Perpetual stew vibes
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Clean it, don't clean it, oil it, salt it, water it, "season it", season it by not cleaning it so your french toast gets all that good hamburger flavor from the night before...
I've read so many different ways to treat cast iron that at this point I'm convinced that it's all just superstition.
I put a little water in it, turn the burner on, and scrape it with a spatula as the water boils. Rinse out and paper towel dry. Add a little oil if it needs it, heat again, and wipe off the excess.
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For those who don't know, you can wash cast iron with modern detergents, and as long as you dry it properly you won't have any problems.
It used to be that dish detergents contained lye that would strip the seasoning off of cast iron cookware.
Why is this answer always so far down in the thread, right below all the nonsense and superstition that perpetuate the "cast iron is really complicated to maintain!"?
Soap and water is all you need, be sure to thoroughly dry the surface. If you get rust spots, just polish them off with a cast-iron cleaning sponge or some steel wool. Re-oil as necessary. Do not put in the dishwasher.
That's it. Not sure why the message gets so muddled with other methods involving stripping and reseasoning and baking and such... It's not required.
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The microbes need to be alive to produce them when you finish using the pan it’s hundreds of degrees so the bacteria are dead
The microbes are dead but they leave behind the toxins which require greater heat to denature.
That's why there are warnings about reheating some foods over and over. There's minimal bacterial growth, then the bacteria is killed in heating sto safe temp. But the bacteria leave behind the toxins. Reheat and you get bacteria growth again before death increasing the number of toxins. Keep repeating and you have a dangerous level of toxins despite no living bacteria.
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NO. NO MORE INSTRUCTIONS.
I'm washing it with Himalayan salt, hanging it to dry in the sunshine, then storing it under my bed in a wicker box just like my great grandmother taught me!
That salt better be pink or you’ve been doing it wrong this entire time.
Source: My Great great grandmother.
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Most vintage cast iron pans were ground flat, they only stopped doing that as a cost saving measure later on.
My vintage flat cast iron pan from the 30's keeps its seasoning just as well as my modern one, and is a bit more non-stick compared to the modern ones.
What determines if a seasoning will flake off is mostly due to the type of oil used to create the seasoning. Flax seed oil will create a much harder seasoning, but it is the most prone to being chipped or flaking off.
Most other types of fat, like Crisco (don't cook with it!) or canola oil, will produce a perfectly good and resilient seasoning on smooth or bumpy cast iron.
Wait, why shouldn’t I cook with Cisco?
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The microbes are dead but they leave behind the toxins which require greater heat to denature.
That's why there are warnings about reheating some foods over and over. There's minimal bacterial growth, then the bacteria is killed in heating sto safe temp. But the bacteria leave behind the toxins. Reheat and you get bacteria growth again before death increasing the number of toxins. Keep repeating and you have a dangerous level of toxins despite no living bacteria.
That would be true if first you ignore the effect of heating the pan on depyrogenation (killing of the toxins) which happens at approximately 250C which while hotter than your food that’s filled with moisture will get is reasonable for a cast iron pan to get to during both preheating and drying
2nd you assume the toxins accumulate over time, which they wouldn’t because the microscopic amounts still in the pan will leave on the food and with a cursory wipe of a paper towel
The reason it’s a concern with food is because if your food gets to 170F it’s considered overcooked so it never fully sterilizes and doesn’t depyrogenate but it’s not unusual to get a cast iron pan to 500F which does both.
If you ever worked in a field that does sterilization you will learn the differences between cleaning, sterilizing, and depyrogenating
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I put a little water in it, turn the burner on, and scrape it with a spatula as the water boils. Rinse out and paper towel dry. Add a little oil if it needs it, heat again, and wipe off the excess.
I wash mine in holy water, then dust it with volcanic ash from the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption, and wipe it down with a felted angora cloth, just like my mother taught me.
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Scrubbing under running hot water has worked fine for me. I occasionally use boiling water if there is grease that doesn't want to move.
I scrub mine with a Scrub Daddy in a nearby waterfall, then dry it by tying it to the roof of my car and driving around for a bit. Haven't had any issues yet!
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I wash mine in holy water, then dust it with volcanic ash from the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption, and wipe it down with a felted angora cloth, just like my mother taught me.
I also have performative masturbation rituals
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I wash mine in holy water, then dust it with volcanic ash from the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption, and wipe it down with a felted angora cloth, just like my mother taught me.
Noobie mistake, you need to say you learned it from your nonna
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The toxic stuff is what bacteria leave behind, and you can't cook that out.
You literally can
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I also have performative masturbation rituals
Involving the cast iron or in addition to?
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Weird that he's still your mate though. And not just somebody that you used to know.
Well you didnt have to cut him off, make out like it never happened and that they were nothing.
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I put a little water in it, turn the burner on, and scrape it with a spatula as the water boils. Rinse out and paper towel dry. Add a little oil if it needs it, heat again, and wipe off the excess.
Normally I wipe it with paper towels while it's still hot, they go in the compost. Then I put a teaspoon of cooking salt in the dry pan and scrub it with another paper towel.
My theory is that what little grease is left behind absorbs so much salt that it becomes destructive to bacteria.
I buy cooking salt in big 5kg bags so it is dirt cheap and costs basically nothing to do this.
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Wait, why shouldn’t I cook with Cisco?
From the studies I'd read on the new formulation, the thing they're doing to it to keep it solid at room temperature seems to also be very unhealthy, even if it no longer has trans fats.
It's been quite a while since I read them, so I can't recall the name of chemical or process that's harmful (agh!)
I'll see if I can find it.
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Check out this amazing video all about Teflon. I know, nearly an hour long... Worth it!
Fascinating and scary how poorly regulated it still is today.
I was also wrong about how teflon is joined to cookware. I don't know where I got that from. -
Wait, why shouldn’t I cook with Cisco?
Update! So the new Crisco uses Intersterified fat, which this study suggests promotes weight gain, increases blood sugar levels, and stresses the liver.
It also is now mostly made of Palm oil, which means buying it inadvertently supports the burning of rainforest for palm oil plantations.
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I cleaned a cast iron pan over the weekend. "Oven cleaner" the voices on YouTube said. In reality I needed an angle grinder and it took me the better part of 3 hours to do. My pan had some kind of matt black factory "seasoning" that was definitely not just oil and it took that long to chip it all off. Anyway pan is back in action now.
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You literally can
Please try cooking out the toxins from some chicken 2 weeks past it's use by date and let us know how it goes.
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Please try cooking out the toxins from some chicken 2 weeks past it's use by date and let us know how it goes.
Doesn't it just all turn into carbon at some point? Not sure how tasty that would be though.
But for the pan its going to be mostly a thin layer of oils, guy should at least give it a good wipe with a cloth though even if nothing else.
