My cast iron pan's seasoning is very patchy with large spots of bare iron and flakes off a bit. I've been using it for almost four years and it has never been the nice even inky black I see in photos.
Should I admit defeat, burn all of the seasoning off in the oven and start it over again?
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Use oven cleaner to remove the seasoning. Follow Cooks Illustrated's method to reseason it. It's time consuming (like all day), so reserve a Sunday for it.
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And NEVER wash it with detergent. Just use a paper towel and wipe it out and give it a good wipe down with olive oil
I have had hell trying to get my pans seasoned properly until I stopped caring about them (grilling tomatoes and eggs, boiling water in them) and just doing whatever the hell.
Now they have a nice black sheen
This.
Cast iron is best when you stop trying so hard. Like any good relationship, daily use and a little abuse is all you need to make it work.
Use Bon Ami or another light abrasive (comet and ajax are fine) for getting tough food stuffs off.
Detergent is fine if washed immediately after soaking. A few times one of the squatters living in my home soaked the pan overnight (ignorant of the nuances of cast iron) and it lost its seasoning.
After drying, rub a very light coat of oil over the inner edges. Always do this. It will season well, not rust, and be good overall.
Source: Son of pioneer-obsessed woman
That's burnt on food flecking off. Polymerized oil is chemically bonded, so only paranoid autists will say NEVER USE OIL, NEVER COOK TOMATOES.
Oh, and the reason it's not flat black is because they're not polished like they used to be, because it cheapens the manufacturing process. If you really want you could strip it, polish it, and then reseason it. But honestly, who cares?
That looks fine to me. Do you have issues with food sticking to the pan? Otherwise I wouldn't mess with it.
*never use soap*
The worst thing you can do for your seasoning is putting liquid into the hot pan and cooling it suddenly. You don't need soap to clean it, but occasional soap won't destroy the seasoning.
The downsides to improper seasoning are food sticking, something you can manage by lowering your heat towards the end, and an affinity to rust, which is easily eliminated with a thin coat of oil.
You can remove burnt residue with any abrasive sponge and hot water. It extreme cases use sand or even steel wool. That will damage your seasoning, but it won't take it off in one wipe.
Seasoning takes a very hot temperature and it causes a lot of acrid smoke. Your stove is ill equipped and you don't want it in your kitchen.
I do mine out in the open over coals. Just clean and dry your iron cookware, cover it in heat stable oil like canola, and then heat it above ~400°C. Allow to cool and repeat.
Cast iron is great. But now all my love goes to my hammered iron pan. It's cheap, light, and does everything my cast iron does. I'd only use the cast iron pan in the stove or as a heat reservoir for serving now.
>burn all of the seasoning off in the oven
This does not work. Your oven hardly gets hot enough to polymerize cooking oils. It gets nowhere near hot enough to "burn off" seasoning.
To remove seasoning you need steel wool and toothpaste, and a steadfast shoulder. Beats me why you would though, seasoning doesn't go bad.
this is wrong as hell. not sure how it works, but it turns the petein into rust and it all flakes off of the pan. you are left with a lightly rusted but very steely pan for reseasoning.
>he fell for the cast iron meme
it'll last so long that you can pass it down to the kids! And that way they can start pulling their hair out too!
my cast iron makes everything taste like fucking iron. is this normal? is it healthy?
Iron doesn't transfer flavor. Maybe it's a coating? Cast iron is sometimes factory sealed with wax or a petrochemical polymer.
Actual iron traces in your diet are an essential nutrient. Doctors prescribe iron pills if your blood count is off.
If any issues reseason
Dont use cast iron
Memers
Patricians
most of the comments here so far as complete crap
Are you a bunch of morons or what?
>The worst thing you can do for your seasoning is putting liquid into the hot pan and cooling it suddenly.
That's simply not true at all.
That's not rust, it's burned food.
no, its fucking rust you twat. the petin is removed from the pan and the whole thing is rusty looking.
Normal cooking temperatures won't get hot enough to clean cast iron, but throwing it in during a self clean will.
this.