasoned cast iron. (Note: more relevant and profitable to study in the context of machinery / engine design)
Yes, this isn’t a mystery. There are lots of coated steel products that use the crudest of coatings that need grinder off. Unless the material is polished to a high shine it will absorb oil.
yeah oilite is a great bearing material, but it‘s not exactly „normal“ metal, but sintered bronze. In essence, you clump together bronze powder with a binder and then heat it up until the binder is gone and the powder has stuck together. What‘s left behind is kind of like a sponge, which enables impregnation with oil. Very special process and nothing to do with metal always having „pores“ or anything where oil can seep in
I agree on 95% of this post. I think that's part of the allure of Cast Iron. It's a personal thing where people develop their own methods through experience.
However I try to avoid using soapy chemicals on my cast iron. If I do use soap it's literally one drop onto the scrub brush instead of the pan. Although I'm sure that if you went heavier on the soap nothing would come of it anyway. Most of the time I use water and a scrub brush. I scrub with good speed and not a lot of pressure to break off lingering debris.
And if I'm going to be using it the next day I'll leave it shiny, but if it's going to sit for a couple days I'll leave it on a little longer until it's a little more matte looking. Not 100% matte, but not "shiny" either. Just a sheen. That way it won't be sticky during storage where it will collect dust and contaminants.
Huh. That's not it at all for me. I like cast iron because: (1) It is extremely durable and can be repaired rather than replaced. (2) It is general purpose, reducing the number of pans I need to own. (3) It is well suited to cooking at low temperatures, which are much more forgiving (I can walk away and write a comment like this and come back to something other than a charred mess).
edit: I discovered cast iron about a year ago and now I do roughly 90% of my cooking on it. If there were reliable, science-based information about how to care for the pan best, it would have saved me a lot of trouble. As an example, a lot of people caution against seasoning with too much oil. They say that when you season your pan (e.g. initially, in the oven), you should wipe the oil off until the pan looks dry. I took this literally, and wiped until it looked the same as before I put on the oil. As a result, my seasoning had approximately no effect. After experimenting, I've decided that the "looks dry" advice isn't wrong exactly, but "dry" needs clarification. It should look more like how you would like it to look when it comes out of the oven — dry, but darker and with more sheen.
> If there were reliable, science-based information about how to care for the pan best, it would have saved me a lot of trouble
I think the trouble here is that the people who best understand cast iron are probably also the least likely to care about the science of it.
The main reason not to leave too much oil in the pan is that it will go rancid and get sticky and generally gross. That's not something you run up against if you use the pan several times a week, but if you have something like a dutch oven that you use maybe once or twice a month, you will come back to a mess that you have to deal with before you can cook in it.
The whole "you're making a polymer coating that mimics a teflon pan" idea is something that sounds fancy, but is impractical and unnecessary in practice.
> I think the trouble here is that the people who best understand cast iron are probably also the least likely to care about the science of it.
Hmm. Perhaps. I said science-based information because while I find the science (chemistry, polymerization, etc) of cast iron interesting, I primarily care about the results. For example, knowing that flax oil gives the non-stickiest finish but is prone to flaking and thus high maintenance. Perhaps empirical would have been a better word than science-based. I suspect there are a fair number of people like me, who would like to know more about the trade-offs involved in different oils and maintenance procedures. But perhaps these aren't the people who best understand cast iron, as you say.
Two things of note:
- The best answer in the FAQ in the top comment of this thread, by FAR, is #2, about heat spreading. It gives numbers and additional information (about radiating the heat) that I didn't know before.
- Flax is the only oil that I understand even some of the trade-offs of using. That is a direct result of the post linked in this thread publicly making a hypothesis and providing detailed-enough steps for (some people) to reproduce its results.
Speaking of, as a cast iron enthusiast, would you be willing to share your experiences and/or do some experiments to help test my hypothesis on cleaning methods, here? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25716850
as materials, carbon steel and cast iron are extremely similar, except that carbon steel can be stamped rather than cast. in practice, this means that carbon steel skillets tend to be much thinner than cast iron ones. durability would not be an advantage I would attribute to the typical carbon steel skillet. a cast iron skillet is pretty much indestructible; if you drop it from stove-height, it would be more likely to damage your floor than to shatter. a carbon steel skillet can easily warp if you heat it up too quickly, which is not nearly as great a concern with a heavy cast iron skillet.
I have a cast iron and a carbon steel skillet. I will always reach for the cast iron to sear a steak, but the carbon steel skillet gets used for pretty much everything else.
I also like both, I have a hand-me-down Cast Iron that I love for skillet baking and nostalgia but I also have a few pieces of Made In Carbon Steel that I use more often as they're lighter and less of a pain to season and maintain.
I like bith. Carboon steel for the pancake and omlet pan and cast iron for the steak pan. Cast iron has more thermal mass. I should probably also get a cast iron pot for cooking stew.
So I understand correctly, do you mean to wash it after every (most) uses, and apply a little oil after washing? No need to bake in the oven or anything like that?
If you're trying to add a little more seasoning you will need to bake. You'd do this after a rough cleaning or cooking something watery or acidic. If you're just protecting it from ambient moisture just a teensy coat.
Just wash it like normal, stuff that comes off is charred food etc. aka 'dirt'. The actual polymerised seasoning isn't going to come off with a bit of water and washing up liquid.
general consensus on reddit (and my personal experience) seems to be that seasoning on carbon steel is a bit more delicate than on cast iron, possibly because carbon steel skillets tend to have a much smoother surface.
chemically, carbon steel is very similar to cast iron, so all the info regarding cleaning is still applicable. you should probably expect to do a little more work to maintain the seasoning on a carbon steel pan though.
I use only cast iron, always cook on a wood-burning stove. The way I season pans is simple, I just put the thing on a medium fire, dab some canola oil on it, rub it in, wipe it off, repeat this once or twice after which I just use it with enough oil (canola or olive). I clean them by rinsing them while hot with cold water which starts boiling immediately, wipe them with some paper and put them away. As long as they're kept dry they don't need reseasoning. No fancy oils needed, no special rituals, just use them regularly and that's it.
Although Kenji: "Whenever someone asks me why their cast iron seasoning is weak or flaky, I ask if they followed that popular (but wrong!) flaxseed seasoning guide [i.e. the linked article]. The answer has been yes 100% of the time."
It’s a ton of fun to cook on, and useful for way more than just the wok. When I go diving and get crabs for example, this thing gets a huge pot of water boiling in no time and makes prepping a lot of crabs really easy.
And yeah, it’ll season any pan like nothing else. I was terrible at seasoning pans until I started throwing them on this thing.
> You really shouldn't buy a special oil just [for] seasoning your cast iron and carbon steel. It's not necessary. Pick an oil with a high smoke point, a neutral taste, and plenty of easy availability. That's often peanut. Avocado is great if you're fancy.
Keep a squirt bottle of oil on hand and make sure you're using enough.
> I had friends dedicate years to flax seed oil. They're not happy about it, as they've got flaking to deal with.
I happen to have bought some flax oil specifically for seasoning my cast iron - you’re saying it’s contraindicated though? (So “you don’t need special oil, but _especially_ not these” (leaving only peanut and avocado))?
For the amount of times the word “science” is dropped there’s still a good amount of myth and legend associated with owning cast iron. Short of having my own double blind statically significant study and perhaps a microscope to observe the polymerization effects, I’m still flopping back/forth a bit about what “the best” or at least not leaving a simple improvement on the table, is. What a journey.
Still worth the trouble, though. Cooking is fun, and cast iron is a good cooking tool.
I interpreted what he said as you don't need a special oil, but here are some good options that do not have a strong flavor and will work well. But you could just as well use any other oil. I avoid nut based oils so I generally have olive and avacado around.
I don’t know if there was much interpretation. It broke down the science well enough or at least offered theories.
Having some good success and failure I am willing to try a few ideas in the article.
One variation a YouTuber offered was to heat the oil in the pan on the stove and then wipe the excess.
So far I have duplicated a lot of points in the article with different success ratios. I do agree a long smoke rate, upside down and long cooling period is ideal.
I use the grill so I don’t worry about the smoke generation.
More or less I’ve used this on the last successful project, but with corn oil. I went with a hybrid seasoning oil recently and I’m not impressed. I’ll try flax next.
I guess the best oil (olive or otherwise) is highly processed, to remove volatile (flavour and healthy) components, since it’s essentially just being cooked into a polymer. Added bonus that these are probably cheapest - is that your experience?
Why do you want it to work? Sunflower is cheaper, higher smoke point, and the flavour isn't relevant here (though even if it weren't going to be lost, you would not want it, another strike against olive anyway).
If it’s to be dismissed, might as as well do it for the right reasons. Additionally, if somebody doesn’t have sunflower oil on hand (like me), then understanding what can stand in might save a trip to the grocery store and having yet another singly-used item in the cupboards.
Well, the only reason ever really to use olive is for its flavour; otherwise something else (e.g. sunflower, rapeseed/vegetable) is at least as appropriate and significantly cheaper.
The instructions for seasoning my carbon steel pan that I bought ages ago have worked better for me than any other method, fit both carbon steel and cast iron.
Just fry up a full pan of very heavily salted potato peels. Use more oil and a lot more salt than you would normally use for pan frying. Make sure to move them around, don't be afraid to scrub them around, they will feel gritty due to all the salt. Fry the peels until they're very dark, they should be far too dark and salty to be edible.
Wash out the pan with hot water and dry it. Done.
It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that. It's the method used in professional kitchens, as far as I know.
As someone relatively new to cast iron (around a year of cooking with it), I am inclined to believe the parts of this article that I cannot validate through my own experience, because the other parts match what I have learned through experimentation. However, I must point out that a year ago, I would have no way to recognize this. Whether or not this article is correct, it is at the same level of heresay as every other article, reddit comment, or youtube video out there (like the carbon steel video linked in the replies, which says never to use soap).
Despite the flax oil article being bad science, it is still the most science of any of the cast iron information out there, which is why it continues to enjoy such popularity. Even if it is bad science, it at least provides some hypotheses to test!
Here's my hypotheses on soap (edit: rephrased to better reflect my meaning):
1) Soap is fine to use; it will not damage the seasoning.
2) Seasoning is often damaged (at least a little) while cooking and it is important to re-season regularly to keep the pan in good shape.
3) If you do not use soap, the amount of oil left on the surface is similar to the amount you would want to wipe on when re-seasoning.
Basically, I think no soap + dry on stove is a shortcut to avoid the process/effort of reseasoning the pan (especially if you do the oil-and-salt-as-an-abrasive trick). Perhaps you'll get better results using soap and then wiping on oil, but it's more work and many people don't do the second part. Thus, they see better results when they don't use soap.
This would explain why some people tell you you need to reseason after every use, while others say that's bubkis, and why the same is true of soap avoidance.
To test: try all 4 combinations of soap/no-soap and reseasoning/just-drying (always dry the same way, on the stovetop).
As a data point, I use a little soap when it feels needed (every few times, usually) and add seasoning when it feels needed (less often). Seasoning remains great (fry eggs without sticking).
These are my most often used pans, and have remained that way for many years.
Fwiw I rarely need or use a scraper or salt while cleaning , I’ll “deglaze” if there is fond in the pan, even in the rare case that I’m not using the result for anything.
As of writing the GP comment, I am starting to informally test the hypothesis as well. I've switched to sponge + soap to fully clean the inside with every use (after chain mail to remove larger bits, if needed), then dry on the stove & re-oil.
Specifically the idea is that IF the seasoning layer is quite durable and is difficult to damage or wear through, except by the rough metal of the spatula I use, then the best seasoning should be achieved by thoroughly cleaning any contaminants off it and then applying a fresh coat of oil.
It will likely take longer than the HN comment window before I feel comfortable drawing any conclusions, so I'm not sure how I'll follow up on this. Perhaps I'll post something at https://smichel.me/castiron (currently this page does not exist).
You asked if I could look at this in a different part of this comment thread.
What you say seems more or less correct to me. I think if you approach cast iron that way, you will have good results.
Basically, you don't want the pan to look "not-oiled", and how much effort you need to put into that depends on how much you are removing the existing oil during the cooking process.
I think the "looks oily" test is the proper determinant for if the cast iron is in good shape. Trying to develop a "seasoning" layer is likely to just cause frustration.
Hm, you're right, thanks for pointing this out. There was no contraction in what I meant, but I didn't express what I meant correctly.
They don't conflict if the seasoning is already damaged (during cooking) before cleaning it. Cleaning with soap would not repair it at all (thus, reseasoning is required), whereas if you don't use soap, the pan is reseasoned in the same step as drying it on the stove.
Part of the problem was that I was overloading the word "reseasoning" to also refer to doing it in an explicit step (ie, the wiping on/off of oil) as well as the effect of rebuilding the layer of seasoning.
Past the initial seasoning, I've found that just using the pan helps a lot. My problem has been that I've a lot of rough (and very hard) cruft built up on the outside and the upper part of inside of the pan.
+1 on the squirt bottle of oil, I started doing that a few years ago and it was game-changing. Previously I'd just pour a little out of the original bottle when I was cooking, which was a lot less convenient than having something appropriately sized and within arms reach.
Yes, I didn't say it above, but the best thing you can do, maintenance-wise, is just use the pan. Anything that makes that harder (requiring unusual ingredients, making cleaning harder) is a net negative. Anything that makes it easier (having oil at hand, soap and sponge to clean it) makes it better.
Agree with everything except the oil. I use Avocado a lot for cooking but not on a brand new pan. I've certainly tried to season with it specifically when I was new, but find it flaky and cumbersome.
I find fatty meats(bacon, sausage) or just canned lard to work absolutely best for seasoning. It's also what our ancestors used before they probably even knew what an avocado was. For a vegan, I'd assume shortening is ok as well, but I've never actually tested that.
Rather than soap, I use a pampered chef plastic scraper (It’s for stone ware; don’t know any other name for it), and a stainless steel scouring pad (not steel wool; instead it’s coils of flat stainless steel tape or something). The scraper removes the bulk of stuff, keeping the scouring pad clean.
This is less effort than using soap, and more effective. The stainless smooths out any imperfections that form in the seasoning over time, and cooking with oil continuously reseasons it.
I found that I had to re-season my pans every 5-10 years if I used soap, and that the seasoning was an inferior cooking surface (more food stuck to it). With the technique I described above, I can cook eggs and they don’t stick. (be sure to preheat, use plenty of oil, and then don’t touch for a minute or two at the beginning of cooking)
What I use is one of these pieces of chain mail (I don't know what this kitchen tool is actually called, "Ringer" is probably a brand name), but it's perfect for cleaning cast iron:
1. Rinse dirty pan out with some warm water
2. Clean the chunks and stuff that sticks to the pan with the chainmail
3. Rinse again under some warm water
That’s it. The oil from whatever you were cooking should still be on there; no need to put peanut or avocado oil on there unless you burnt it all off or cooked something acidic (use a different pan for that; you’ll learn).
This doesnt sound easier. My process is I wash my pan with soap and water, with a sponge. I don't need special equipment. I don't need to oil it afterwards. There's enough seasoning, it's fine. I'm using oil next time I cook.
Other people seem to have a bigger problem with burnt-on bits than I do. I don't know why that is, but I'm inclined to trust my process.
Also I like washing all the cooking oil off so I don't have used oil sitting around going rancid. Surfactants are good for that.
Acidic stuff is also fine. If my pan looks thirsty afterwards, I've got the squirt bottle and paper towels, it's easy. Cast iron is the least sensitive, most versatile tool in my kitchen. I'm not babying it.
I use cast iron and carbon steel for high-temperature cooking. If I really care about the non-stick-ness I'll usually use nonstick. But nonstick doesn't char well (and isn't safe). So when I want a serious sear or browning, I use iron & stell.
Problem is, if something burns on, it burns on hard. Soap doesn't really help. Water and scrubbing mostly do, but they don't completely get it off. I can't even tell when the remaining patina is seasoning and when it's just gunk -- until it becomes rough to the touch, in which case it's obvious, and I scrub hard.
This doesn't seem to agree with either experience or the scientific understanding of the polymerization process that needs to occur in a well seasoned cast iron pan.
The best oil for seasoning is flaxseed oil, which has very low smoke point. I mean you can use high smoke points oils, but you want your oil to start smoking.
I used avocado, coconut and flaxseed oils for seasoning - flaxseed is the easiest and delivered best results IMO. Plus it's nice oil for salads and some smoothies. It's not a "special" oil.
As for soap, I used it from time to time. However, why my pans are at the peak of seasoning - there is just no need to use soap.
Great article, just one thing I don't quite understand: vintage vs modern cast iron pans.
I get his point about the older ones having smooth(er) finish due to production methods change, but what stops SOME modern manufacturers to do the same? Surely for a community that is essentially a cult, there should be enough people buying it to worth the additional manufacturing cost?
Now that you mention it (and I hope everybody sees this, but they probably won't since I'm late to this discussion), Field has what I think is the best advice I've seen on how to season cast iron cookware:
There are, as others pointed out, but they are a lot more expensive. I used an angle grinder with a sanding disc on my cheap Lodge to get a similar effect.
On the soap thing, I think a dishwasher is not OK since the soap is harsher. Can anyone confirm? I know there's also a risk of letting it sit and dry (i.e. rust) but that can be managed.
You probably want a neutral oil for salad dressings, or mayonnaise. You want a high smoke point for any frying(deep, shallow, or stir) you'll do. Every grocery store I've been in has peanut, canola, or avocado, which will all do.
This is a difference in semantic understanding I think. When I hear "you don't need a special oil" I understand that to mean "any oil will do", which isn't really the case.
I read somewhere a year or two ago that basically compared cast iron to wood, which has helped my intuition of things a lot.
Here is a blog post [0] I read a few months ago about wood finishes. I think the following applies just as much to cast iron as to the wood he is talking about:
So, when I choose a finish, I ignore the industry-standard scratch and adhesion tests. Instead, I separate finishes into two buckets:
1. Finishes that look incredible immediately but look like crap in 20 years (the short-run finishes) vs. finishes that look incredible when worn/abused (the long-run finishes).
2. Finishes that want me dead vs. finishes that I can apply while buck naked.
Basically I would equate Polyurethane with Teflon, and furniture oil with cooking oil.
Teflon will be great to cook on initially. As soon as it gets damaged, it will be hard to fix without stripping and redoing everything.
Oil will take more maintenance over time, but if it starts looking bad, you just put a bit more on. That's exactly how you should treat cast iron as well.
The trouble people run into is they try to use oil to create a teflon surface. That's not what it's for.
Indeed. I was introduced to him via his appearances on the Woodwrights Shop. I really appreciate the publishing work he does. We've bought I think five or six books from Lost Art Press, and I'm sure there are more to come.
Keep a squirt bottle of oil on hand and make sure you're using enough. Using soap to clean your pans will make maintaining your seasoning easier, as you use less effort to clean them. See this if you're skeptical: https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/11/the-truth-about-cast-iro...
I had friends dedicate years to flax seed oil. They're not happy about it, as they've got flaking to deal with. I also had friends disbelieve me that soap was okay, and they've mostly come around after hearing me swear by it for years.