hey all you grits and bacon loving guys...what's the best way to restore an old cast iron pan? I just got one today, and wanna get the rust off the right way, and season it right. I know a lot of you guys are fans of the cast iron, so help a yankee out! :D
I don't know how true this is, but I heard you have to clean them to the metal. I've known some people to just take some steel wool and clean them that way.
Maybe someone else has better ideas as I would like to know also.
Paschale,
Just had a friend of mine do 3 cast iron dutch ovens for me (he's retired) He said all he does is rough out the rust with a wire brush and sand paper, then he coated inside and out with Crisco shortening, bake in the gas grill (It smokes alot) till all the shortening cooked off, re sanded and do it again until the iron gets smooth again. He said he uses 400 grit sand paper.
Looking forward to bean hole beans this summer smiley_beertoast
Full it up with a strong caustic soda mix and boil for a while, that should clean it up OK.
Coat with beef fat and garlic and heat like mad
Here is one site I found with some directions, and ideas.
http://whatscookingamerica.net/Information/CastIronPans.htm
In hunting camp, I found my griddle and fry pan had been 'washed' with soap a few months prior, and they had been left hanging on the wall and became very rusted.
I scrubbed them good with a stick and salt, which removed most of the rust. Then I poured in cooking oil and heated them (don't recall the time or how hot, but 'hot'). Cooled them, wiped them down, and heated them with oil again. No more rust and they went back to working good with pancakes, eggs, and bacon.
Thanks for the recommendations everyone. These are cast iron "molds" for cornbread and the like, so there are divets and things in there. I like the idea of combining some sanding with some sort of solution like what Ernie's talking about. Are you talking about baking soda and water Ernie?
I bought one of those cheap sandblasting guns for the air compressor and a good mask. Takes about 1 minute and your down to white metal. Season with oil like the other guys have suggested.
Here is what I do, and others may vary slightly.
Take your pan and wash it normally (cast iron is going to have a fairly rough texture....kinda fine pebbly finish like the sand it was cast in). Soap and water just like any normal pan, and if rusty a steel wool pad will clean out the divots. Dry it inside and out DRY!. Coat the cooking surface with a thin film of (wipe on a layer like you were painting a wall with a paper towel) veggie oil or butter, or bacon grease, or whatever kind of grease you have handy (I prefer veggie because it won't stink up the house when you cook it off). Place the pan in the oven at about 250 and let it sit there for about an hour.
The cooking surface should be a semi shiny finish now.....kinda dull, but not bare like after washing, and not shiny like fresh oil. if you still have the appearance of standing oil in the pan keep cooking. It will turn black in the pans cooking surface.
After you use the pan! wash normally, and re-oil the surface lightly with veggie oil and put away. It won't rust and the veggie oil won't spoil.
Paschale
Nope, caustic soda, lye, sodium hydroxide, NaOH
All I ever cook with is cast iron. Wife used to fuss about it when we first married. Now she uses them more then her high dollar fancy pans. Just a drop of oil and a egg will not stick. It is harder to burn food in them and I believe food taste better out of them. (it may because I still cook with bacon grease)
Most of mine I sand out with a disc sander on the end of a drill. I start out with 50 grit and end with 220 grit. I then go over it with steel wool. Old corn bread pans like you got I soak with CLR and carefully wire brush to clean out the rust and sand blasting works fine as well. Skillets need a smooth bottom. I season them out side on a coleman stove or wood fire. I fill them half full of LARD and cook it till it is gone. Fires are common. I then scrub it with a stainless steel pad and rise while still warm in warm water. Next heat it up with some Crisco and scrape around inside with a flipper moving the oil around. If you get it smooth and enough oil cooked into it it will be better then teflon. Do not leave food sitting in it and once done cooking rinse it out with a little warm water and put it back on the stove till dry, wipe with a bit of oil.
The only problem with cast iron cook ware is when your wife uses it for a club. It will leave a mark and never dent. :o
Hey P.
Get your hands on some CITRIC ACID crystals. The kind used for soapmaking. About a quarter-cup to a gallon of hot water, in a dishpan, submerge your cast iron in it. Let it sit overnight. Should be down to bare metal in 24 hours or less. Remove, rinse, dry, and season immediately. I refuse to use Crisco, I draw the line at the trans-fats, lard is actually safer. Rub down generously with lard and either throw it on your grill or in the oven for a few hours. Cool off, wipe down, and repeat. Once seasoned, you should NOT EVER use soap on it unless you want to repeat the process. Wipe down with a small amount of hot water and a paper towel, rub a little oil into it and voila! you're all set.
My folks always cooked with cast iron skillets when I was a kid, I made the transition to non-stick etc. and am now back to cast iron. I've amassed a decent collection of old Griswold and Wagner pieces and I love 'em. Nothin' like getting a big skillet red-hot and dropping a rib-eye in with a good Cajun rub and a touch of bacon grease.
Thanks for all these suggestions. The pans in question are pine tree shaped cornbread pans, that I thought would be perfect for the Pig Roast. 8) (Yes, I'm really that nerdy. ::) and I guess a bit addicted to the Forestry Forum. ::)) I was searching for some cookware on Ebay, and saw these Christmas tree shaped corn bread pans, and thought heck, they'd be perfect for the Pig Roast. We've got a ton of cornbread fans on here, and our logo's a pine tree--it was a no brainer, especially when I paid just $2.50 a pan. :D You guys can see a picture here (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4379606235). They're really not all that bad, just mainly surface rust.
What do you guys think about using something like Rust Free from Boeshield on those pans? That's essentially pure phosphoric acid. It'll definitely cause some vapors, since that stuff has a violent reaction to iron, but I bet it'll get it down to bare metal pretty stinkin' quick. Though I suppose I'd have to wear some sorta vapor mask, cause those things will start smoking right away. Maybe that's not too smart.
Somebody online suggested soaking the things in Coca-Cola overnight--I wonder it that'd work too?
If it was me I'd stay away from the chemicals. My thoughts are cast iron is porous and might soak too much of that stuff up. I'd wire brush, sand, whatever for a while and grease it up good, put it on a grill and cook it up as hot as I could get it. Then I'd let it cool slow, wash and scrub it again and repeat the procedure. It's not gonna take long before that heat and that shorting or lard is gonna start taking that rust clean off. One thing about that cast iron is it's not gonna season up completely right the first time even when you do get all the rust off of it. It's gonna take just a little bit of heating, seasoning, and aging to get it just right and get it to where stuff won't stick.
Now, if you want to know what 'I'd' personally really do, even though it might not be completely recommended. I've done it a couple of times especially with rusty iron wash pots like you would kill a hog with and cook out the lard. And a few times with some old rusty skillets.
I'd start with me a fire, oak or hickory would work real good. I'd build me a fire and lay that cast right up on top of it, and then I'd pile some more wood on top of that. I'd build me a good, big, HOT fire. Hot enough to burn all the rust off. I'd let it burn down and just let the cast cool down real slow in the ashes. I wouldn't help it at all with water or anything while it was real hot cause if I did I might bust that cast iron. After it cooled some then I'd get it in some soap and water and me a good scrubby pad of some kind and wash the heck out of it. Then I'd grease it up good with some lard or shorting and start the heating and seasoning procedure, preferable on a grill outside so's I wouldn't smoke up the house. I'd do this a minimum of two or three or four times, washing and seasoning with grease each time until I got it looking clean black, and just right. After I got it good and blackened to the point where the cornbread mixture wouldn't stick after each time I used it I'd wash it with mild soap and water and lightly oil it before putting it up. Then before using it I'd wipe it down good and oil again.
In regard to breathing fumes. Before I came here sometimes when I wanted to get some more information about or heat treating some steel I was working on I used to visit a blacksmithing forum sometimes. The original forum I would visit had shut down but there was another one I would check in on sometimes and just read. I hadn't been there in a 'long' time but the other day I was wondering something and decided to check in so I could spy through their archives.
The original question I had when I first went there was I had an old anvil that was one of my great uncles that I wanted to restore and I wanted to know how. I found out right quick that most of those guys will tell you to just leave it alone, but yall know how I am. Anyways there was this one guy there they called paw-paw that helped me out, and told me exactly what to do and how to reface it, what kind of metal to use, and how I could heat treat it to get it back hard. In talking to him I learned a lot that I didn't know about metal, and especially about 'wrought iron'. This would probably been about four or five years ago and I did complete a restoration of the anvil, and with his help I built a new anvil from scratch using a big chunk of mild steel for the base, a piece from a forklift tine for the face, and a piece of tractor axle for the pointed end.
The other day I decided to stop by there and read what they were talking about. I found that paw-paw was in the hospital with phenomena. Come to find out, even though the folks there said he knew better, he was burning some galvanize off of some pipes in his shop and breathed too many of the fumes and wound up with zinc poisoning in his lungs. They even said that he ran everybody out of his shop while he was burning the galvanize off.
He passed away last weekend. Be careful what you breath.
the rust won't hurt you, but it may make things taste funny if you don't get the caked up stuff off. If it is just surface stuff (like film) leave it and start cooking....use oil on the surface! The rust won't hurt you a bit! iron in your diet is good for you, and that is a fact....not a joke.
Doc
I just had to post a picture of my collection cast iron is not just for them southerners couldn't cook some stuff without. Instead of a China cabinet I need a cabinet to show off my cast ironware.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11540/cast_iron_pans.jpg)
I think this pan is neat it is my cornbread pan ;)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11540/cornbreadpan.jpg)
The smallest holds about 2 Tbs I think it is a coffee scoop but I am not sure. ???
Stump jumper has to really tow the mark I have enough pans to reach across the house ;D ;D ;D
That's an amazing collection, Mrs. Stump-Jumper. 8) Thanks for sharing those pics!
So it begs the question of whether or not your collection reflects how often Stump-jumper's been in the dog house. ;) I can just see it now...
"Stump-Jumper...ya did it again. Time for me to go buy myself a new cast iron pan!" :D
As I see it, you pretty near have one pan for every day of the month. It's probably not so bad when Stump-jumper doesn't tow the mark, since you get to refamiliarize yourself with your collection. ;)
"Oh...it's the first Monday of the second week of the month. Today is miniature cast iron pan day! Yay! It's sorta like an old friend." A pause, while Mrs. Stump-jumper recollects where she found that cool tiny pan. Then, like a bolt of lightning: "Come here, Stump-jumper!!!!" :o
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D
Paschale is funny. :)
But I can see why StumpJumper is well-behaved. There is a 'pan' for EVERY occasion. Hang in there StumpJumper.
And it's gonna take an awesome cabinet to house all that 'iron', (and a bit more than a 'china' one would be). :) :)
I thought stumps head looked a little flat at Jeffs........... :o :o ;) :D :D
Well Mrs._Stump_Jumper,
with all them cast iron pans you must certainly know how to keep em clean and non rusty.
So what's your secrets :P
Some of the best cookin I ever ate came from cast iron-wares. That's what grandma did her cookin on and on the old kitchen wood stove. Never paid no mind to the clean'n, was too busy enjoy'n the cook'n. :)
whats up with that little iddy biddy one?
i hit rusty pans with a drill and wire wheel. then rub em down with a raw peice of bacon
To clean my pans I wash them with soap and water after each use and then rub them down with oil. When they get really bad we scrub them down real good and then use lard about half the size of the pan and cook really hot keeping all sides of pan oiled inside and out until black and heat them outside on Jeff's Coleman stove you don't want to do this in the house because it gets real smokey and will set off smoke alarms.
Redpowered
We got most of these pans when we purchased a cabin in the U.P. they were all hanging on the wall. Most of these are stored away there is only a few of them that I use. I kept them after we sold the place. So I do not know a story behind the little pan. I really like the flat griddles does good for pancakes and french toast I am still learning to do eggs on these.
Eggs are difficult on the flat ones (I am assuming they have a very tiny lip around the edge). I am not coordinated enough to cook eggs on them, but they work really well for a thin cornbread my grandfather calls hocakes. Really thin cornbread batter poured out over the pan like pancake and baked till crispy on the outside. Good with blackeyed peas!
It is 9 in the morning and I am already getting hungry! AARRRRGGGG!
I am going to have to break out the cookbooks again, and go on a cooking spree.
Doc
I agree with Doc about not getting down to metal with those pans. The rust was caused by using water on them and not drying them properly. I would never use a chemical on my cast iron pans either. If it were me with those awesome Forestry Forum Cornbread Pans, I'd wipe them down with peanut oil and then wipe with a paper towel....I'd repeat that process until very little rust showed up on the paper towel. Then I'd wipe the pan with peanut oil again and let it heat in the oven at 375 for an hour. I'd repeat the peanut oil and heating treatment every night until that thing was shining and completely black.
To prevent rust from ever getting to your cast iron pans again, after washing with mild soap and drying, heat your oven to 350...put the clean pan inside the warm oven, turn off the oven and leave the pan in there overnight. It drys it completely. :)
Been cooking and colecting cast iron for years,take pans outside and bury in a pile of dead oak leaves lite pile on fire cover with rest of leaves and let burn until cool,dust them off and you are all set.Dont ever use soap as that will destory the season. To clean after cooking heat pan up hot .drop small amount of water from tap into it and wipe out with paper towel or non metal scruber enjoy. Dont forget you will never need iron pills if you cook in these. See ya the bacon is almost done. Mtn Jack