cast iron skillet cleaning trick - how to

http://www.permies.com

Sometimes you get some petrified crud on your cast iron skillet. An easy trick is to boil a bit of water and use your flat edged stainless steel spatula to gently remove the gick.

Since a cast iron skillet is gonna have layers of seasoning on it, you wanna gently remove the crusty gick while leaving the seasoning layers behind.

This is my griswold cast iron skillet. Probably around a hundred years old and still going strong. It has a good, glassy surface.

Normally, when cooking with a cast iron skillet, the idea is to use techniques such that nothing sticks. I have another video showing that.

My article on using a cast iron skillet is at http://www.richsoil.com/cast-iron.jsp

Never leave water in a cast iron skillet longer than two or three minutes or you could get rust.

The best way to get water out of a cast iron skillet is to use heat.

Cold water in a hot cast iron skillet could cause it to crack.

I'm using organic shortening / palm oil to season this cast iron skillet.

paul wheaton permaculture

Music by Jimmy Pardo

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• cast
• iron
• skillet
• cleaning
• pan
• green
• permaculture
• eco
• organic
• environment

[thowdy]

Alton Brown recommended using kosher salt to clean a cast iron skillet. I tried it and it worked like a champ.

[paulwheaton12]

@thowdy I show that technique in a different video. The salt thing works great most of the time for little things. This video shows off stuff way beyond the salt trick.

[herrmarques]

Paul !! Thanks for the tip .... Great !!! By the way , what is the music you're listening to during the video shooting ...... Pretty cool song .... Who's that , what CD ? Thanks a bunch !!!  herrmarques

[paulwheaton12]

@herrmarques jimmy pardo. ask on the forums at permies.com and I'll set you up with a link (yt doesn't let me put links here)

[anniequilts]

the handle does not get hot and burn your hand?

[paulwheaton12]

@anniequilts I have a hot pad around for when the handle gets hot

[metallicarocks123]

@Shaitan00 no clue I did everything the info on the sites said. I'm told it takes alot of time, patience, which I don't have lol

[Shaitan00]

@metallicarocks123 Sounds like you didn't season your pan properly.

[metallicarocks123]

Hi, I am new to using cast iron pans. Wouldn't we have to worry about food poisioning as we don't actually wash the pans with hot soap and water? I've used my new pan maybe 5 times and everything sticks so bad in it it made me quit using it lol.

[silvermediastudio]

@InvincibleRain I've used cast iron on flat top stoves and there are plenty of people on youtube showing it done. You might call the manufacturer, or just try it out.

[silvermediastudio]

@210482fmj Try refreshing the pan.. bring it down to the bare metal in an oven cleaning cycle or with mechanical means (use some sandpaper or a grinder to get the cooking surface smooth and level). Oil it up and polymerize the surface, rebuild the seasoning layers, and see if that solves the problem.

[thowdy]

@paulwheaton12  I've actually done the boiling thing but was worried about its effects on cast iron. Good to know that it doesn't harm the skillet.

[1955JAFO]

Just got rid of my aluminum pots and pans and non-stick pans and started re-using my old cast iron skillets which are well seasoned (about 30 years old). I'll try your method from now on instead of mine..soap and water and coat with oil afterwards.

Thanks for posting this!!

[2211JW]

@blewis618 Mm good, Crud soup and Hobo hash.