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For the big stuck on pieces, you use a stainless steel chainmail scrubber. For cast iron pans you can scrub as hard as you can with that and you aren’t hurting the pan. Try doing that on your aluminum, Teflon non-stick pan, or your nicely polished stainless steel pan and let me know how that goes (don’t do this). For cleaning off oils and grease off cast iron, regular liquid dish soap (like Dawn) works great and is totally okay to use for cleaning cast iron.
For your cast iron, don’t use lye based cleaners and don’t put your cast iron in the dishwasher.
I usually just wipe up oil and leave it. Thin layer can remain for the next time I use it
I recommend people use lye-based cleaners and put them in the dishwasher in a whim.
You can throw a cast iron pan off a fucking roof, leave it in a wet ditch for 2 years, it won’t be harmed.
Quarter teaspoon of oil rubbed in, be back to cooking.
You can throw a cast iron pan off a fucking roof, leave it in a wet ditch for 2 years, it won’t be harmed. Quarter teaspoon of oil rubbed in, be back to cooking.
Sure but if you don’t use lye and just use dish soap, then you can skip that step and you keep cooking.
You can throw a cast iron pan off a fucking roof, leave it in a wet ditch for 2 years, it won’t be harmed.
Well if you leave it in a wet ditch for years it would rust and pit eventually. It doesn’t mean you couldn’t regrind the surface to get it smooth again, then seasoning to get it back into cooking form.
If you consider the lifetime, it’s the cheapest type of pan by far.
Also you can clean them stop spreading misinformation pls 😘
If it’s too heavy for you there is stainless steel or carbon steel which also last but those aren’t as cheap.
Yeah I’ve been using my mom’s cast iron pan since she died like 7 years ago. Barring a level of fuck up I don’t think I can manage it should last the lifetime of the person who inherits it from me
I’ve got a little pan that’s on it’s third lifetime now, and no idea what it originally cost, but guaranteed it was worth the price for a multigenerational product.
You basically have to drop them from a second story window to break them
I did warp one slightly one time by getting it super hot and allowing it to cool unevenly. I still have it and use it. It might not sit flat on a cooktop but it’s just fine for camping.
And you will break the floor too
Preferably the street
The lifetime is usually about 1 week. I can leave all my other pans soaking in the sink for a day without rusting… I don’t have the time or energy to do dishes every day.
Lol.
A) yes you do. You’re conflating not wanting to slightly alter your habits with not possible.
B) you can also leave it on the counter or the stovetop. You shouldn’t leave any metal object soaking in the sink for a day. Leave them on the counter and then put them in the sink to soak like 5 min before you start cleaning them.
A) you don’t know someone’s situation so don’t pass judgement when there are very valid reasons theg may not have the time of energy, as if mental health isn’t a valid reason already
B) soaking for 5 minutes is definitely not the same getting a good long soak
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Okay even if you forget to clean it and it rusts, you can just use a steel sponge to get all the rust off and then you just need to re-season it for a few mins and you’re good to go again
If you’re soaking it to get stuck on stuff out of it… well stuff shouldn’t be sticking to it that aggressively. and if you’re soaking it to keep stuff from drying on, well, just rinse it out before leaving it to clean later.
Don’t soak it if you aren’t going to wash it… like just leave it on the counter or if you want to really get ahead for it pour some salt in the pan and let that sit until you feel like cleaning it. Because you can use metal on it without damaging it it’s not even hard to clean.
Teflon pans are disposable with a limited life that releases toxins into your body which is bad
Stainless steel is much less non stick but can at least stand up to soaking
Carbon steel also shouldn’t be soaked
Copper is expensive and also has care requirements
This. Just leave it on your stove with oil / food in it til you’re ready to clean it. Then use soap water and a chainmail scrubber. Be as aggressive as you want. The smoother it is the better. If you have a cheap lodge, taking the time to actually use a sander will bring it to high quality smooth like a more expensive finex or other.
After cleaning toss back on the stove on the heat for like 1 min to dry it out and you’re good to go. Ideally toss a little oil in the pan after heating and use a paper towel to rub it around, but if you are in a rush don’t even have to do that.
Honestly I just swipe it with a dish sponge until everything is off, rinse, then swipe it with a dish towel
I usually put water right into the hot pan. Flakes all the food off instantly, and it’s a lot of fun to quench it. Then a squirt of dishsoap (I keep a bottle of diluted dish soap by the sink, super handy!), scrub, rinse, and you’re done in actual seconds.
They’re way cheaper and they last multiple lifetimes. I don’t know what you’re on about.
…why are you not cleaning your cast iron pan?
sEaSoNinG
polymerizing long-chain hydrocarbons onto a metal surface with excess heat creating a semi-hard, crystalline coating.
It’s old wisdom from way back when soap was made from lye.
That kind of soap is much harsher and can dissolve the seasoning, which is just a bunch of layers of polymerized oil that protects the metal from rust and gives it a glossy, almost non-stick coating.
Modern dish soap is nowhere near that harsh and is completely safe to use on a seasoned cast iron pan. It’s just that your grandparents and great grandparents beat that lesson into their kids and it stuck.
Cast iron is fine to cook on, but I much prefer stainless steel. It’s a bit harder to get the results you want, but it’s way easier to maintain.
Thats interesting, I heard it was a smear campaign by marketing companies to sell Teflon pans.
There’s a good chance the dry detergent for a dishwasher can still strip the seasoning off cast iron. Especially generic brands. They’re supposed to have buffers in them to prevent it, but every additive, and mixing time, adds cost.
Your typical hand dish soap is probably safe as long as you’re not scrubbing with steel wool.
IIRC, powdered dish washing detergent is mildly abrasive, and it gets jetted around at relatively high speeds (compared to hand washing). That’s also why it’s bad for knives.
They say high temp stainless basically becomes non stick. I just get stuff sticking then immediately burning and smoking out my kitchen.
Heat up the pan on medium setting and then apply oil, if it smokes it is too hot. And don’t use olive oil, use an oil with a reasonably high smoke point. And you need to use more oil/fat than you’d normally do on other (non-stick) pans.
Don’t use extra virgin / virgin olive oil.* Regular olive oil has a higher smoke point.
Lower your temps. Stainless only sticks like that if you get it too hot.
This but also stop trying to unstick stuff when its not finished cooking yet.
That was one thing i had to learn when moving to stainless, you need to wait for the protein to unstick itself. Which when you’re so used to cooking on non-stick seems insane and risky.
Oh yeah good call good call. I’m so used to doing that with cast iron I didn’t even think about that. But yeah it’s harder with stainless for sure.
It takes practice and making sure it’s at the correct temperature. If I can fry eggs in stainless steel without sticking you can too friend. Follow the instructions on this page to get you started:
https://theskillfulcook.com/how-to-know-when-stainless-steel-pan-is-ready/
no, medium-ish temp.
stainless steel has pores that close at the right temp so food wont stick.
you need to practice it on your cooktop yourself to find out what setting. after its heated, drip a big drop of water on it and it should dance around and sizzle. too hot or too cold it will stay where it is in the pan. theres prob a video you can watch to see what the drop of water should look like
Godort’s grandma probably: come here Godort. Grandpa’s gotta beat you again for using soap on the cast iron pan
at least Godort didn’t use The Good Scissors
AHHHHH NOT THE GOOD SCISSORS
Most of the care tips you see on cast iron are just superstition.
It’s actually super easy to care for. You just scrub it with some salt and a boar bristle brush, dry it with a linen towel, then store it in a marble sepulchre facing North.
My sepulchre hasn’t been marble 100 percent of the time, I’ll try harder
if I don’t have a sepulchre will a charnal house do?
Absolutely fucking not
If you’re not going to take this seriously, just get a Teflon pan.
And all the ley lines intersect there
That better be magnetic north
People that can’t handle cast iron are the same that can’t get their car’s oil changed on time.
After breakfast this morning I washed my skillets with the other dishes. The only difference is I put it on the stove to dry.More expensive? There’s always a few at every thrift store for cheap p
This meme brought to you by The Chemours Company
I got a fridge magnet like this a while ago for a friend:
The truly enlightened use carbon steel pans.
Not enough thermal mass in most carbon steel pans which is why the super truly enlightened use multiple different materials depending on what they are trying to cook
Some of us have limited space and funds, so for me it’s cast iron
I don’t know if people will be angry with me but I just cook in it for iron. So I just clean it normally with water later (no soap most of the time). Heat it to dry, and apply a bit of oil and store it. That way I never have grimes and dirty pieces there.
I was done with cast iron when I got a new cast iron pan that rusted the same day because it was humid and I didn’t get a chance to glaze it for just a few too many hours.
Oh well, I prefer to do big batches of one-pot cooking anyway. Simple, easy, efficient.
You can just scrub the rust off and glaze it, it’s fine
Yeah sure, but that’s not the greater issue. It’s a question of whether I have any interest in putting up with cast iron’s hassles, when I know I don’t have to. It also doesn’t help that cast iron is a very oil-centric kind of cooking, and I generally don’t use any added fats in my cooking. It just doesn’t make sense for me to use it.
IDK anything about cooking really but… being heavier is a big deal. You kinda charge up the pan with stored heat and then when you plonk your steak or whatever on there it’s going to sizzle and give you that nice crusty crispified outside.
It’s the difference between something that looks like this picture, and the steak your grandma makes.
I put mine in the dishwasher like maniac. And I don’t season it, I just spray pam on it. Works fine, purists are just being weird about it.
A good seasoning should withstand some pretty brutal punishment. And even if it doesn’t, you can easily reseason the pan which you’ll have to do from time to time regardless.
I season my cookie sheets the same way. I’ve put them in the dishwasher, hit them with those steel wire soapy things, used barkeeper’s friend, not much has taken the seasoning off once it’s on there.
Except for lemon juice. Lemon juice fucks it right up.
Lemon juice. Tomato sauce. That one egg that for some reason decided to be a real motherfucker.
I love my cast iron cookware, but it can be a fickle bitch.
If the yolk directly touches the surface, the emulsifiers could potentially mess with things?
Never really had a problem with frying eggs on cast iron, often do pancakes on it.
I don’t put mine in the dishwasher and I don’t use soap when cleaning mine (cleans easy enough with hot water, dish rag, and sometimes steel wool), but I don’t season either. I just use a refillable oil spray bottle.
I thought the concern was rust more than anything
It is, it’s important to dry them quickly. Some dishwashers have a heated dry that could help, but I wouldn’t trust it personally.
There are a lot of myths and legends around cast iron that are due to older circumstances that are no longer applicable. And spray on oil seems like a pretty efficient way to season given that it’ll apply a fairly light and even.
Most spray oils are high smoke point for frying, which is the opposite of what you want for seasoning
I mean, there are a lot of types of spray cooking oil I’ve seen. Coconut, olive oil, and soybean (vegetable oil) are what I see most commonly, and none of those have particularly high smoke points.
What? You want high smoke point oils for seasoning. You want to season the pans in temperatures higher than you would be normally cooking in, which means higher smoke point oils. I season all of my cast iron and carbon steel with canola, works great.
If you season with Extra Virgin Olive Oil, it’s going to burn the seasoning off under normal circumstances.
https://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/01/a-science-based-technique-for-seasoning-cast-iron/
tl;dr Flax oil is best, low-smoke-point oils in general polymerize better, resulting in better and tougher non-stick coatings, but there’s more to it than just smoke point
I seen a quote yesterday that I liked and it seems fitting here.
Tradition is not an excuse to not think critically.
I heard tradition is the dead telling the living what to do.
Not that all tradition is bad, but many are out dated or were never made for a good reason.
While you are technically correct, I think essentially tradition IS the excuse to not think rationally.
more expensive?
I once had a girlfriend whose mom bought a 300€ cast iron pan that she was talked into at one of those marketing events. Eastcon is a fucking con.
I can be tempted by cast iron with a nice image on the base, though probably not for that much.
300€ WTFFFFFFFFF!!! For a pan??
So what they do is they tell you you won a free lunch (the irony is not lost on me) from like a raffle or something, which you can claim at location x at time y. Aaaaand then it turns out the free lunch is actually a marketing event where they make you (and the people who come with you) barely any food, while extolling the virtues of their ridiculously overpriced products.
I’d just gone through it with my grandma who’s luckily a moderately sharp pencil and invited me and my mom along. We just outright refused to buy anything and ate the cookies and shit (they were demonstrating a cookie maker lmao, made like 3 cookies). But my ex’s mom went there I think either alone or with someone who yes-manned her into spending money on the pan. And I think she did it in installments too.
This was like 10 years ago. It’s a proper scam, idk if they still do it, but I bet they do.
And yes, the pan was excellent, it came with a removable handle and a kinda cone shaped lid that had a hole in the center, which was useful (lets humidity out, but fat doesn’t splatter everywhere). But I was still flabbergasted to hear someone would spend 300€ on a pan. In like 2015 or 2016 Estonia. Her net salary was under 1000€ a month.
I have a set of cast-iron I found under an abandoned trailer next to a junkyard. They cost exactly nothing and I got to have nerdy fun restoring them over a weekend afternoon, I have been using them for 20 years.
Lol a few minutes with an angle grinder and a flap wheel will take it back down to metal real fast.
Sure, but not having those tools, I used the wonders of SCIENCE.
Some washing soda, a steel rod, a 12v battery charger and a tub of water and overnight all the rust had migrated to the steel rod.
That is a much cooler way than simple abrasives.
That sounds like the best set of cast iron.
It’s in the name.
Yeah, I understood that, but try saying that to a woman in her 50s in eastern Europe ~10 years ago lol, it’s not like she spoke English
Vintage, or nicely finished pans with polished surfaces or extra greebles and nubbins can be expensive.
Something liked a lodge pan will be cheap but the bottom of it kind of sucks without being ground down ether by long usage or by tools.
I cook on gas, couldn’t care less about the smoothness of the bottom but I get people would if cooking on glass top
In general thought, cast iron is cheaper than any pan equivalent in performance… the cheaper stufq they sell at grocery stores are practically dispossable
I mean like, the interior cooking surface is rough.
I’m not sure if you are joking or not but when you buy the pan you are supposed to do the first seasoning in the oven a half dozen times. By the end of that the pan should be smooth. I tend not to look at new cast iron since I have so many I yhrisfted over the years. I suppose the import mass produced stuff might look awful on close inspection.
Nah, you’re not gonna smooth that out with seasoning. Like, it’s the texture of the sand mold just like the rest of it, zero sanding or grinding on the cooking surface to smooth it out and this isn’t a “cheap import” kind of thing, the brand I’m thinking of, lodge, are made in America. Like, they’re functional pans, but the roughness makes them harder to use than something with a polished or even sanded cooking surface, stuff just catches on the nooks and crannies regardless of seasoning. Like a quick pass with a sander or grinder improves them immensely, but that’s not really something most people are going to bother with.
I’ll keep an eye out then. Wild that something that quality survives on the market.
What they’re talking about sounds like the pan I have. Bought it in the camping aisle, and it was much cheaper than the ones in the kitchen aisle. I haven’t found the roughness to be much of an issue; I probably have to use more oil than I would otherwise. It has gotten smoother over many years of use.
I mean, there are a bunch of American cast iron companies still making really good stuff, most are just kinda pricy, like 100 bucks for a skillet. Lodge is just notable for being super cheap, 20 bucks for a skillet, and having a very crude finish compared to the others.
The glass cooktops are insanely scratch resistant. I use a metal scraper to clean mine.
They don’t mean the underside.
They mean smooth on the inside. The bottom as In where tu out your food to cook.
My brother has one like that that was ground smooth brand new. I had mixed opinions when I uses it.
My gigantic cast iron had a rather annoying raised ring around the bottom. It was fine on a coil electric range, gas stove, or campfire, but when I moved into a place with a flat top, it was annoying since it didn’t actually make contact. I took an angle grinder to it and ground it flat. Night and day differerence.
