Hello, my name is Jokester and I have been inspired to learn how to cook by watching RU-vid videos. Join me as I try out amazing new recipes and hopefully I will get a lot better at cooking. Thank you for watching and for your support!
I really appreciate how you've done your homework before presuming to tell everyone the best way to do this... I've sanded a couple of my newer pans completely smooth to make them like the old-school cast iron we used to get back in the 1970's and prior. I love them and I won't do anything at this point to change them. But modern cast iron is made differently and much better left a little more gritty, so I agree that just sanding them lightly gives the best balance of old/new cast iron. It smooths it out just enough to produce a nice satin patina and give good cooking performance, but leaves enough grittiness to make it easy to keep perfectly seasoned.
I’m a Kent Rollins fan! He’s got such a great on camera presence and is a wealth of knowledge! One thing I found worked better for me than what Kent advises is when I got my new Lodge cast iron skillet, I hand sanded with 80 grit sandpaper then 150 grit. After I was satisfied with the smoothness, I then washed and dried it, and did 5 seasoning episodes with avocado oil in the oven at 530 degrees for 2 hours. It came out beautifully black and smooth and is as nonstick as a new Teflon pan. I’ve now said goodbye to all my Teflon pans for good
How many of us thousands upon thousands have done sanding job for them. And why did I? Why should I? It taught me to convert all my skillets to carbon steel and never buy the brand ever again.
I bought a Lodge skillet. The surface was so rough it actually had sharp points on it. I tried using it for a while but it was not good. I took it out and sanded it just like you did. I didn't do the edges, just the bottom. Now I wish I would've sanded the edges and maybe even the outside, because why not? Anyway, a year later the pan is amazing. To all those naysayers about sanding down the pan, whatever. You do you and I'll do me.
The best oils to use are oils that don't have fiber in the description , as fiber in food is why it sticks in your pans. Also flax seed oil is fine but over time it can become very hard and brittle, and it can flake. That's why all of the pre-made cast iron seasonings are a mixture of grape seed, sunflower and bees wax.
Sanding the skillet really isn’t needed, a well seasoned rough cast skillet will cook just as well as a smooth one. I have compared antique skillets to modern cast ones, and the difference is negligible. Not worth the time or effort.
FYI you can use soap. Every single wash. Modern dish soaps don’t contain lye, old soaps did. Which is why people never used soap back in the day and why people still believe you can’t use soap. I use dish soap every time I use and clean it and eggs are a breeze
If I have to re season an old pan, I just cook it in the BBQ outside, quick seasoning, then make pizza. (The pizza has nothing to do with the seasoning, I just love making pizza in the cast iron pan).
Modern soap will not harm seasoning. In the old days soaps contained lye. Lye will eat away organic material. Seasoning is organic material. Modern dish soaps do not have anything in them that will remove polymerized seasonings.
Hi Lenra, thank you for your question. My life was a little too crazy, so I took a break. Hopefully I can get back into it. I am learning how to make chili, so that might be my next video.
Just a tip from someone who has been doing this for decades...I've modified a number of rough cast iron pans and griddles with super success using only 80 grit sand paper. The result was a smooth surface, but the 80 grit sanding left a tiny micro-texture to allow the seasoning to get established and not be lifted off by use. Even the Stargazer company realized they had better results by having a tiny micro-texture allowing seasoning to hold. You will love the results...God Bless.
Kent rollings is a hack and a city boy in a cowboy hat.. His limited knowledge of actual cast tips are far and few between. Sanding and grinding your pans is STUPID AND RUINS YOUR PAN.
You said "Never put hot water in to a cold pan". Think about this, the maximum temperature you can get water to is 212°F. I suggest that no damage will occur if you pour boiling water into a cast iron pan straight out of your freezer.
Definitely do Cornbread You will need 1 x 10.25" skillet 2 Cups Self-Rising Cornmeal Mix 2 Cups Buttermilk 6 oz Jalapeños, 6 oz shredded cheese 1 x Mixing Bowl 6 Slices of Bacon Steps 1. Preheat skillet on stove and oven to 350°F 2. Add bacon to skillet and cook 3. Dice Jalapeños 4. Mix dry ingredients (self-rising cornmeal mix), shredded cheese, jalapeños, crumble the bacon into the mix and mix again 5. Add the buttermilk and mix 6. Pour off some bacon grease but leave a good layer 7. Pour the batter into the hot skillet on top of the bacon grease 8. Put in the oven for 35 - 45 min. (Times may vary based on altitude so a toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean and you should have a nice, brown crust over the whole top of the cornbread)
Kent Rollins is a great cowboy cook, but he is far from being THE authority on cast iron. All of this stuff is so unnecessary. Lodge cookware works perfectly fine straight from the factory. I have nothing but Lodge, and I've never had any problems. Of course, if you want that very smooth surface it's perfectly fine to do what you're doing... or why not just invest a couple of hundred bucks for one of those very smooth skillets.
There should be no need to remove the old seasoning, there's nothing wrong with it. They seasoning they put on them is usually canola oil. The thing that causes the horrible rough surface is that after the pans are molded in the sand molds they do not sand/polish them down. They did this before but don't anymore nowadays most likely to save as much money as possible. If you look you'll see that the rough bumps are all about the same size a grain of sand, because that's what it is from, it's imprints of sand.
I also exclusively use a metal spatula on my cast iron. It’s great for scraping those little crusties off the pan after cooking. And I’ve got a running theory that it also removes some of the ‘weaker’ seasoning and leaves the harder stronger seasoning that you want.
Cycling the cast iron through a self-cleaning oven provides several benefits with no downside. After sanding/polishing the skillet, raw iron will be exposed. This raw iron is highly susceptible to the damaging effects of red rust. To protect the raw iron, cycle it through your oven's self-cleaning cycle. This will form a protective layer of Black Rust (Fe3O4) that is harder and thicker than red rust. Black rust will stay tightly bound to the base iron substrate. Black rust also accepts seasoning more readily than raw iron. Allow the cast iron to cool slowly after the completion of the oven's self-cleaning cycle. Don't open the oven door for a few hours after the cycle ends. I usually let it cool in the oven overnight. This slow cooling will anneal the metal and make it less prone to cracking or breaking.
I have only vintage and antique cast iron but the prinicple is the same. I learned to cook in and clean cast iron from my Grandma, a farm woman all her life born in 1891 so she was old school. I still season my cast iron with plain old lard and clean it with salt and a rag just like she taught me. You don't need to put more seasoning on it after you clean it if you don't use water (Grandma would come back from the dead to haunt me if I used water on my cast iron LOL). It continues to season itself as you go along cooking in it.
Just relax and cook in your skillet regularly. Soap when needed is ok. Never soak an iron pan. Dry and lightly oil pan after washing. I have old Wagner and Griswold pans and contemporary Wagner and Lodge pans. They all cook well. Just learn by doing.
I enjoyed watching this video. Thanks so much for these helpful tips. I have 1 Lodge cast iron piece and just like you demonstrated its surface is rough. It needs to be sanded. 😞
Please do NOT use that self cleaning method, it's a fire hazard especially when the old seasoning (crud) is thick. It's also pushing heat damage on the cast. I would also strongly advise you not sand your skillet, it may never season up properly again after sanding. Just get a good vintage one, they're out there cheap. Soap is fine, won't hurt a thing. Don't have to reseason after each use either.
Growing up in Alabama, I was always taught to NEVER use soap and water when cleaning Cast Iron cookware, because you'd get the taste of soap in any food you cooked in the Cast Iron you're cooking your food in
@@arotom Never using soap and water to clean cast-iron came about because almost all "soaps" ( even dish detergents) used to contain lye, and it would remove the seasoning as well as permeate the cast-iron. ( if used to clean after every use) Modern detergents are different. Once a good initial seasoning is aquired, there is usually no issues with a quick wash using dish soap. I would still not soak the pan in soapy water though. I hope this helps explain how this avoidance of using detergents got started. 👍😁
I sanded mine down to super smooth then used flaxseed oil to season. I hope that it doesn’t go rancid. Do i need to strip it and use the oil in video. Hmmm
Some oils used right after you cook and clean your cast iron to apply a very light coating to help maintain your pan in-between cooking can go rancid if you don't use the pan for a long time. The actual seasoning doesn't go rancid because it's a hard coating. The product used in the video has been great for maintaining my seasoning and would probably work with any seasoning.
You paid $50 on Amazon when you could have gone to Walmart and paid $30? And you believe Lodge to be a “high quality” cast iron skillet? You got taken twice.
Lodge does make a good product. They hold on to seasoning like no other pan does. I have several different makes of cast iron, carbon steel, and have sanded some cast iron pans myself. Nothing holds on to seasoning like a factory spec Lodge.
I’ve only had a patty melt 2 times in my life and they were from Jack n the box and both in 2018.They were absolutely AMAZING! I was like I’m tasting this for the first time at 26 years old. All the wasted years with no patty melt
the thing about the soap is so wrong... that was the case like 50+ years ago when soap contained lye. nowadays soaps are usually lye free. the coating is literally burned oil. ever tried to clean burnt oil from your oven with a bit of soap and a 30 second wash? doesnt really work, does it? same with the coating on ur pan.
