OT: Hints for saving cast iron skillet are needed

loggerhead12 wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 01, 2023 10:56 am

My wife has used a cut potato with a mixture of salt and baking soda to restore several pieces of cast iron cookware. It still takes elbow grease, though.

It will remove the seasoning as well, so you'll need to re-season.

Thanks. I tried salt and baking soda and elbow grease and got some of the gunk off. I will add a potato and more elbow grease.
If I didn't use all my baking soda the other day this is something I can try now while iced in.
If not will have to wait until I can get to the store.

I don't care if I have to re-season...I pretty much expected to have to do that.
Besides...the seasoning that is on the 2 skillets right now is NASTY. I would be more nervous about cooking with it now as it is than I would be nervous about using some strong chemicals. I actually want to take it down to bare and start fresh with a new seasoning regiment.

I added another link while you were typing - the vinegar thing works.

You may have some success using a SoClean unit. I do not know if they sell an adapter for cookware.

I don't have any before pictures but originally both skillets looked like number 1 here
https://www.hometalk.com/posts/clean/ca ... t-44291850
But add in about a 1/4 inch of really yucky burnt and rusted old seasoning as well.
I got a good chunk of the rust off but not all of it...and barely made a dent in the sticky yucky old oil.

Trying the vinegar soak right now as I had some vinegar....and I have Dawn as well.
I have a brillo pad somewhere....gotta go find it.

FifthAvenue wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 01, 2023 11:55 am

You may have some success using a SoClean unit. I do not know if they sell an adapter for cookware.

You are joking...right????
I wouldn't have one of those products in my house much less use it.
Besides .....for that price I can buy some brand new already seasoned skillets.

I just want to save some 50 year old skillets. I have done it before but they weren't in this bad of shape.

FifthAvenue wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 01, 2023 11:55 am

You may have some success using a SoClean unit. I do not know if they sell an adapter for cookware.

though early yet, you may just have won the internet for today!

When I cleaned my mother-in-law's old iron skillet, I used a drill with a wire brush wheel on it. She had used it for several years without cleaning. Someone had told her that she should never clean it, so she would pour out any old grease and simply stick it in the oven until she needed it again. Needless to say, it was really nasty. I also did the same thing to one that was really rusty from being stored in a damp basement.

I'm in a cast iron group on FB. People there strip and re-season their cast iron pans by spraying liberally with the yellow cap oven cleaner, putting them in a black plastic bag and out in the sun for a few days. seems to be something to do in warmer weather! We had some gnarly old pans, but thankfully they cleaned up with a good scrubbing.

As already noted, use caution with that oven cleaner. I'd wear gloves and an N95 mask when spraying and handling and do it outside. Then you can season from there. Hopefully your weather will permit this.

Contrary to popular belief, seasoning does NOT make cast iron "non-stick" and you don't have to constantly re-season once it's properly stripped and re-seasoned. The sole purpose of seasoning is to make the pan rustproof. And if you buy a new cast iron pan (they are inexpensive!) you do not have to ever season it. Just use it and care for it properly by washing with regular dish soap and drying thoroughly before storing. Once it's seasoned, you don't have to season cast iron again and again, you don't have to rub with oil each time.

Hope you can restore these old pans, but if not, brand new Lodge pans are inexpensive. They come pre-seasoned and work great.

Janknitz wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 01, 2023 1:35 pm

Hopefully your weather will permit this.

It will be a few days...it was 28 degrees when I checked about an hour ago and that's supposed to be the high for the day.
Supposed to get to the 50s by this weekend though.
Right now I am iced in. I live out in the boonies and no one has bothered to treat my rural road yet.
Ice everywhere still.

Janknitz wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 01, 2023 1:35 pm

Hope you can restore these old pans, but if not, brand new Lodge pans are inexpensive. They come pre-seasoned and work great.

I know and Bass Pro in Springfield has all sorts of them but I found these out in the barn and decided to try to clean them up. I have 2 skillets and one griddle that I salvaged a while back but these I found in the barn were in much worse shape.
They present a bigger challenge. I don't really need them....but I want them....just in case.

I know and Bass Pro in Springfield has all sorts of them but I found these out in the barn and decided to try to clean them up. I have 2 skillets and one griddle that I salvaged a while back but these I found in the barn were in much worse shape.
They present a bigger challenge. I don't really need them....but I want them....just in case.

I grew up only using non-stick, and my husband and I bought pan after pan after we were married. I got tired of replacing the pans and thinking about the fact that most of the non-stick coatings were being eaten by us, so when I talked to my husband about trying cast iron, he pulled out three inexpensive Made in Taiwan pans he got for camping about a decade before we got married. They weren't in great shape, but 2 out of 3 easy enough to clean up, and I learned all about the technique of cooking in cast iron. The little frying pan was going to require the oven cleaner treatment, and because of my asthma and sensitivities I decided to just buy a Lodge pan instead. I love them all. The pans from Taiwan are thinner and lighter, which is good because they are larger, but a little harder to modulate the temperature. The Lodge pan is pretty heavy but cooks beautifully. I think I paid $8 for it!

Husband also had a Wagner Dutch oven we have always used, we cook everything in it and never baby it. The only problem we had is we broke the glass lid once, but I found an original replacement on eBay.

My latest thing is a carbon steel wok to replace the non-stick Ikea wok I thought I was going to have to pry out of my husband's cold, dead hands. We are learning still a bit on the learning curve with it, but it cooks nicely.

Do you have some ammonia, and a trash bag?

put a skillet in the bag, dump in a little ammonia (not much is needed) and close up the bag, come back some hours later and it should have done a number on any grease. (this also works on oven racks, and other things around the kitchen.

palerider wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 01, 2023 4:13 pm

Do you have some ammonia, and a trash bag?

Trash bag ....yes.

Ammonia....No.

Damn.

I gotta go town tomorrow come hell or high water. I got a list of stuff to get and try.

Thanks.

...I really didn't want to mess up the racks in my new stove.

Neighbor's self-cleaning oven.

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 01, 2023 4:17 pm

gotta go town tomorrow

Ice will be gone from roads, I hope.

lazarus wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 01, 2023 8:13 pm

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 01, 2023 4:17 pm

gotta go town tomorrow

Ice will be gone from roads, I hope.

In town and major roads are probably fine right now but the rural county road I live on is slower to clear.
At 5 PM tonight part of it was dry but part is covered with black ice right now.
We never got above freezing today.
I slid all the way across the road to get to my mailbox on my feet. Lots of trees where I live and they prevent the sun (when we get some) from warming the roads enough to do a good melt.

I have about 4 miles of untreated road to get to a main road. Plus it's a very narrow road.....it's a trip just meeting someone on it when not covered in ice. It's the other drivers that worry me.