When my grandmother got married in 1922, she was given a set of sturdy cast iron cookware and other practical items a farmer’s wife needed in those days.
Her cast iron pan fed her kids including my father, and her grandkids. When she passed away in 1981, my father inherited her cast iron pan and continued to use it for a few years.
Eventually, it ended up in the back of a cupboard where it ever-so-slowly started to rust.
A few years before his passing, he downsized and passed down Grandma’s cast iron pan to me, asking if I wanted it.
Realizing the cast iron pan had a deep legacy attached to it, and a lot of culinary potential, I took the time to bring it back to life.
Now 100 years on, I use it to grill, bake deep-dish pizza, and bring it on backwoods camping trips with my daughter.
There’s a certain technique to bringing a 100-year-old cast iron cookware back to life and properly maintaining it.
If you recently found an old one that’s worth saving, or you just bought a piece of cast iron cookware, and you want to treat it right from day one, these are the things you need to know.
How to Restore Cast Iron Cookware
The first step in restoring a piece of cast iron cookware is to remove every spec of rust. This is a reality simple process of scrubbing and using everyday items to clear away the patina of rust.
Just don’t rush it. You need to be meticulous or your later attempts at maintaining the cast iron’s seasoning layer will be challenging.
Step One: Clean with Baking Soda Paste
Create a paste that is 2 parts baking soda to 1 part water. You want it on the thicker side. You can always add a little more water later if you need it.
Then apply some baking soda paste to the cast iron and scrub vigorously with a scouring pad.
Pro Tip
This isn’t the time for steel wool. You want a scouring pad or even an old washcloth that lets you do some fine grinding on every square inch of the rusted cast iron surface.
Step Two: Apply Vinegar
Pouring vinegar on the cast iron surface will help neutralize some of the baking soda. It also helps strip away any lingering seasoning layers or other polymerized carbon to get you down to the bare metal.
Related: Making Raw Apple Cider Vinegar at Home
Then wipe the pan down with clean paper towels to take away the rust along with whatever’s left of the baking soda and vinegar.
Step Three: Wash & Preheat
Set your oven to 400+ degrees, and while it’s preheating give your cast iron a thorough washing in the sink. You can use steel wool to scrape off any stuck-on residue if needed. The goal is to clean away any particulate matter from the surface of the cast iron before seasoning it again.
How to Season a Cast Iron Pan
If you’re restoring rusty cast iron cookware or you just want to properly maintain your new cast iron for the next 100 years, you need to start with a clean surface. If you’ve already stripped the rust off the old cast-iron, you’re ready to go.
If you’ve got a new cast iron pan, you still want to give it a good washing in hot soapy water. This is to remove the protective layer of wax most cast-iron manufacturers apply to the surface.
Step One: Preheat the Oven
Set your oven to at least 400 degrees. While it’s preheating wash your cast iron pan and wipe it dry.
⇒ How to Build the Oven That Cooks Without Fire, Fuel, Smell, or Smoke (Video)
You want to get the surface as dry as possible, without any traces of lint or old seasoning residue left on the surface.
Step Two: Grease the Cast Iron
Use a clean rag or paper towel to apply a thin layer of oil to every square inch of the cast iron surface.
You want to use an oil with a high smoke point and neutral flavor that’s also polyunsaturated. These oils are more prone to polymerization than monounsaturated fats, which tend to burn.
When polyunsaturated fats are heated in dry conditions the process of polymerization creates a non-stick seasoning layer. This will both protect the cast iron cookware from rust while giving it some non-stick properties when you cook with it!
The best oils for seasoning cast iron cookware are canola, grapeseed, flaxseed, vegetable, coconut, vegetable shortening.
Step Three: Bake the Cast Iron Cookware
Place the cast iron cookware in an oven with the cooking surface facing down and allow it to bake for 20 to 30 minutes. This will let the oil polymerize into a rudimentary seasoning layer.
If you have an electric oven, you might want to put a disposable baking pan or a tinfoil-lined tray under the cast iron to catch any incidental drips.
Step Four: Reapply
After 20 to 30 minutes turn on the oven’s vent hood and remove the hot cast iron from the oven to apply another layer. Normal oven hot pads usually aren’t enough to let you handle the hot metal. You’ll want multiple hot pads or a robust welding glove when pulling the pan out of the oven.
You’ll really want that welding glove when wiping a thin layer of fresh oil on the surface of the pan.
It’s normal for a little smoke to come off the cast iron surface as you’re wiping it down.
Then put the cast iron cookware back into the oven again to polymerize the second layer.
Step Five: Repeat but Don’t Rinse!
I like to repeat step four another two or three times for two hours. I keep pulling the cast iron out every 20 to 30 minutes and wiping on another layer of oil to keep building up the polymerized seasoning layers.
After 4 or 5 coats of oil like this, the cast iron surface should be fully protected, and ready to mature.
Maintaining Seasoned Cast Iron
Seasoned cast iron cookware needs to be properly maintained and kept away from water in storage. The food you cook in it and just how much stuck-on mess clings to the cast iron surface will be a factor in how you clean it.
Cleaning Cast Iron Used for Frying
If you use your cast iron cookware to pan fry fish, make fried chicken, sauté vegetables, or even sear a steak with clarified butter, you can clean it with a meticulous wipe down.
Step One: Pour out any excess oil.
Step Two: While it’s still hot, use a clean rag to wipe off the interior and exterior of the cast iron.
Step Three: Use a clean paper towel or three to wipe it completely clean.
Step Four: All it to cool completely, before putting it back in storage.
Cleaning Cast Iron Used for Stewing
If you have a cast-iron Dutch oven or cast-iron pan that you use for making a soup, stew, or sloppy casserole, you might need to use a little water to clean it first.
Step One: Remove all leftover soup, stew, or food from the cast iron cookware.
Step Two: Use steel wool to scour off any stuck-on food residue. Sometimes it’s so bad I need to use a clean putty knife and some elbow grease to completely clear away the ring of burned-on broth on the side of my cast iron Dutch oven.
Related: Dutch Oven – The Lost Art of Scratch Cooking
Step Three: If it needs it, you can lightly wash the cast iron cookware with a minimal amount of hot water. Then wipe it dry with a clean paper towel.
Step Four: Apply a protective layer of neutral-flavored polyunsaturated oil to all the areas that touched water to keep it from rusting in storage.
How to Wash Dirty Cast Iron
I’ve had times when a pan pizza or a campfire rigatoni went awry, leaving my cast iron pan so messed up that it truly needed to be soaked to get it clean.
Unfortunately, soaking for more than 5 minutes in warm soapy water usually strips or degrades the seasoning layer on the cast iron.
In a scenario like this, I will repeat the initial seasoning process all over again. Giving it three to four layers of polymerized oil protects it and restores its non-stick properties.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best thing to cook right after restoring cast iron cookware?
After reapplying a fresh seasoning layer to cast iron, I like to sauté some thick-sliced onions and peppers in a high-smoke point oil like vegetable or canola oil or clarified butter. I usually do it on the grill, while making fajitas over an open flame.
This imparts a little bit of onion flavor to the surface of the cast iron pan. You’ll appreciate this if you use the cast iron to make hamburger slides with the second cook!
A lot of people will tell you to use bacon, which I think is fine. The problem is the rendered fat that comes off bacon doesn’t polymerize very well, and there’s the risk of burning the lean meat in the bacon can damage an immature seasoning layer.
How do I deal with a light brown ring on cast iron?
If you used a cast iron Dutch oven or skillet to make a stew and you’ve got a burned-on ring of sauce, you need to scrape it away completely. It’s a sign that water has infiltrated and degraded the protective seasoning layer.
At that point, I will rub the scraped surface down with a liberal amount of canola or vegetable oil. Then reheat the cast iron in the oven or over the campfire until I see a little smoke. At that point, I give the area another little wipe down with oil, and remove it from the heat, before letting it cool down for storage.
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i just use dish soap it works better
Salt and vinegar work well too.
I just got about 100 years of baked on hard as the cast iron buildup off my Grammas CI skillet. I put it in the oven on the clean setting. All and I do mean all the stuff turned to dust. I rubbed it with vegetable oil and baked it upside down for 2 hours at 400. Nice and patina looking and easy to look at. This is after I used several variations of all the above which did some good but nowhere near cleaned. Sometimes you just have to start over. Where my burner was on medium now is on low. I was smiling with how much more efficient it is now. When cleaning now I let it soak. Scrub it good and dry it. EzPz.
As a follow up to Dan’s comment about using the clean cycle of the oven, we have done it accidentally. A renter left a cast iron skillet on the top rack of the oven and my wife started the clean cycle. When we found the thing it looked like someone had just brushed the sand off of it after casting. It took a long time to get the seasoning back to where I thought it should be, but now it is one of my favorites. For that reason I am not sure I would recommend it except in extreme situations. For day in and out cleaning I think doing the least is the best. I just wipe it out if I can or use soap and water if I have to.
A few months ago there was another cast iron restore project already done.
Off topic;
The tranny, abortion, gay marriage are part of the depopulation of the world to save resources. We ask why do we need to save anything really?
Why save on electricity, water and natural resources, it’s because we metered devices that go to utilities to make up their fraudulence billing services, wheres the incentive?
Another crisis;
The illegals get free everything we taxpayers pay for them plus our families. These tent city have-not’s siphon off their share of illegal electricity.
Gay marriage does not procreate life, like two magnets of the same pole charges negative to negative or positive to positive both repel each other.
Only negative to positive or positive to negative attract each other. That God made men and women to procreate, be fertile and multiple, not die of DEI, CRT Marxism of the culture of death.
This is part of reducing native born Americans to bring in the world’s not so good illegal populations to fill in the gap of low American birth rates.
Which gives the elites better control of their voting blocks to stay in power.
So why did early Americans fight for freedom from the UK kingdom?
We now have the same premise of the ruling elite of the deep state in Washington DC and the blue sanctuary states. These are the ruling wannabe cast system as seen still in India, no real capitalism to grow.
This is part of why these illegals come here to be free and prosper at taxpayer’s expense to our American quality of life.
Maybe we need to use the lessons of renewing a cast iron pan to our own Bidenomics world of America last, foreigners first we have.
The Boy Scouts should not be inclusive for what?
There women and girl only clubs, why can’t men and by’s groups keep their exclusive titles then open up to DEI BS?
Those crazy groups can start their own sanctioned groups then ruin traditions as Marxism likes to do, as in tearing down statues for example.
The tik tok lawsuit needs to loose, the commies use our Constitution against us.
Tik tok in China has an educational platform for their kids where tik tok America platform uses indoctrination to dumb down the useful idiots on social media. Same as FB, Meta, Google does to Americans in fake news and gaming manipulation in video audio to destroy the young minds here.
God help America shed it’s blinders to wake up!
Time to use the old cast iron on the pro-palestian protesters!
There has been interest by the California UAW union to help the university union workers who in these protests got fired.
Isn’t it time these unions stick to their labor unions gross protesting of wanting too high wages then get involved with political issues that are out of their range of protesting?
These Islamic protests are a national security problem Biden is playing both sides so we could have martial law crisis before the next 2024 presidential election to cheat the votes again?
Is COVID fearmongering on the horizon too?
God bless America while we are still free.
I don’t understand how anyone can support the genocide that is happening to the Pakistani people; mainly women and children. Those of you that support Israel’s slaughter should educate yourself on what’s really going on and the reasons behind the slaughter. Read about the huge maritime natural gas field that is off the coast of Gaza. Read about the “Greater Israel” plan. The October 7th “attack” was a false flag event. Lastly, the covenant with Israel in the Old Testament is an important theme that is fulfilled in Jesus Christ in the New Testament. The covenant is NOT just about a specific nation or lineage, but about God’s promises being fulfilled through Jesus Christ and offered to ALL people who believe in him.
Delta,,I will guess that most readers on this site will agree with most of your opinions about world events,,however am wondering what your correlation between a great article about cast iron cook ware and current New World events have in common.Plenty of sites out there to voice your options ! In mean time I just want to learn about cast iron,,Thank Claude as usual for a great article .
Why can’t people read articles like this without having a bitch fest?
Are you one, a B* fest too?
Prepping and politics go hand in hand. Otherwise why are we prepping for?
To prepping; current events to SHTF are tied to political events always. The great depression was of politics along with wars started by political elites who use wars to depopulate. They profit from and have extra money to continue to spend and tax. That is it in a nutshell.
Don’t be a gov Nome whose publisher told her not to keep the dog shooting incident in her book. She kept that story and many dog and cat owners don’t care for that.
We want the truth that is mixed into every part of our daily life to keep us on track to what we are prepping for, got it?
Cause that’s all anyone knows how to do anymore, is bitch. Because if someone acts on what or who, they are bitching about, they end up in legal trouble. With todays legal system, it seems that the criminals and the no-accounts and the illegals have more rites than the hard working, TAX PAYING, citizens.
As far as this article goes. I find it most informative, as I have a lot of OLD cast-iron cookware.
Kathryn quit buying those Chinese Teflon pans laced with fentanyl and buy American made cast iron. Your outlook on life will become less cloudy of what prepping, politics and comment posting is about.
Don’t drink anymore bud light either, LOL!
Exactly…I’m with you on that. Notice your comment brought out the whiners? Not one useful thing about taking care of a cast iron skillet. Take your political crap elsewhere, we don’t need your “off topic” opinions.
Kathryn and Buck, We don’t care what you think or feel about politics and whining about people commenting, it is part of the First Amendment of free speech.
There is an old adage: opinions are like arseholes – everybody has one, and they all stink.
I’m with you Kate. And not all preparers dress right.
I had always heard NOT to use soap on cast iron because it would retain the “soapiness” and would affect the flavoring of whatever you prepared in it going forward.
I don’t use steel wool on cast iron. It tends to allow rust to form faster. If something is stuck on, I’ll use copper wool. It doesn’t rust like steel wool.
For seasoning the pan, I prefer tallow to seed oils.
I love cooking with cats iron.
oops, “cats iron” should be “cast iron “
Awww………………………………..Poor kitty!………………..lol.
Wait a cotton pickin minute! Our ancestors didn’t have canola, coconut, grape seed or any other vegetable oil and I find it hard to believe their pans weren’t well seasoned.
Animal fat, lard – will work just fine to season a cast iron pan.
Bacon fat was the “go to” for seasoning our cast iron pans for generations. Drippings were kept in an old can on the stove.
I would not use Canola Oil on anything except a wooden floor to give it a shine!
Reason, what makes canola oil go into the pores of metal is eruric acid. Although this acid is good for making canola adhere to metal, it is causes Myocardial Lipidosis or fat to grow into your heart muscle.
for decades I have seasoned cast iorn with Crisco or coconut oil which both work fine.
Rummage sales are a great place to start. And you don’t have to look for names, like Griswold & Wagner.
I’ve got no-name cast iron that I’ve been using for decades, with no problems.
I also have a few enameled cast iron. I like Descoware. It’s hard to find enameled at rummage sales, and it’s a little spendy on EBAY, but well worth the cost.
The one thing about cast iron cooking to be remembered, Don’t Cook On High! Take your time.