Easy way to clean Cast Iron skillets

[Livinzoo]

In backwoods home magazine Jackie Clay put the cast iron to be cleaned in a fire.

 

[Fudgie]

Quote:
I've never heard of the flour method before. So, do you start out with a flour paste and brown that? I guess I don't understand how it works. Can you expand on it for me?

for the flour method you act as though you are making gravy....put bacon or lard in the pan, let it get good and hot, add flour and let it brown stretching it (scritching it all around) to the sides and such, then wipe it out and re grease with lard or bacon fat drippings. That is how I do it anyway.

I use the "Scotchbrite" pads that have a sponge attached to really clean mine. I reseason after cleaning by puting it on a hot stove top and drying out the water, then add bacon fat dripings or lard and wipe it all around getting every nook and cranny!

 

[Laney]

If your talking about cleaning a cast iron pan that you've rescued at a garage sale or something, or one you have that you've let sit too long and it's rusted and caked... no scrubbing or chemicals needed.

Head to the grocery store. Pick up a couple of 2 liters of coca cola. Put the plug in the sink or get a rubber maid tub and fill it with the coca cola, immerse the pan in the coca cola for 24hrs. All the rust and grit etc will lift off or will come off with a gentle scrub the next day.

Rinse and reseason the pan. If the pan is really bad, you may need to do this twice.

Laney

 

[PhilErvin]

Try this; next time you have a camp fire - burn pile - or even a fire in your fireplace, when it burns down to a pile of hot coals throw in the cast iron skillet and leave until the coals have cooled down, maybe the next day. They'll come out looking good as new.

 

[AmyBella]

There is some crud building up on the outside of my cast iron pan. I use it almost every day. I wash it with hot water and a plastic scrubby sponge but no soap. I am hesitant to clean it because the inside is as slick as a skating rink and I don't want to mess it up the seasoning!

 

[Fudgie]

Quote:
THEN DON'T clean it....who you trying to impress anyway. Your family knows how good it cooks and they still eat your food right?! If it is slick as a skating rink! OMG that is perfect!!!

 

[Amyable]

I love my cast iron skillet, use it for everything. I've always cleaned it with hot water and a metal scrubber; if I have really tough crud I let it soak a bit. My MIL keep saying she's going to buy me a nonstick pan, and I tell her NOOO. She just doesn't know how to use cast iron. Nonstick never last long here, but you can't kill cast iron.

 

[peeplessinNC]

AmyBella,
You can clean just the outside of your pan by my directions posted on the first page of this thread. I recently cleaned the crud off my mom's Le Cresuet enameled cast iron pan with just the oven cleaner and a little "elbow grease." After years of pour bacon drippings out of the pan, the fat had caramelized and burned on to a really hard crud on the spout side of her pan. I sprayed just the affected area covered the wet spray with some paper towels, then sprayed again with the oven spray, put the pan in a plastic bag and let sit in the laundry room (fumes, you know) overnight and all the next day. The crud sort of melts off and you can wipe it off or scrape it off with a blunt knife. Repeat the steps until it all comes off. The paper towels help to keep the spray from sliding down the side of the pan. The plastic bag helps to slow the evaporation of the liquid spray. Mom was amazed! I reminded her to wipe off the spout area after she had poured the fat out of the pan. None of this treatment harmed the enameled finish.

Hope this helps!

 

[Hillsvale]

my cast iron frying pan is 27 eyars old... bought it what I was 18 for I think 9.00 or so.... it looked like the colour of a piece of gravel, after a couple of usings it started to turn black.... its never been the colour I bought it as. I have put it in soap and water and scrubbed with a green scrubby and if really bad I have used oven cleaner. This is the pan I use for roast beef, pineapple upside down cake and omeletts and seasoning is a must ut I use corn oil.

Funny thing is I just bought a house in the country... the owners left a brand new cast iron pan behind, never been used. I was shocked as I thought all old people used or had used cast iron. Its the only nice thing this lady has done with regards to this house!

 

[marymac]

Quote:
This is how I cleaned my rusty skillets too and then re seasoned them, but i have seen some of my x- inlaws cast iron pans and they just wash them and don't worry about what the outside of them looks like. They all say the more crud build up the better, and that's seasoned with love. I always wondered if that crud could catch on fire though,lol