Cast Iron cookware - Anyone have lots of experience?

My skillet was just seasoned. Ive cooked 2 rounds of pancakes on it so far, thats it. I was just curious on a "maintenance seasoning" as per my original post before it gets too worn down as opposed to scrubbing the whole skillet and re-seasoning from the start. It is a 15" Lodge. I would like to get a grill pan too. That would be nice for cooking/grilling steak and chicken in the winter.

On a side note, I cook the pancakes in Crisco. I notice, since the skillet is so big, even the biggest burner on the stove isn't big enough. The skillet heats in the center a lot more than the outsides. I think the Crisco has baked/seasoned itself on pretty well - a couple spots are sticky after using the skillet. I store it with a thin coat of oil and have noticed the stick in a couple places when re-oiling.

Rebecca - if you have some time (a few days to a week) this method done with oven cleaner looks promising:
www.ibelieveicanfry.com/2010/12/reconditioning-re-seasoning-cast-iron.html

I'd be a little leery of doing that with an old pan. My oven self-cleans at something close to 900 degrees. That temp could crack an old skillet. Not saying it's wrong to do, just might have unexpected consequences.

The soap thing is actually incorrect.  I used only hot water (which made it a pain) for quite a while until I found this www.seriouseats.com/2014/11/the-truth-about-cast-iron.html I've since started using soap and have had no issues.  I regularly roast pork loin in my pan and sear then oven finish steaks and pork chops and it cleans up super quick every time with a little hot water and a soapy sponge (I use the blue kind that have the blue "non-stick safe" scrub pad on one side).  I was always scared to use the thing for a long time out of fear that I'd burn something on and have to re-season it or something but now I love cooking with it.

Who uses cast iron these days? Sheesh!




Ignore the pan on the top right of the pic, and the middle dutch oven! They are new recruits that I found lurking in the weeds under the porch of the old cookhouse here at Butedale. And the giant griddle I was "gifted" by the previous caretaker; who left it behind when he retired. Haven't used it yet. So while I don't use all of them, I do use many of them quite often. (Except for my Jetboil pot which is all I use for boiling water, all I cook on is cast iron.) And as has been said before; cooking is the maintenance. If ya ever do need to re-season a pan, flaxseed is indeed the best, but pure animal lard works quite well too. It's all I have here for seasoning, and nothing sticks to the pans I've seasoned with it. (Ignore those who say it will go rancid. It is polymerized / carbonized. It will not go rancid in a hundred years if you use lard to season.) For cleaning, I still don't use soap; even though I read the Serious Eats / Truth About Cast Iron" a couple years years ago. I also disagree with his "not as non-stick as Teflon" bit. He says he seasons new cast iron on the burner (and re-seasons), but that is NOT how it's done. It is done in the oven at a temperature of at least 450. For an hour or more. Several times. Minimum. Heat pan to a couple hundred, wet paper towel with oil, wipe-on, then wipe off as much as you can. Bake upside down at 450 - 500 for at least an hour. Let cool. Repeat all steps. And repeat again. And again. You are going to get smoked out of the house unless you have your windows open, and the range hood fan(s) on full blast. It's a PITA, but it's what you need to do for new cast iron. I actually have to do my seasoning in my big Webber BBQ, so I just use a sit-in oven thermometer to gauge the temp. To re-season; (unless you've really ruined the seasoning), you should only need to do it once or twice.

Anyhoo, cast iron is king; and a daily cooking of bacon will keep it shiny. (We all eat bacon every day? Don't we?) (Aside from the Veggers) lol! Or cooking some nice fatty pork chops every once in a while will keep the cast iron happy and healthy for as long as you own it. (I make no claims for our arteries though!)

Cheers!

I grew up watching my Grandma cook in nothing but cast iron and threw my own nonstick pans in the trash about three years ago to switch back over to the old cast iron that had been lurking in moving boxes (never unpacked) for years.  Now we use it for almost everything we do on the stove, with the exceptions of things like boiling pasta and cooking vegetables (sauce pans).  I also use a ceramic nonstick pan for eggs just because I cook them in like 1/16 teaspoon of butter.  Here is my two cents worth:

Grandma always washed her cast iron in hot soapy water, ergo so do I.  I use a teflon scraper on almost anything that is a little stuck (bacon does tend to leave a brown gunky sticky residue) never let it soak in water, rinse it and towel dry.  Once in a while I forget to dry it, a little rusty residue forms, I rinse it off, roll my eyes at my own laziness, and put it on a burner to start dinner.  Honestly, it cleans up better and faster than any other pots/pans/skillets I have ever used.  Around here the way people clean cast iron is to throw them into the middle of a raging bonfire and let that burn off any accumulated gunk overnight - max temperature in that inferno I'm not sure of but I've seen it done many times.  As far as utensils, I use a metal spatula almost exclusively.  Did read on a website that adding cold water could cause it to crack.  

My husband, a chemist with the nose and taste buds of a bloodhound, did comment at the beginning that spaghetti sauce had a little bit of an "irony" taste but when questioned he said it wasn't unpleasant and just keep using the cast iron.  I think I seasoned them three years ago....maybe it makes a difference if you use it almost everyday but I don't have any problem.  With that said, our cast iron is pretty old and the insides are as slick as glass.  Chemist husband brought home a Pioneer Woman cast iron skillet he won at a conference last weekend the inside is "sandy rough".....not sure how that works just yet.