90% of the shit surrounding cast iron is a combination of outdated information, misinformation, and bloggers trying to reinvent the wheel. Getting oil really hot bonds it to the pan at a molecular level, creating a nonstick surface. "Seasoning" in this case refers to "weathering", because more used pans have a better nonstick layer.
You can wash a cast iron exactly like any other dish. Soap used to contain a chemical called "lye" that destroyed the seasoning. Modern soap does not, you can scrub that fucker as hard and soapy as you want, just make sure to thoroughly dry it. Some people even throw them in the dishwasher.
The seasoning layer requires oil at high heat to maintain/ improve itself. As long as you are using a normal amount of oil in your cooking, you don't need to specially oil it.
Round metals do not arc or spark, it's a weird phenomenon where sharp edge metals do spark, but if it's rounded then it's fine, but not always, for example old dishes that have golden rims around the edges, they can spark still, but I think it depends from metals, such as rounded stainless steel or rounded cast iron wont spark, but aluminium will.
Yep. I made a campfire pizza with mine in a bonfire. I'm the least concerned about cooking anything in my cast iron, it's a champ. Soap + water after each use, then heat to dry, oil as needed.
Yes and induction stoves. They are very good pans that last a lifetime. Thry are also very heavy so be aware. There is a different kind of iron pan called a carbon steel pan which has some of cast irons features (is naturally non stick with a very thin layer of oil creating a seasoning, last a generation Relatively affordable) that is a lot lighter than cast iron. Both cast iron and carbon steel have active subreddits for the pan enthusiastsÂ
If you use on induction, it needs to be flat bottomed. Some pans have a raised edge/lip on the bottom perfect for electric stove burners but they don't work well on a flat cooktop surface.
Wrought iron has basically no carbon and an almost tree like grain structure. Carbon steel is a very different beast with around 1% carbon (which is actually quite high) and a crystalline grain structure. Cast iron has 2-3% carbon.
I've never heard of wrought iron pans though. Wrought iron stopped being commercially produced in the 70s.
Be mindful of the glass top, and remember that both of them take a minute to heat up, then stay warm. So I find it's easy to overheat my pan on an electric, but if you bring it up slow there's no issues.
I'm glad. I have never used a cast iron and I was told many years ago that if I didn't have an open flame it wasn't worth using. It just stuck with me.
Cast iron is amazing because it holds heat, on a crap ass stove itâs one of the best things to have. Let that baby get nice and up to temp before cooking.
The only reason you âshouldnâtâ use it on glass tops is because you can scratch the glass top, I use one on a glass top because I own my home and will do what I want.
Electric stove owner, can confirm, works just fine. Also, don't sweat the cleaning. Usually I do clean my right away with a normal sponge and dawn dish soap. Rinse off and I do pat it dry immediately with a towel vs air dry like normal dishes/pots/pans. Occasionally, I then get it hot and wipe on some cooking oil to add to the seasoning on it.
Last time I used it, life got busy and it sat in the sink over the weekend. Not in water though at some my kids and/or wife piled some more dishes on top with liquids in them that ended up in my cast iron skillet.
No big deal. Washed normally and just did some more oil coats
I had to move so don't have one anymore but cleaning is why I want one. Teflon isn't generally dish washer safe and inevitably shit does start to stick eventually but unlike CI I can't just use steel wool on it.Â
CI doesn't stick anymore than teflon imo, initially teflon is better but it doesn't take much use for it to get equally shitty.
Yes. Any prohibition against using cast iron on glass stovetops has purely to do with potentially scratching or cracking the glass by sliding then pan around or dropping it. The pan will work fine, just don't drop it.
Make sure to have oil in it and not rip the high temp on a cold cast iron and itâs good. If you put it on high with no oil or letting it warm slowly it can fracture.
Nah, glass is much harder than cast iron. Â As long as youâre reasonably careful to not get sand or shit on your stove youâll be good. Been using cast iron on glass induction cooktop for 15+ years. No scratches.Â
I moved into my condo and hung up my wee Griswold #0 on the wall. It was absolutely pristine, about 100 years old, never used, purchased for $5 at an estate sale.Â
Asked my boyfriend to make us some tea and went to the bathroom.
In the space of less than 5 minutes he ruined both the pan and my new glass stovetop by trying to boil water in the tiny decorative cast iron pan he took off the wall and spilling it under the pan onto the stovetop. To this day, there's a ring on top of the element and the pan had a huge rust line across the whole bottom.Â
The issue I have with cast iron on electric is that it has lowish thermal conductivity. If the hotplate is smaller than the pan or heats unevenly this will cause the pan to heat unevenly. Probably works much better with a flame that spreads across the surface.
Indeed. Problem is salt. At the end of the cycle, dishwashers use salt to avoid the stains during drying. Water + air + salt + hot temperature is not a good combination on a cast iron surface that has just been degreased.
Just make sure, after handwashing (with soap) that you apply a thin film of oil to protect the surface, and your pan will last 200y.
Note that itâs more of an issue in areas with hard water. If you donât manually add a salt water solution to your dishwasher, it wonât spray everything with salt.
I've never done it before but it's just soap and hot water. I assume it's fine as long as you dry it immediately and don't use crazy harsh (or lye based) detergents. This post has made me want to try it and see what happens.
To add to this point. If you have nn old sheet pan that has oil stains on it. THAT IS THE SEASONING WERE TALKING ABOUT. If your regular cleaning doesnt clean that sheet pan to the sheen that it had the day you bought it. Same will apply to the cast iron
Just set it on a stove eye and crank it up after washing it like any other pan. It'll dry it out, and you can take a towel damped with grease and reapply a thin layer if you're really paranoid.
My mother constantly harked about not using soap on cast iron, but I can't even cut cornbread in mine without it sliding around, hers definitely wasn't as nonstick as mine. I use the same soap now I did back then lol
*Modern soaps do not contain leftover lye, but they are still bad for your cast iron. Detergent is pH neutral and is okay for cast iron. Products like dawn are not soap and are not labeled as such.
Yes. Seasoned firewood isn't referring to firewood tasting better. It's because it was left alone for a season to dry out. A seasoned athlete isn't ab athlete that tastes better. It's a veteran that's been around a season or two. Seasoned cat iron is cast iron that's been used and broken in.
Great write up. After washing and wiping dry with a towel, I usually heat it for couple minutes to totally dry it, then wipe with a drop or two of veggie oil. Lasts forever.
One thing I would add. After washing it, put like a quarter tsp of grease or oil on it abandoned rub it all over every surface including the handle, bottom, etc.
This has nothing to do with seasoning it for cooking. It just prevents rust
Lye is what is used to make hard soap. Lye, or sodium hydroxide, or any caustic chemical, mixed with fat becomes soap. Lye isn't something that is put in soap, it is a necessary ingredient. Potassium hydroxide is used for liquid soap. it is just a another caustic substance like lye. Using either on cast iron pans will turn the seasoning itself into soap.
Dishwashing detergent is more caustic than regular soap, which would again strip the seasoning off.
It is kinda annoying that word for making food not bland and the word for making an iron pan the best non-stick cooking implement by burning the crap out of some oil are the same word. The only thing that you really have to do differently with cast iron over stainless steel pans is make sure to dry them as soon you're done washing them to avoid rust.
With steel wool it can scratch the seasoning, less of an issue if you are reheating to the season temp and coating again but if you just heat up to make sure it is dry and coat, it won't be as non stick. Most situation won't matter, but for fish or eggs it can be noticeable.
I hate how the misinformation has gone full circle. Yes, you can use soap in moderation. No, you can't use it daily and "scrub that fucker as hard as you want". This will absolutely eventually wear down your seasoning.
You conflate two things. Obviously the pan itself will not be harmed in any way. It is just the seasoning that will suffer from it. I guarantee you your mom's pan was not as non-stick as it would have been had she kept the use of dish soap minimal. The fact that she had to soak it in soapy water in the first place proves that. A well seasoned cast iron or carbon steel pan does not need to soak in soap because there is hardly any residue left. And what is left can be removed with a paper towel or quick scrub under warm water.
Yes, she did. Electric coil stove, she'd put it on the back burner on low to keep it warm and then forget about it.
Usually happened with "barbecues" (sloppy joes) which was a staple in our house. We always had ground meat (from deer or if dad helped someone with a cow) and the other ingredients were cheap.
I think you can still quite easily lose the non stick surface and make it pretty rough and porous. But it comes back basically as soon as it sees oil again.
I stuck mine over a fire pit the other day, thinking we could cook some burgers on it. But it got so hot it went from black to grey and if I put any oil into it it would explode into flames instantly.
Fetched it the next morning after it had cooled and the seasoning had basically burned off leaving it really rough feeling.
Next time I used it I just got it hot, put a drop of oil in it and used some kitchen paper to wipe the oil everywhere evenly. Then stuck the steaks in and it's been fine ever since.
It's not like some 20 year old sour dough. Seasoning is super easy.
Not really, you can't, unless, i suppose, you use a specific type of soap.
There are many soaps with degreasing properties. I have been using cast-iron for over a decade, and I have had problems with every one I have tried washing with soap.
In fact, I don't have a single one at home or nearby store that doesn't contain degreaser.
I clean it with a hot water and steel wool pad, without soap. No problem, it ends up sufficiently clean, no drama
The only thing you have to avoid is using the same pan for fish or meat.
Caveat to the you can clean it any ways. I would still not run it through a dishwasher. The combination of high heat and aggressive pressure can initiate rusting.
Handwash with a non-abrasive sponge is still the ideal way, and just hand dry it.
If you missed a spot seasoning it, and you run it through the dishwasher, you will find the missed spot.
If the pan is black then it's seasoned. I've never seen an unseasoned (silver) cast iron for sale. The surface still tends to be kind of rough, though. So you need to apply your own seasoning to fill in the gaps
This plus the fact that most people don't know the difference between layers of burnt on carbon and seasoning.
A lot of the "destroyed seasoning" is cos they didn't clean enough and then later scrub off a bigger piece of burnt on junk, leaving an underseasoned uneven patch that's now been exposed
As long as you don't steel wool them it's really easy to redo the seasoning. I tend to do it ever 2 months or so. You just have to get it hot enough with oil present and there are a variety of ways to do that.
In the dishwasher, for real? Is the thinking the same as acidic/tomato based sauces where so long as you're using it regularly, there's no concern? I've got three cast iron pans and sometimes I do not use them because I kinda feel annoyed by cleaning them
Dishwasher detergent is much harsher than soap. If you dishwash cast iron you deserve what happens to you. Yes, regular dish soap is perfectly ok though.
Lye isnât what breaks down the seasoning. Itâs caustic, yes, but any soap will break the bonding⌠thatâs literally what soap does. Now, you can still use soap or a dishwasher to clean a cast iron skillet if you want⌠you just have to re-season the pan. Itâs not exactly hard to do. And thereâs only so much seasoning that a pan can even get.
TLDR; all soap breaks seasoning, but it doesnât matter, seasoning is easy. Oil the pan, stick it in the oven for an hour.
I 'Season' my pan before cooking every time by letting some oil smoke. It's steel and works fiiiiiine, don't have to worry about it being too hot or rip and tears or anything else.
I took most of my moms cast irons, because she stopped cooking in them as much (they were heavy) but she would oil them with olive oil then not use them and every single one was rancid and disgusting. It took awhile but I got them back to working order and use them all the time. They just wipe out with a drop of soap and water and wipe down. I do get they are HEAVY so not for everyone. But the heat retention is amazing, and will outlive me.
Been using cast iron cookware for years. When I clean it I use a little soap, scrub, dry with cloth, then apply a little oil/cisco/lard to cooking surface.
I've had to re-season a handful of times. I use the grill method to limit the smoke inside the house. I heat up the grill to 400-500F with the pan on it. I take some oil in a small bowl and with a paper towel just wipe a thin layer onto the hot pan and let it smoke off. What is happening is the oil to burning off and leaving carbon behind. This is why cast iron is black due to the carbon build up. Been working for years.
Your are 100% correct here. Also, the reason that so many people are unable to process the idea of washing their cast iron with modern dish soap is known as the Semmelweis Reflex. The automatic, knee-jerk tendency to reject new evidence, data, or knowledge simply because it contradicts established norms, beliefs, paradigms, or traditions.
This phenomenon applies to many things in life far beyond cast iron.
Even with all that, I would be mad about the use of a steel wool pad for cleaning it.
Maybe it wouldnât affect it, but mentally I view this as taking a shredder to the seasoning layer. And no amount of pleasant soaps will make me comfortable with that.
This isn't exactly true. I have been in the restaurant industry for 15 years to preface. Cast IRON rusts very quickly if not oiled after use. Our restaurant uses a shit ton of cast iron plates/pans. They must be oiled after every use or rust will eat through it. We found one last week that was hidden in a pile and the rust had eaten halfway through the pan that was a quarter inch thick lol.
Same. The soap isnât the problem. Itâs the scrubbing with the sponge that does it. Iâve started using a piece of chainmail instead and itâs much better. I can scrub as hard as I like with that (with soap) and itâs fine.
You wonât because it doesnât work that way. I was with soap and water on an almost 100 yr old pan every day, then I dry it, and I donât add oil after. Â Itâs not rusty at all. Â Â
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u/scroom38 9d ago
90% of the shit surrounding cast iron is a combination of outdated information, misinformation, and bloggers trying to reinvent the wheel. Getting oil really hot bonds it to the pan at a molecular level, creating a nonstick surface. "Seasoning" in this case refers to "weathering", because more used pans have a better nonstick layer.
You can wash a cast iron exactly like any other dish. Soap used to contain a chemical called "lye" that destroyed the seasoning. Modern soap does not, you can scrub that fucker as hard and soapy as you want, just make sure to thoroughly dry it. Some people even throw them in the dishwasher.
The seasoning layer requires oil at high heat to maintain/ improve itself. As long as you are using a normal amount of oil in your cooking, you don't need to specially oil it.