Cast Iron

Post your meme irons, this is the one i have, currently polishing the bottom before reseasoning, will post photos after

i use a teflon pan lol

You're doing a lot of unnecessary work op. I used mine straight from the store and just keep a little bit of fat in the pan most of the time and cook with it daily. Never had sticking issues.

I have a 2nd pan thats older than i am and works much better, It may just be a better seasoning, but I had time to kill and had to reseason anyhow

Bump

Does this count?

Also have an 8" and 12" Lodge CI and a 10" DeBuyers Mineral B. I think the latter gets the most use out of everything.

Op here wanting a 2nd opinion, whats the best method for seasoning cast iron? Ill likely use vegetable oil unless theres a huge difference between that and flax seed, but people seem to debate between stove top seasoning and in an oven

I got three and a carbon steel, but I'm not gonna take pictures. I barely use them except for the carbon steel one. I just don't sear meat that much.

Replace it with vintage cast iron (like Griswold or hundreds of unbranded ones) or artisan cast iron (like Stargazer). Mass produced modern stuff is too coarse on the bottom. Old stuff is machined glassy smooth.

scrap your cast iron and invest in copper

I've got one of these except its lodge and its white. Its dope, i make japanese curry in it weekly. an user on this board gave me a bread recipe im excited to make with it.

flax seed is a meme, do not use it. It will flake off later. There was literally one article that said flax seed was the best, it was poorly researched and turned out to be total shit.

are you still able to sear on the ceramic coating?

I just made potato soup in one and fried the bacon fine.

ez pz, it still gets nice and hot

Oven is good for when you want to get complete coverage for storage. It doesn't make sense to me to do that every time, though. Direct heat will kill that underside seasoning after not too long, and just hitting it with some oil as it's preheating is easy and effective.

Olive oil has a low smoke point so use that, you want it to smoke and because that indicates the actual polymerization of the oil to the iron, essentially making a coat of non stick "plastic oil".

Do it upside down because heat and steam/smoke rises, and you want it to rise into your cooking surface.

Make sure your pan is as clean as possible; heat up some water in it (not boiling) and wipe it out with a towel, repeat if necessary, then season.

>excuse my reddit spacing but this shit is important and I want it to be clear

One hour at 450f is good, let it cool on the stove or a safe place.

NEVER use soap
NEVER boil water in it
NEVER put a hot pan under running water, it could warp if repeated over time.

Also check out Cowboy Kent Rollins on yt, he's a dickhead but his advice on cast iron is bretty gud

Soap is fine. The no soap thing is a leftover from when soaps were made with lye, which will strip seasoning. Modern dish soaps are perfectly safe. Just be sure to quickly dry it.

The lye thing is true but soap (this is just my experience) has a tendency to make it taste like soap, like it gets "in there" and makes everything you cook nasty.

Either way, a well seasoned pan rinsed with warm water should be visually clean, and a quick "mini season" stove top gig or sticking it back in the shut off oven while it's still hot will kill any germs, essentially the same end effect of soap. It's just a little different process, that could be a pain in the ass to some, just the way things are to others, and a novelty to hipsters.

Never had that issue at all. Also seasoned with flax and never had the slightest bit of flaking two years down the line.

Did you miss thr part where i said i was sanding and polishing the bottom?
No
Thanks for the advice!

On the flax, just a couple notes for getting it to work.

1. It absolutely NEEDS to be organic flax seed oil. This isn't a hippie health thing. Non-organic flax is treated to not oxidize. This is nice in that it gives it a shelf life longer than a couple months. But it also totally stops the bonding process of seasoning.

2. Get the pan absolutely perfectly clean before starting. Can be kind of a pain, but make sure there isn't .1% surface area covered by old seasoning or the smallest bit of rust.

3. You need to apply crazy thin coats. Wipe the oil on, then use paper towels until they come back totally dry, and then use three more. You'll have to put these coats on a dozen times. Warm it up before each coat too.

4. Cook that shit the highest your oven goes for several hours. Then let cool for several hours before the next coat. You can probably only manage two coats a day if you're employed. It will be at least a week long project and pretty much needs to be done in winter because of the whole oven on 12hrs a day bit.

Seasoned my pan about two years ago. I find it to be by FAR my best seasoning, but it's incredibly unforgiving to apply. One tiny shortcut or mistake and it'll peel in a week.

Pan is as stripped and smooth as i can get with sandpaper, qill touch up tomorrow after a thorough wasu then season Wednesday since i dont work til the afternoon that day

Piggybacking on this thread, what's a good carbon steel pan to get? I tried Lodge and it cooks good but it's got the same rough finish as their cast iron and seasoning it fucking sucks

debuyer

surely this is better than seasoning with vegetable oil

If your cast iron pan doesnt have a wooden handle I feel sorry for you

why would you trade functionality for a wooden handle

So is Finex a total meme or are they truly legit? I mean they seem pretty nice, had a great finish when i saw one in the store. Any anons have experience with these?

Hnnnnng. Auntie got me a fr3nch oven for xmas years back. Im a slow oven hot pot cooker. Fit a whole chicken in that shit. Then render the carcass on the stove stop.

>it counts, ceramic coated cast is honorary

It's a nicer surface than my vegetable oil or lard pans by far. But my god it's a fucking pain.

So is there any sellers that offer pans that are NOT pre-seasoned?

All these plebe pre-seasoned pans are annoying.

I'd be forever afraid that the handle would break and cover my feet with hot grease/cheese/lava.

Stop with this meme you fucking retards. It literally makes no difference once well seasoned

As someone who actually has experience with multiple kinds of pans, it absolutely does. The new ones never season to be fully smooth. Maybe if you gave it 250 years of use, but regular seasoning buildup, even over an entire lifetime, will never match even a freshly seasoned older pan.

Fantastic pans, great quality, horrrrrrible price.

Vintage Wagner or Griswold or something else is going to be much cheaper and similar quality.

Really? You'd have to hunt for a vintage wagner or griswold and I feel like you'll end up paying a lot now that everybody thinks cast iron is worth so much. Plus it won't be brand new. Is the Finex overpriced like they're getting rich off me, or is it just how much it costs for them to make it?

Just remove the seasoning faggot

How nonstick is a cast iron skillet supposed to be? Mine always seems to get stuff stuck to the bottom. I really don't want to smoke out my apartment seasoning it again.

>You'd have to hunt for a vintage wagner or griswold
I wouldn't because over the last decade i've acquired over a dozen of various sizes and keep the ones I want and sell the ones I don't to plebs who can't be bothered.

hey im a pleb sell me one

honestly I thought cast iron was a meme until I sanded down some shit one I have from Walmart (lodge maybe?), and went though a solid 6 rounds of seasoning. Then for the next 3-6 months I cooked all my fatty foods in it, or used a shit ton of oil and butter.

that was about 18 months ago, my cast iron pan performs like a non stick now.

>paying extra to do more work

wtf

season after every use

I've been using a walmart cast iron pan for years without issue, they're not as hard to maintain as people think, just don't scrub them raw or put them in the fucking dishwasher, oil after use...

Those don't have the same applications.