Ok so for fathers day I bought him a cast iron pan to make individual corn bread pieces. I got it from a flea market for $15.. Not bad at all! Seems to be in awesome condition. The only thing wrong with it, it seems to have some kind of hard black build up in some spots I would like to clean it some how.. Any ideas? ...also... I havent been too good to mine and its started to rust. What should I do about that?
You can scour off the black spots with a stiff brissle brush. You more than likely need to re-season the cast iron. This involves rubbing it with vegetable oil and baking it in the oven. If you look on the LODGE manufacturing Co www.lodgemfg.com you may find the instructions or you can call them TN (423) 837-7181. They recommend never using soap on the cast iron, dry very toughly after washing and spray with a light coat of PAM to prevent rust.
Is the hard black the seasoning on the cast iron? You can put the cast iron on a bed of hot coals and it will burn the old seasoning off. Don't get it to hot or you will ruin it. Then you just re oil it and stick it in the oven for a couple hours on low heat. That will re season the cast iron. All our pans are cast iron. We were at an auction one time and there was a whole box of frying pans and griddles. I bought it for a couple dollars, that was a steal. We use regular dish soap on ours and after it's dry put a teaspoon of oil on it and rub it in with a paper towl, you want to coat it lightly with oil and they won't rust. Steve
Its kinda crusty... It seems to be nicely seasoned but then again some of the sections look dry. Id hat to give it to him in this state but he knows 100000x more about cleaning them than I ever would
So I scratched off some of the gunk with my nail and it looks like either rust under it or old corn bread. Im thinking I should just start all over with it..
Cant spray oven cleaner on cast iron??? I use it to clean the engine in my truck every once in a while, and I believe the block is cast iron . . . Works great.
SarahFair..... I just put mine in the self cleaning oven whenever they get so caked that you can't really clean them well. BUT....after they are done, you wioll need to reseason them real well! The self cleaning oven gets up to around 750 degrees ( I understand) and it just burns all the seasoning out of the pores of the cast iron. Us some vegetable oil or vegetable shortening, smear it all over the pan and set it in the oven, set at 200 degrees. After a couple of hours your pans will be seasoned and you shouldn't have any trouble with them. My mother used them for years and when they got kind of grimy, she simply washed them in hot soapy dish water, rinsed them real well and dried them with a towel. After she got them as dry as she could with a towel, she set them on a burner, turned to low, for a couple of minutes so that she was sure that they were completely dry. Every couple of months, she would reseason them and put them in the oven after cooking dinner with the oven off, just the residual heat from cooking. All done.
Im sending the both to work with the SO tomorrow so he can use the air gun wire brissle on them.. Then I will re-season them If this thing says Pat. Pending on the back would that mean its old?
Do check the link ranchhand posted..incase you don't..a few things to remember: I agree with Steve BUT be careful with the hot coals..if too hot your piece can crack or warp; I usually use my self cleaning oven, you will have to reseason the entire piece..I prefer lard; oil will get gummy if not used often. On very hard to clean pieces we have a drum with lye water that we use to soak, sometimes takes ten days or so, then I soak overnight in soapy water and then dry in the oven on low, reseason. (the lye water is a last resort to very tough build up) Last year there was a thread about cast iron on here and someone posted that they used Coke to soak theirs in..??..i haven't tried this yet..