Hi. I am concerned that I have ruined my best cast iron skillet. I burned a layer of black residue along the bottom, that will not come off. I was able to get about half off, but now it left obvious edges to where the burned stuff still remains. ANY ideas how to best clean it??? thanks.
Tom
Just take some mediun grit sandpaper and go at it when you wipe it clean it may look sort of shiny dont forget to always oil your pan and never use soap to wash just hot water good luck ( I have burnt mine a few times hee hee)
It depends on whether the pan is enamel lined cast iron, in which case you'll need to treat it more carefully. First, try adding water and boiling it for 1/2 hour or so, then let it soak. You can then scrub it with a paste of baking soda. If this doesn't work, they sell something (I think Dawn makes it and it's in a blue spray bottle) in the soap aisle that you can spray on and leave it to soak overnight. You can also make a paste out of Cascade dishwasher powder and leave that on to soak.
And you can scrub with coarse salt. And scrape it with a razor blade or the bottom of a straight spatula.
Does it sound like I've been there?
======
CM
http://www.cooks.com
If it is not enamel, you can also clean it in the oven on the self clean cycle. This will also remove all of your seasoning and you will have to start over with seasoning the pan. I have done this and it does work. However, I would try all other methods first and if they don't work do this.
If it's a regular cast iron skillet, you'll have to start over. I'm 61 now, but when I was younger and trying to help my mom, I decided to do the dishes. One of the pans that needed cleaning was a large cast iron skillet. This was back before teflon, non-stick, etc., so all the scrubbing tools we had then were those little copper colored "chore girls". I dipped that pan into the hot soapy water and scrubbed it until all the black crap was gone. My mom almost killed me! It was one she'd brought from home when she married my dad and had about a million years of "seasoning" on/in it.
That was when I learned how to clean cast iron. When we went camping back then in the '50's, she always used cast iron over the fire -- fire, not barbecue -- and we always took the skillets to the creek to scrub them with sand to get all the crusty stuff off. The cold water didn't hurt the seasoning of the pan and they got clean. Most of the time these days I just wipe my skillets out with paper towels (because mostly they don't cake up with cooking) and they're good to go.
I've found that the best way to re-season a pan is to rub it with oil or lard and let it sit on top of the wood stove on a trivet. As it dries, you can recoat it. If you don't have a wood stove going, you can put the pan in the oven on another shelf the next time you make bread or bake a chicken. It will smoke a bit at first and the process will need to be repeated a few times. Another way to season a black cast iron pan is to deep fry some chicken :)
Once you have it well seasoned, it's a good choice of a pan when making pasta sauce because trace amounts of iron leach into the sauce, adding extra iron to your diet.
--CM
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
