Why You Should Season Cast Iron Correctly

At the end of last year, I found myself at a crossroads. Ten and a half years later, I’m damn tired of dealing with my cast iron skillet. All of a sudden, he suddenly refused to take the seasoning – and carrying it all over the place exacerbated the chronic pain in the wrist that I had when I turned 30. I had two choices: either to find out what was going wrong, or to give up cast iron for the sake of good.

Clearly I chose door number one, but I can’t stress enough how close I came to leaving my big, needy son by the wayside. At the time, I thought I was doing everything right: avoiding soaps and abrasive cleaners; adding seasonings after each use over high heat; from time to time greasing it with Crisco oil and putting it in the oven for a couple of hours to think about its choice. Despite all this, my seasoning was shitty. Everything was stuck and I was constantly angry.

Don’t worry – we are in a much better place right now. With more than a little help from Cowboy Kent Rollins on YouTube – who has the most laid-back approach to iron maintenance I’ve ever seen – I went back to using my skillet every day. My new cowboy dad taught me that you don’t have to add full lungs of canola oil or oven at 500ºF for two hours at a time to season; it can be a short, pleasant, stress-free process.

My seasoning routine is very similar to that of Kent these days. For seasoning on the stove, I use a clean skillet that is hot – but not smoky – over medium heat. Using a rag soaked in Crisco, I apply a thin layer to the inside of the pan and reduce the heat. Then let the pan cool for 10-15 minutes and wipe off the excess oil with another rag. To season the pans in the oven, I wipe them with the same Crisco rag, put them in the oven at 375ºF for 5 minutes, remove and quickly wipe off any excess oil. After another 30-35 minutes in the oven, turn off the heat and let it cool. When it comes to cleaning, let’s just say my approach is less valuable than it used to be.

I wouldn’t change anything. Every aspect of my routine – my precious Crisco rag, mild heat, even a little soap and steel wool – play an important role in maintaining a smooth, non-stick surface. This is how I got to where I am.

Get rid of paper towels and use a cloth instead.

In the context of iron maintenance, paper towels are all too often recommended. Sure, they absorb oil quickly, but they also saturate quickly and a soaked paper towel is useless. Basically, you need to throw away every layer of the paper towel as it absorbs the oil; otherwise, you simply pour the oil into the pan. (Plus, I have yet to find a brand of paper towels that don’t leave tiny fibers behind.)

You know you would never do that to you? Absorbent fabric. I switched to cast iron seasoning rags 5-6 years ago and haven’t looked back. I use two, one impregnated with Crisco, the other not. (The first is for seasoning and the second is for removing excess.) When not in use, I store them in a frozen bag in the freezer .

You don’t have to use my Crisco crunchy rag or, for that matter, Crisco, but you should use similar rags. I prefer cheap cotton flour bag towels because they are also my favorite all-purpose kitchen towel, so I have a variety of them. Cowboy Kent recommends bandanas; I even used old T-shirts as a last resort. If you choose something lightweight, heat-resistant, absorbent, and lint-free, you’re done.

Turn down the fire

A great steak can be cooked in a hot skillet, but it’s terrible for seasoning. As Kent helpfully reminds us, to tackle the seasoning, your pan must gobble it up first – which won’t happen if all the oil turns to smoke:

Using lower heat for a shorter period of time promotes proper oil absorption and polymerization, which is key to achieving the perfectly smooth, shiny surface that we all crave. (It also helps to avoid the appearance of smoke in the kitchen.)

This is why I stick to medium heat on the stove and 375ºF in the oven. I found the temperatures right by trial and error: Crisco’s smoke points are considered to be as high as 440 ºF and as low as 360 ºF , so it makes sense that 375 ºF works as well as it does. My pans always get a little sticky when seasoned at 350ºF, while temperatures above 400ºF smoke my kitchen.

If you’re adding seasoning to the oven or stovetop, if you don’t like the aftertaste in the skillet, try lowering the temperature. And don’t underestimate the power of residual heat: letting your freshly cooked skillet cool slowly is just as important as reheating it. Remember that you want to keep smoke to a minimum – how you get it depends on your cookware and the range and type of oil you use. Keep experimenting until you find your ideal method.

Boil (a little)

Another game-changing trick I learned from Cowboy Kent is washing a hot pan with hot water. “Steam cleans in a hurry,” he says – and boy, right? If you put a hot frying pan under a stream of hot water, a large cloud of steam immediately forms, which loosens almost everything that has adhered to the surface. A quick scrub with a stiff nylon brush and you’re done.

But sometimes, pure steam leaves things behind. When this happens, I fill the pan about halfway with water and put it on the stove to boil like a full boil. After a few minutes, these stubborn adhering pieces will immediately scrape off. Just be careful: boiling water rips off seasonings like crazy, so use it strictly as needed.

Get a little rude from time to time

The list of alleged cast iron don’ts is only as long as the DOS list . Do not use metal utensils or abrasive cleaners; avoid aggressive cleaning; never let a single drop of soap touch the surface – stop me if you’ve heard that.

Most of these rules are complete nonsense. Cast iron is too hard to handle with children’s gloves, and I mean literally – the material itself is so hard that it takes a little grease on the elbows to keep it smooth. No matter how carefully you control the heat while cooking, one day you will overdo it and light some food or oil in the pan. Over time, these burnt particles will build up and eventually flake off, and you don’t need either.

I am now fully aware of the power of abrasive cleansers, or as I like to call them, cast iron exfoliators. Anytime I notice a rough or flaky spot, I attack it with Barkeeper’s Friend, steel wool, or even coarse sandpaper. This allows me to target specific areas without compromising the rest of the seasoning that I have worked so hard to maintain. Everything is fine. It’s okay. Promise.

However, cleaning brushes and steel wool are not exhausted yet. If your cast iron comes out of the box and is pretty darn rough, you can use a radial sander to polish it. Cowboy Kent, of course, has this video:

This is a small project, but it has a huge impact. I recently discovered a shitty $ 10 Walmart skillet that I bought 3 months ago in a motion-induced fugue. Before sanding, the surface was so rough that it tore two separate Crisco rags – but look at it now:

I wouldn’t call this coating completely non-stick, but it gets closer every day.

This brings me to the last and most important part of my pig iron reeducation: adopting this seasoning takes time. Without the use of power tools or a lot of elbow grease, your frying pan will probably never look the way you think it is.

But it normal. Cast iron doesn’t need a flawless mirror finish to be the most useful thing in your kitchen. If you’re losing your mind in the pursuit of excellence, it’s time to take a step back and rethink your approach. A good routine will feel more like a ritual than a chore, and you will be much happier about it.