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How to clean anything and everything!
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First of all, NEVER use soap on cast iron cookware. After cooking and while pan is still hot run some hot water into it and sit it back on the stove for a few minutes. If anything is burnt on, turn the burner on low. After a brief period of de-glazing drain it and sprinkle liberally with table salt. Wash with a cloth and a little hot water. Rinse with hot water and dry thoroughly. Allow pot to air-dry for awhile and lightly grease inside (if needed) with fingers or a paper towel.
Note: a metal or synthetic scouring pad may be used if needed, as long as it contains NO SOAP. I very seldom need anything more abrasive than salt.
to get the nonstick back on the cast iron this works great. Clean cast iron w/soap & water, dry completely. Apply a coat of oil or shortening (non flavored). Preheat over to 350. Put aluminum foil on bottom of oven put cast iron on top shelf upside down and bake for one hour. Turn oven off and leave pan in oven until cool. Clean pan with boiling water, plastic scrub or bun. (no soap). Dry thoroughly, spray lightly with Pam, wipe with a paper towel and store.
I have heard from some of the elders ladies in town that to recondition a cast iron pot (not the non stick kind, the old fashioned kind) you simply place in the fireplace for an hour. I don’t know what this does other that burn off anything that isn’t the pot. I imagine a good cleaning is in order afterward. I have the seen the posting about NOT using soap… but I wonder why? I have never heard of this.
You don’t use soap, because soap is a surfactant and removes the oils that the cast iron collects to become non-stick. This is the same for the stoneware that has become popular. Both will absorb the oils (fats) in the items cooked, and then become non-stick. By using soap you will release the oils that you are trying to keep. The second reason for avoiding soap is that the pans can absorb the soap and you will have a soapy taste to what you cook in it next.
To clean crusty build-up and burnt-on food, soak in a solution of lye (sodium phosphate) and water.
Add about one can of lye to five gallons of water and soak overnight. Then wash and scrape off the built up crud. Lye will loosen the build-up and you can wash it right off. For rust removal, soak in a vinegar-water solution of half and half or stronger. Careful with the vinegar, it will pit the cast iron if left in too long. Wait about eight hours and check it, then scrape and scrub. Also be careful with the lye solution – use rubber gloves and eye protection. Lye is very caustic and will burn the skin. Lye won’t hurt the iron. It can be left as long as needed, well, almost.
Use oven cleaner and wrap in plastic wrap or in Ziploc bag overnight instead of using a lye solution (oven cleaner contains lye). See earlier tip for using lye solution or vinegar.
Correction: 100% Lye is sodium hydroxide, not sodium phosphate.
If you have a piece of cast iron that is real dirty, you can put about an inch of white playground sand in the bottom and top off with water and boil it. Just keep an eye that it doesn’t boil dry. Make sure you re season after you boil it and wash it out.
Oh and do not put the sand down the sink drain. Take it out back and dump it.
To clean my cast iron skillets, I use hot water and steel wool. Never, never use soap! This is a very good way to ruin them. When I need to season them, I use a little oil on a paper towel. I wipe them, then put them in the oven on a slow heat for an hour. After the hour is up, I turn the heat off and leave them in the oven.
Fireplace method works great
I once took a cast iron skillet camping. After cooking on it, I’d just turn it upside down in the fire. I also would kill the fire in the evenings by putting the skillet upside down in the coals and then covering the whole thing with two inches of sand. If there was food caked onto the skillet I’d scour with sand before putting it upside down on the fire again. Before each use and when I broke camp, I coated the skillet lightly with olive oil and rubbed it down to remove any ashes clinging to the inside. The skillet loved that treatment and came home perfectly seasoned. The food tasted great, too (but then camp food always does).
At home, where the tyrannical smoke alarm will not even let me use the broiler, I’m stuck cleaning my cast iron with hot water and a bristle brush, and seasoning on the stove or in the oven; it doesn’t like this nearly so much, but it’s usable anyway. I always finish up any cleaning by coating the pan with oil and heating it on the stove to kill anything still on it before it can multiply.
Cleaning cast iron
I just got a really rusted cast iron pan. I read that soaking in vinegar and water it will remove the rust but leaving it too long can damage the pan. I’ve had to soak this pan for a week and has removed all the rust finally. My question is how does it damage the pan? The pan looks to be fine and smooth. The only thing I noticed is that you get iron on your towel when you wipe it.
Vinegar damaging the pan
The vinegar contains acid which will eat into the metal. Once you’ve got all the rust off it’s important to soak it in an alkaline solution to stop the effects. Something like washing soda does the job. If you’re getting iron on your cloth the pan may not be seasoned properly – try re-seasoning it and never use soap to clean it as this removes the seasoning.
Hope that helps
Cleaning Cast Iron- The ONLY WAY
Never, never, never use soap! To clean, use hot water and a brush or scrubber. Afterward, coat lightly with oil. To season cast iron, forget about using vegetable oil, use only BACON GREASE!
Coat the utensil with bacon grease, put upside down for about 2-4 hours on your BBQ grill outside on high, let cool, repeat this 2 to 3 times. Your cast iron will look and feel 100 years old and be non stick! As a Scoutmaster for 14 years I have seasoned dozens of cast iron cookware and this is 2nd to none! Remember, never use soap to clean, if it is dirty beyond cleaning with hot water and a brush, cook it on high in a BBQ grill for a few hours, clean and re-season with bacon grease.
Cast iron pan
When I wiped my cast iron dutch oven, I get a black residue on the cloth. There is no rust and I have never washed it with soap, just hot water and dry it by placing it in the oven. What did I do wrong and can I correct this?
Black Residue is OK
You’re doing nothing wrong. The black residue is just carbon from your cooking. If large amounts of black carbon build up in the pot, just scrap lightly while wet with a spatula, don’t try to get it all off. Just remember never clean it with soap, use hot water and brush lightly with brush, rinse, wipe dry and coat lightly inside with oil. That’s it from beginning to end!
I think it’s kind of paranoid to not use soap. If you use the pan enough, the grease layer will be pretty thick.
Also, you should not wash it that much – use it, then rinse it with a brush if you want, and leave it on the stove (using heat to dry it out). Put a lid on it to keep it clean. If you use it twice a day, it’s never really going to get “dirty”. I wash once every week or so, with soap.
I know, it sounds disgusting and unsanitary to some of you, but, that’s the way to cook. It’s cooking, not surgery. The heat kills the germs. Your kitchen’s supposed to be in operation a few hours every day. Back when cast iron was common, people cooked three or four hours a day.
Nowadays, most Americans wash everything all the time, cook for 30 minutes once a day, usually mixing take-away with something cooked and something microwaved, and basically don’t have a “cast iron” lifestyle. That’s why we use Teflon.
How to remove rust from cast iron
When we bring a new old cast iron skillet or pot home, we use a pumice stone to remove the rust. We also use a brass wire brush I bought at Kroger to clean it. To clean our seasoned casst iron, I scrub it with a brush and then dry it on top of stove. I then oil it with lard and put it away.
Dishwasher is OK
I’ve been cleaning my cast iron pans in the dishwasher for years with no problems. Simply wipe a little olive oil or other fat (no vegetable oil) in them after washing and they’re good to go. Dishwasher detergent seems to be the one thing that sticks to Teflon pans. I’d like to know where the “no soap” myth originated . . . anyone?
No Soap?
I have cleaned my cast iron with soap and without. The way I understand the reasoning for not using soap is that at one time soap was made with lye (just like oven cleaner you would use to strip and old pan) and would ruin the seasoning very quickly – hence no soap.
Modern mild detergents don’t seem to do nearly as much damage to the seasoning. I tend to avoid soap with my pans as much as possible even so. I would avoid any soap that brags about it’s grease fighting properties though.
Unconventional method for removing rust
We had a rusted pot that seemed to be too far gone. I told my wife that I had heard that if you take it to the car wash and soak it with the tire wash, then spray it real hard with the spray in the soap cycle. I would not use these harsh chemicals on my good cast iron, but this needed something radical. She came back soaked and her car was clean but what about the pot? Lets just say she’s a believer. I took the pot inside and used hot water and a scrub pad and then rubbed oil all over it. We will see in the morning how it fared.
Rotten food, smelly cast iron dutch oven.
I forgot about some carrots and zucchini in my cast iron pot, and discovered them some two weeks later on the stove top. It smelled terrible of course. What is the best way to get the smell out of the pan?
Taking the stink out of cast iron
Best way to get all the oil (including motor oil) and stink out of or off of a cast iron pan is build a campfire and toss the pan in. I take an old wire coat hanger and wire it to the handle leaving the wire outside the fire so I can take the pan out as needed, remembering anything in or close to the fire is hot. The wire comes in handy to in case you would like to use this to hang the pan till cool… This will remove all the oils and stink, however you will have to wash and re-season but I found it is well worth the effort because you have a blank canvas to work with, to get off the black after washing you put the pan on the stove top, heat till you see the water evaporating take a paper towel and wipe it dry. Take the same paper towel and use it to apply your fresh oil to pan, wipe till all coated, throw paper towel away and you are done. Always remember too that cast iron is like any other material. Hot pans put down on too cold a surface may cause the pan to crack, had a friend who cleaned his cast pan in a black smiths forge and found out the hard way %$&#@ lol… The smelly pans are sometimes attributed to the oil that was used, any oil that sits without being heated for long periods of time the oil will start to decay because after all from an animal mostly pork renderings bacon, lard etc. Some people use corn products like shortening as this works also, the oil or shortening is used to fill the porous holes in the cast iron thus giving it the non stick cooking. Heating the cast iron in the oven, grill and etc. causes the pours in the cast iron to open allowing for the oils and etc. to go deeper into the metal making for a better non stick cook surface. When cast iron cools, it locks the oils down into the cast iron when heating the pan you will see the oils start to come out of the pours of the cast iron. The black or brown coloring comes from about the same procedure as a gunsmith used to use in the olden days to blue gun barrels or gun parts, bluing is a controlled rust so salts and other seasonings over time will help color the cast iron with the heating and applying methods being very similar even down to the coating of oil to stop the bluing or rusting process of the cast iron. I just learned lately from an elderly lady that when cast iron is used over a campfire it helps to coat the outside of the bottom of the pan with soap before putting it on the fire, makes it easier cleanup after the cooking is done. I hope my ramblings have helped some of you…
God Bless and Happy Cooking
Oops -- help!
I installed a new stove with a middle long burner with a cast iron skillet to fit. I seasoned it followed the directions planned on making pancakes, eggs, etc. but must have done something wrong. Now there is shortening gunk, sticky on the skillet. I must have used too much shortening. How do I clean this off & re-season. I really want to use it. Someone told me to make a paste out of dishwasher detergent and let it sit for a few hours, and scrape off? Should I do this?
Cleaning a 5th burner cast insert
With an insert all sticky and gunky, just soak it in dawn dish-soap, or any other will do the same thing. Take a stainless steel pad or scotch bright and it should clean off easily. The trouble with shortening is it does tend to get gunky, once cleaned you may want to try a spray like Pam. You may have better luck, just spray a light coat and wipe it evenly, you should have good results, dishwasher detergent might be too caustic and tends to make the cast rust easily if not tended to immediately.
Why No Soap?
The reason you don’t want to use soap is that cast iron is porous, unlike stainless cookware. Anyplace where you’re taking seasoning off, you’re essentially taking off the sealant. At that point, you have soap in the cast iron and not only will it be difficult to season, but it will impart a soapy taste to the things you cook in it.
Soap
I would think that if the health department learned that restaurants weren’t using soap to clean cast iron pans, they would be shut down. The pan isn’t clean if it’s only been scraped, dried and re-oiled.
No soap?
I’ve been using cast iron for a while now. I have never had trouble with the use of soap on well seasoned CA.
Normally I don’t really need soap. Hot water and a paper towel work fine most of the time.
The reason soap is not recommended is because at one time many/most soaps were made with lye. Lye is very caustic and is one of the methods used for “stripping” old crud/seasoning before re-seasoning. I have done this myself. Modern dishwashing liquids do not contain lye.
I DO recommend using a mild soap, and wouldn’t soak a CA pan in a heavy degreaser overnight, but occasional use of a mild detergent has NEVER caused a problem for me personally. That said, I normally work in this order:
Wipe clean with paper towel if possible. If not, use hot water and a paper towel. If that is not enough I use a little oil and some coarse salt. I rarely use soap unless I am feeling a little lazy.
So you can’t go wrong avoiding soap, but occasional use of mild soap will not ruin your CA. Well seasoned CA is slicker than Teflon and cleanup for me usually means a quick wipe.
One more thing about soap
I forgot to mention that as far as soap is concerned, degreasing agents “will” strip surface oil from cast iron and give the surface a dull gloss. Re-oiling will make it shiny again. When properly seasoned the oils seep into the pores of the cast iron, and the the heat polymerizes the oil to form a hard “varnish” that is “locked” into the pores of the cast iron.
Degreasing will only remove the surface oils which can be easily replaced. The soap your grandma told you never to use was probably lye, and that is a no no as it will remove everything but the pan. Traditions die hard and this WAS very important advice back in the day.
Mild dish detergents will not do this used in moderation. Oil and salt is best, and renews the oils while it cleans, but soap is not the scourge it once was. Season well and use the pan a lot and you will always have a well seasoned pan. Use it once a year, wash it with soap and water and then put it away wet until next year and you are guaranteed to have a pan that EVERYTHING sticks to.
I have a couple of my great, great grandmother’s cast iron skillets, and got them early because my mother never figured out how to use them correctly and switched to teflon. Her loss!
Cleaning cast iron Dutch Oven
My son needed to clean his Cast Iron Dutch oven, after researching many ways people have don it. I said to him my Mom always boiled potato skins in her tea kettle to clean it. So he said let’s give it a try. In went two potatoes, filled it up with water and boiled it for about an hour. you wouldn’t believe what was on the bottom of the pot. Not quite good enough yet so we tried cream of tarter. Worked OK, but not good enough so back to two more potatoes and a pot filled to the brim with water. Boiled it on low for two hours. Emptied it out Amazing results. Wire brushed it after it cooled down as it formed some rust. It looked great so was ready to season it. Good luck if you try it and hopefully it will work for you.
Cast iron
Some of my cast iron skillets, pots and pans have wooden handles on them, there for I can’t put them in the oven to dry, so I place them on the top burner of my stove.
I also use veggie oil to prep them, I read bacon grease is better but I very rarely have that.
Re: cast iron w/wooden handles
I have 2 cast iron pots with wooden handles also. I season mine in oven same as skillets; to remove the handles I just unscrew them from the pan; at the end of the handle. but yours may not be made like mine with round wooden handles with a long screw. But if they are; try to remove them, after you clean & season them just simply re-screw them back to pan.
I have a collection of old cast iron pans, I use them all regularly. I never buy new, and to clean an old cast iron pan is quite simple. I purchased a hand held sand blaster at Home Depot for about 12 bucks and a bag of the finest grit they had. It takes about 5 minutes to remove all the old coating from a pan. Make sure you do it outside and wear gloves and safety goggles. I then go over it with a Dremel tool polishing the surface. When I am done I have a shiny new, old pan ready to be seasoned.
I’ve read all the comments on how to clean my black iron skillet and will try some – but there is lots of crud on the OUTSide of my very old abused and missused treasure. I can’t do the sanding thing, or the fireplace thing, but what else will work? Anybody tried the oven-cleaner in a plastic bag overnight thing?
Cooking with cast iron will give you much needed iron in your system. Our fast food life style is not giving us the vitamins we need so doctors are finding that more people are anemic than in the past because of using aluminum no stick pans. This is a proven fact.
I recently purchased a comal, a flat cast iron round griddle used to heat/cook tortillas. The information that came with the pan said it was pre-seasoned. The last pan I had said the same thing but it isn’t seasoned so you must season it yourself. Don’t cook vegetables (unless in a stew or similar) or acidic foods in the pan like tomatoes for acid will remove some of the non-stick coating you some lovingly spent time to make.
Never, ever put something cold in an extremely hot cast iron pot as it can warp. I was taught as well to never use soap and if the need arrives, I put water in the pan and heat on the stove and then if I have to, use steel wool to get the rest of the residue off, dry completely and recoat the pan.
To season your pan/pot, Put your pan in the oven and put the oven on clean for two hours or so. This will burn off the factory coating. It is cast iron and there is no way that it will be damaged from the heat generated by your oven so even longer won’t hurt. Let the oven cool (you have to wait anyway before it will let you unlock the door).coat the inside of the pan with a layer of vegetable oil or shortening. I would stay away from anything with a “taste” like olive oil or bacon fat, which tends to get rancid and also has a low smoke point for the purpose of seasoning the pan. Apply the another coating of oil/shortening and you are good to go. The more you use it, the more it gets non-stick. I have put cast iron cookware in a fire pit or fireplace or BBQ grill and no method works as easy as this one and it is also much safer as long as you let the pan cool and no sparks to contend with like in a fire!
I recently purchased two corn cob shaped cornbread cast iron pans at an estate sale. They are coated in a thick, oily goo all over. I’d like to clean them and get them ready for use in my own home, with my own seasoning. What would be the best way to degrease/clean these pans?
I recently purchaced a large antique cast iron teapot. It is rusted inside and the opening is not very large making it difficult to scrub off the rust with steel wool. I read all the above remarks which discussed pots and pans and using oil, which I do to season all my other cast iron cookware as this is all I use, but I don’t want to season the teapot with oil as I am afraid it will cause my tea to taste like oil. Suggestions on how to clean out all the rust from teapot and then what?? Leave it with or without oil?