Waaaay OT: Question about seasoning Cast Iron

And to add Never soak it - NEVER dishwasher it. That will scour the seasoning out of the pan and you get to start all over. Once de-rusted...

Martin

Martin Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net NRA LOH & Endowment Member NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

Od> On 3/19/2006 7:51 PM Warren Weber mumbled something about the following: >

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn
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If you want to do good woodwork, start the day with a good breakfast of bacon and eggs cooked in a CI pan.

Later, while you are doing woodwork in the shop, you can have a roast or meatloaf in the CI pan cooking in the oven. Put cut up potatoes in the same pan around the roast. Very efficient way to cook, leaving more time for the woodworking.

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

I bought a cheap chinese cast iron skillet for about $5. It was incredibly rough...as far as I could tell it was straight out of the casting sand. It definately needed smoothing down before seasoning.

Of course you did say "quality", and this was anything but.

Works just fine now though...

Chris

Reply to
Chris Friesen

surface of a quality cast-iron skillet before seasoning it

Reply to
crane763

news: snipped-for-privacy@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...

Wrong analogy. Think about buying a chisel or plane. They come ground but not honed.

And you would think Stanley would sell planes that are lapped flat wouldn't you?

We're not talking about "not seasoning", we're just talking about knocking off the high spots before you even start seasoning. Since CI is a homogenious material, it makes no difference whether yoy season the top layer or a couple thousanths down.

I will howerver point out that the OP should be considering a *much* more coarse grit. Think "grinding" not "polishing".

-Steve

Reply to
Stephen M

JAMAIS!! NEVER!!

*gasp*

(okay.. that's it for the histrionics)

Reply to
Robatoy

Hey Ed... do you cut the potatoes on the CMS or the band saw?

What angle is best for proper browning and getting them done all the way through?

I used a sawzall at 22 degrees last time and wasn't happy with the results at all...

Mac

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Reply to
mac davis

good point, Fred! (occupational thing? )

a little saying that I try to keep running through my mind on things like that is "no drama, no trauma".. Mac

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Reply to
mac davis

The really amazing and enjoyable thing about this thread is that there are so many folks here that have an opinion on cast iron skillets!

People complain about OT posts all the time but I enjoy them... I'd hate to think that wood workers never have any thoughts about any other subject and wouldn' t be able to help..

Mac

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Reply to
mac davis

Experience seasoning frying pans...

Reply to
fredfighter

Your right about the analogy Stephen. A plane or chisel would have been more accurate. It would sure be nice if the manufacturers would lap and polish their chisels and plane irons. No one expects this when purchasing them. Phildcrownos... asked if he should try to smooth out the inside of that skillet in order to help it get that well-seasoned black-iron slick. I was attempting to point out the fact that while it's beneficial and necessary to have a flat smooth finish on a saw table or jointer table surface, it's neither necessary or particularly desirable to have a comparable surface on a CI skillet. Properly seasoned and cared for, in time that skillet will end up with a cooking surface about as smooth as teflon. The old addage "quality take time" applies here.

You mention that since CI is a homogenious material, it makes no difference whether you season (grind is probably a better choice) the top layer or a couple thousanths down. Absolutely correcto! So, why waste ones time and expend the effort to try and smooth down the surface which will become extremely smooth with use and proper care in a reasonable amount of time. My grandmother, bless her heart, would be spinning in her grave if she thought someone would take a stone or or other grinding medium to a cast iron skillet. Guess I'm from the old school. One thing you can't argue about, is the quality of fried chicken that you get cooking with cast iron.

Reply to
Martie in MO

I've seen cast iron skillets that were so rough the bumps were at least

1/32" high, maybe a sixteenth.

In an extreme case like that, I think it makes sense to at least get it reasonably smooth. I'm talking 60-80 grit here, not 400.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Friesen

And one more thing: don't cook anything containing tomatoes in it, either, unless you enjoy reseasoning your cookware.

Reply to
Doug Miller

You can use wooden spatulas to stir the food.

Reply to
Vic Baron

Dunno about Ed but I once cut a frozen turkey in half on my bandsaw. Worked perfectly - tasted fine with a hint of WD-40 though. Spouse thought I was crazy - maybe that's why I am now single.

:)

Vic

Reply to
Vic Baron

Reply to
Rich

I see that there are a lot of fellow cast iron afficianados out there. In the cowboy days, the fastest way to get crosswise with the chuckwagon cook was to mess with his skillets. Bugs

Reply to
Bugs

On 3/20/2006 8:11 PM Bugs mumbled something about the following:

Born and raised in the deep backwoods south. Cast iron skillets, dutch ovens, and cauldrons are the norm for cooking.

Reply to
Odinn

Yeah. Got any FREE PLANS for a dinner potatoe?

-Zz

Reply to
Zz Yzx

Well, I decided to take the angle grinder to the inside of the pan. Light touch, nice and slow. As one poster mentioned, this was anything but a quality piece of cookware. It's a 15 1/2" skillet, and cost a little less than a dollar an inch. While nice and heavy, it had not been polished or smoothed at all. So, I smoothed it. My intent was to knock off the bumps, but not grind down to the bottoms of the pits. So I did that in about 10 minutes, and Crisco'd the thing and put it on the grill (to avoid smoke in the house). Burned it for about a half hour, let it cool, then repeated. The pits are nice and black, and the former bumps, now flats, are a dark gray color. I think that the grinder idea was a pretty good one.

BTW, the fried chicken was pretty damn good, but the breading was not crispy. Pretty good, though, for a first attempt.

For those interested, I followed Alton Brown's recipe to the letter.

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for the responses, y'all, and all the lively banter.

-Phil Crow

Reply to
phildcrowNOSPAM

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