Thought I had screwed up my Lodge 12" CI skillet, until.....

I found the right place to learn on the net.

I was washing it with soap and water, most definitely a no-no! After three or four washes, even putting oil back on it according to the instructions, I noticed it started getting silvery looking and I realized that I had removed a lot of the seasoning.

No problem I thought. Went to the Lodge website and followed the instructions for re-seasoning. Big mistake. It came out of that with black chickenpox.

So, I started looking around on the net and found the Youtube channel of Jeffrey B. Rogers, The Culinary Fanatic. He is a CI fanatic. Incredible amount of information. Thing like:

- Never use soap, why, and what to use.
- He re-seasons every pan, including NEW pre-seasoned Lodges (it's Crisco baby!)
- New Lodge stuff is not as smoothly machined as the old stuff. He uses a drill and a wire wheel on new ones!
- Very detailed how to for everything CI.
- Take all the crud and seasoning off using your oven cleaning cycle

A great video channel! I just removed everything off my skillet with two hours of oven cleaning. Now I'm ready to do it right and waiting for my wife to come home from the grocery store with some Crisco and scrub pads . I'll post some pics later.

Best,

Jose

That's cool. Though I've not tried it, I heard Flaxseed Oil was the best seasoning.

Dwain Pannell said:

That's cool. Though I've not tried it, I heard Flaxseed Oil was the best seasoning.

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I've only used Cast Iron Skillets for years now, and over the years I've gathered a nice collection of both new and old.
For seasoning a new CIS I highly recommend cooking bacon. Even my smallest skillet 6" has been seasoned once or twice in bacon.
If you strip your seasoning just cook more bacon.
Did I mention bacon is good for cast iron.

The results are in. Jeffrey's method works perfectly.

In the oven after two hours in oven's clean cycle. Removed everything and I mean everything from the skillet.



I then washed it in hot water and soap using a green scrubbing pad. Dried it and put it in the oven at 200 degrees for 15 minutes. Then took it out and put this on:



With the pan at 200 degrees the pores are more open in the CI, the Crisco melts immediately and really penetrates into the pan. Then back in the oven at 300 degrees for 15-minutes. Pulled it out and wiped it down with a clean rag to further remove any excess Crisco. Then back in the oven at 400 degrees for 2-hours.

I did that seasoning twice. Here's what it looks like after I finished. Perfect seasoning - looks better than new .



Best,

Jose

Very nice job!

Jose
That CIS will most likely be a hand me down in your family for generations.

~Mark~ said:

Jose
That CIS will most likely be a hand me down in your family for generations.

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Yes, it will outlive me for sure. I'm cooking some brats and onion and peppers on it as I'm writing this. You can only do so much with "seasoning". This things are meant to be used, often. That's where the real seasoning comes from .

Oh yea, the more you use it the better it gets. One of mine is over 100 years old, and it's fantastic to use.

Just wanted to bring this back up and say it really works.

I had some old cast iron leftover from my divorce, plus a lodge skillet and the weber griddle. I had not really seasoned them properly and the lodge skillet looked bad.

Putting them in the oven on clean cycle REALLY worked. They came out great. As bad as they looked, it was amazing what came up.

I seasoned them as per above and they look really good.

Thanks Jose for posting this