Cast Iron Care Checklist

Kinda surprising actually that I haven’t written on this topic yet, but here goes…

If you’ve been thinking about investing in a cast iron cookware collection, your new pans and griddles need a small collection of tools to live their best life with you.

As with many hobbies, there are expensive and cheap versions of available care accessories. Many companies will happily sell you branded tools, purpose-made implements, and specially crafted concoctions. Most of these items are important to care for your iron, but the pricy version of it is not. Cheap or free alternatives often exist. After all, cast iron cookware has been common for hundreds of years, but imported organic flaxseed oil probably has not.

Ten of the tools I keep handy to maintain my cast iron collection are:

Seasoning Oil – Personally, I lean heavily on canola oil for a post-cleanup wipe-down because we always have it in quantity and handy, but I also keep a bit of shortening or leftover bacon grease in the house for my purpose-seasoning efforts. There are numerous products on the market that are labeled as cast iron seasoning products (and I intend to buy some and try them) and many people online swear by flaxseed oil (but it is expensive). Whatever your oil of choice, this tool is a must for ongoing maintenance of your pans.

Heavy Duty Paper Towels – If I’m feeling flush, and I happen to be near a hardware store there is a brand of blue, commercial grade paper towels that are just about perfect for cast iron clean up. If I don’t have these around, plain old paper towels are a must for our supply closet.

Coarse Salt – The first time I tried it I was amazed by how much basic post-cooking cast iron cleanup could be accomplished with a quarter cup of water and a tablespoon of coarse salt. A few minutes of simple soaking usually means that with only salt and elbow grease I can clean up almost any pan. For anyone new to cast iron who is skeptical about the no-soap approach, try a salt scrub and your uncertainty will be alleviated.

Stiff Bristle Brush – To help with the salt scrub (as above) a good brush is also a must. We use our Lodge-brand brush so much it rarely even makes it back into the drawer.

Plastic Scraper – For slightly tougher clean-up jobs, I keep a couple of these in my collection. They are also invaluable for scraping out bits of set fat or other pan leftovers that don’t make it onto your plate, either by design or because you’re just too full to eat it.

Chainmail Scrubber – An optional big gun in your arsenal in the war on pan clean up is a heavy-duty scrub pad. I rarely use this personally but for those deeply stubborn bits (or when I’ve let my daughter cook and there are bits of burnt food clinging to the pan) a coarse, seasoning-safe scrubber is worth investing in eventually.

Heavy Duty Oven Mitt – It probably goes without saying, but the best way to use and care for your cast iron is to make it hot. Over a flame, from the oven, or atop a burner, you can neither use it nor care for it if you can’t touch it. Get yourself some serious mitts that will allow you to hold, lift, move, and carry a hot pan without grilling your digits.

Storage Rack – Sure, you could stack your pans one on top of each other — like an animal! Or you could invest in an elegant way to give those pans a way to stack or hang in style. There is probably something to be said about preserving seasoning and preventing damage this way, but the simpler reason is that if you can access them, you can use them.

Self-Cleaning Oven – A dual-purpose tool, a hot oven is vital for seasoning new pans or touching up the ongoing effort to keep your season even and strong. Additionally, a self-cleaning oven can get hot enough on the clean cycle to obliterate all the seasoning layers on a pan that needs a refresh. This is controversial and you shouldn’t do this with antiques or anything you can’t easily replace. Whenever we run the self-clean on our oven, I always toss in a pan or two that are starting to chip or build up seasoning in weird ways. This strips them clean and allows for start a fresh on bare iron.

Fire – Heat is heat, but nothing beats cooking over real fire. Plus, if your pans could talk, they would thank you for the chance to touch some real flames. Not everyone has access to daily fire in the form of a gas stove or barbecue, but taking your pan to a campout or picnic with some burning wood is what your cast iron cookware was made for.

Griswold Egg Pan (Part One)

Some more backstory…

Just before the pandemic rolled in and I was nursing ideas about how to make effective use of my domain name I struck upon the plan of buying and “restoring” old cast iron pans. My plan was to scour through eBay, adventure through yard sales, and bumble among the aisles of second hand shops to look for old pieces.

I would buy them.

I would clean them.

I would re-season them and use them.

I would write about them.

So in September of 2019 I picked up the first of my project pieces from an online seller, a Griswold #3 Egg Pan which arrived in fair, but crusty condition, via the mail.

As is visible in the attached photos (the pan resting on a cutting board, snapped in September 2019 & after a light wipe down) the small pan needed a little bit of care. It was dirty for a start, as if the seller had cooked lunch in it, cooled it off, then packed it off to be shipped. Also, the seasoning had the chipped and peeling look of a wall that’s been painted a dozen times over the years and then started to erode and wear revealing the layers. Otherwise it’s a nice piece. There is some uneven casting on the bottom (and I have no means or skill to refinish this) but the cooking surface is smooth and clear of scars.

First, a little about the history of a piece like this. I specifically went looking for a Griswold pan because there they are kind of the stereotypical antique but affordable collector cast iron piece, new enough to find in your grandparent’s kitchen but old enough to say, hey… this is an old pan.

Griswold Manufacturing was an American manufacturer of cast iron kitchen products founded in Erie, Pennsylvania, in business from 1865 through 1957. For many years the company had a world-wide reputation for high-quality cast-iron cookware. Today, Griswold pieces are collector’s items.”

– Wikipedia

I’m not a cast iron restoration expert.

Over the last five years and in using multiple pieces of my (purchased new) cast iron cookware for that long, I would firmly tell you that as far as use and care goes, I’m in the intermediate “home cook” skill level.

That said, a caveat. Restoration is a new hobby for me. In other words, I’m probably doing something wrong and I’m not going to be doing much in the way of repairs so much as this more about simple cleaning and re-seasoning efforts. So… be gentle in your replies. I’m learning out here in the public eye.

Now, the Griswold #3 709 I is not a valuable collectors piece, but I think it’s at least sixty-plus years old. Tiny. Only about seven inches across, it makes for an ideal egg pan. I’ve been through a few forums and websites trying to put an age to it and as far as I can tell it was probably cast circa 1939-1957. Neither rare nor of import, I figured it was a neat first “old” piece to kick off my set, and I wouldn’t be destroying an historical artifact if I messed it up.

My first step was to run it through the clean cycle of the oven. This stripped the iron down to bare metal. Then I cleaned the char and oxidized powder off with soap and water then immediately ran a couple seasoning cycles in a hot oven with a light vegetable oil.

After it cooled I put it the cupboard …and forgot about it for a while.

The next two pictures (on a granite countertop) were snapped in January 2021, as I pulled the piece out and decided to write a short series on this new blog.

I ran it through another seasoning cycle (lightly oiling it and baking it with my latest round of sourdough bread).

I cooked a couple eggs in it.

I grilled a cheese sandwich.

It’s starting to develop a useful and seasoned cooking surface.

And as I continue to season and cook with this pan over the next few weeks and months I’ll write future posts with more info.

Stay tuned.

When Good Iron Goes Bad

My beloved twenty inch cast iron grill pan developed an ugly blemish over the autumn months.

A scar. A scab. A patch of failing seasoning crusted, bubbled and flaked off leaving a rough spot the size of a medium pancake on the middle edge of an otherwise awesomely seasoned piece.

This isn’t beauty-shaming. A good quarter of the grill was rendered useless for cooking by a spot of flaking seasoning.

I worked around it. At first.

Then I ignored it.

But it only got worse.

Three years ago I had cleaned this particular pan down to bare iron. I ran it through the deep cleaning cycle of the oven and burned off all of the seasoning. It was a mess. It took some serious love in the backyard and four rounds of reseasoning love to get it back into service as our Saturday pancake grill.

But a January mid-winter in mid-Canada is neither the time nor the place to strip a pan to bare iron.

Solution? Elbow grease, some steel wool, and an hour of grinding the blistering patch of dead seasoning into a smooth, bare spot. Then three rounds of hot-oven-baking-on some fresh carbon layers.

The results were successfully tested this morning… and those pancakes were delicious.