I have never found scrambled eggs cooked in a cast iron pan to be very good. I use stainless.
The Romans made better concrete, and we just learned their secret. So, some formulas are lost in the past.
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I do too, actually!
Dāoh!!
Yes, the pebbly surface of new pans is the worst part of new CI pans (compared to the old ones which were machined). Iāve read of several people who tried to sand the surface down to smooth, but they all failed. The cost to machine one smooth would be too much but if a friend or family member had access to a machine shop and offered to do it for free or cheap I would gladly take them up on it.
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Its a horrible idea if you want to preserve the season. This pan was unusable. To restore it you need to remove any remaining season, then scrub off the rust. Unless the pan is already damaged (like say a crack), heating it like this isnāt going to do anything more than expose the bare metal. Which is exactly what you need to do.
Itāll work, but youāre likely to change the interior texture of the pan. It wouldnāt matter much with a modern pan. But those old ones have a sanded/polished interior. So sand blasting it kind of removes half the point of buying the old ones.
[quote=āRHD, post:17, topic:51337ā]
Why flax oil [/quote]
Flax oil is the food grade version of linseed oil. Its a ādrying oilā, which means it will set to a hard, smooth polymerized finish when left to cure in air. Since youāre attempting to build up a layer of polymerized oil when you season a bare iron or steel pan its supposedly easier to get a thick, durable coating (fewer steps, less heating) when you use an oil that wants to do that naturally. IIRC that was the entire theory behind it. Iāve not tried it myself: a number of sources I trust have said theyāve not noticed a difference and flax oil is expensive. Personally I think bacon fat/lard work the best out of everything Iāve tried.
āI do not know that the difference is so magical that anyone needs to run right out and swap from current era Lodge to antique Griswold with a slant-patterned logo. Keeping an eye out for bargain pieces and cleaning them up will result in a collection of superior cookware, however.ā
Thatās pretty much exactly how I feel on the subject. There is a difference, and the older stuff is certainly ānicerā in a lot of ways. Especially the Wagners, Iāve always thought those were the best looking pans you could get. But I donāt think the difference is enough to completely lose your mind about it. The new stuff will do you more than fine. Seek out the old stuff if you like it, or maybe want to save some cash.
One additional note on it though is there are a lot of REALLY weird, or specific cast iron pieces that arenāt commonly made these days. Like roasting pans, those hammered chicken fryers, a really bizarre array of bakeware. Those can be well worth seeking out.
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That is the theory and let me describe my experiences with flax oil: It canāt hurt if you do it right. It is not particularly special.
If you are starting with a raw CI, like the Wagner and Griswold I just seasoned ā it is worth it, from my experience, to start the pans with 6-10 (yeah, I know 10 ā but I intend to keep these pans for ever and not have to strip them again) layers of flax oil seasoning.
First wipe on a small amount of the oil, spreading it out thin over the whole piece and then wipe as much off as you can. Then put the pan in the oven and turn the oven on. Leave it for 45-60 minutes after the oven comes to temperature (as high as itāll go in normal temperature ranges). Then let the oven cool with the pan in it, closed. Repeat. After 5-6 layers youāll have an amazing looking finish that is very consistent and potentially sticky surface, use a ton of butter, oil or grease while cooking.
Once you have that base coat, using any oil is fine, all will add to the seasoning.
I found canola, crisco and other vegetable oils to go on brown to brownish. They turn black with use over time. Using the pan is the best way to make it a great pan.
I found grapeseed and avacado oils to build up in thicker gooey masses that required more baking in the oven at high temps to get looking right. Using the pans also make them look and work fine.
If you boil a freshly Flax oil treated pan clean itāll turn battleship grey. Cooking in it with oil will turn it black again pretty fast. I boiled one clean and it had a very odd watermark for a few uses.
If one puts the flax oil on thickly theyāll just have a flaky mess that cracks off. It doesnāt seem to cure right. Doing it super thin, again and again, is right. Like varnish. Hell, maybe we should cut the flax seed oil with alcohol to get it to go on even thinnerā¦
Anyways, flax can not hurt if you are willing to be OCD and intend seasoning only be done every few generations. All the other oils work just fine and of course cooking in the pan is the best way.
You are really right about the rare items.I hope to have a hammered chicken fryer. They really are lovely. Maybe a dutch oven. The Griswold waffle irons are amazing looking.
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I often contemplate picking up some of the stranger pieces when I see them at second hand shops, but generally havenāt. On a similar note the Lodge muffin CI makes for a lovely miniature Yorkshire Pudding pan (and you can find one anywhere).
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This was one of the more difinitive things Iāve heard about it. Because the flax oil it naturally prone to polymerizing you can get the same results in less time, with less heat, per coat. And potentially fewer coats as well. Its not uncommon to see recommendations of 4+ hours per coat with other oils. So as a time saving concern I can see it really working.
And Iāve always wanted one of those waffle irons. They just look so bonkers, and in my experience electric waffle irons with cast iron grills just work far better than anything else.
thankfully, older pans are easily had on eBayā¦
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Formulas for stuff, like methods of construction, get lost all the time. Even nowadays, where storage is ubiquitous and archiving easy, formulas will probably still get lost. Usually it doesnāt get lost until we develop a better one, or no longer need it for whatever reason.
Lots of experts at the tops of their crafts intentionally and specifically keep their formulas and methods secret, and many are only revealed decades after their death, pieced together from fragments of journalsā¦ and many did not keep journals, or kept ones that donāt reveal their formulas. Alfredo Salafiaās embalming formula is a good example, I think. Others donāt do so intentionally, but the tradition of passing them down, like with many languages, eventually dies off for lack of use. Sometimes they are even still in use, but exceptionally hard to find except in some unexpected niche that one would not expect to know anything special about the topic of contention.
In this case though, itās probably crap.
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I have one of those gas wands I use for weeds on paving stones and gravel paths. But Iād never burn grass near an old wooden fence. Seems a recipe for a new fence.
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Neither wood I, but it was the first accurate stick photo.
A woman burned her house down today in No. California . Neighbors said they saw her using a gas torch to "mowā the weeds behind her garage.
I am the proud owner of my great, great, great grandmotherās (the daughter of a Union Civil War soldier) 12 inch ci skillet. Itās a thing of beauty with a satin like cooking surface. I donāt think anyoneās mentioned that acidic foods like tomatoes should be cooked in ci as the iron imparts a distasteful flavor. Also, I donāt know if itās true but supposedly cooking in ci adds iron to oneās diet. I love the post suggesting using a very hot ci skillet to brown the top of a creme bruleĀ“.
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Would it if the seasoning is really a polymer that keeps your food away from the cast iron?
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Good to hear about the sanding failures, but darn! I have an old Griswold I bought off eBay and prepped with the Canter method, 7 coats. Itās great, but sort of comparable to a modern thin nonstick pan. It doesnāt have the mass of a new Lodge. I was thinking of getting a Lodge 12 inch, and sanding it smooth to get a really slick pan that could still act like a heat battery. Good for searing and such. Sounds like that wonāt really work. I saw one guy on YouTube smoothing a Lodge with a wire brush wheel on a drill. That might get me a little closer.
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Egggggs.
Given the advances in metallurgy resulting from X-ray crystallography, the electron microscope, the XRF analyser, and a whole host of post-WW2 technologies, I can say with great confidence that if the demand was there, a cast iron could be designed to have almost any combination of properties within the overall envelope possible for cast iron. The issue, of course, is the demand and whether what the manufacturer wants (easy pouring, no voids, no cracks or slag inclusions) necessarily results in the best iron for actual cooking. (As an example, austenitic cast iron has almost every possible desirable property for making engine cylinders, except the rather fatal one that it traps oil and makes for a smoky exhaust.)
The example of Roman cement mentioned above reinforces this point. Roman cement was extremely labor intensive and worked well in a slave economy. Modern cement was designed for automated manufacture and handling. It may not last as long but it is much more economic, and nobody has to be worked to death at a miserable job to make it.
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@jlw i really enjoyed reading this write-up, thank you! i now want to find some old cast iron pans to compare to my own lodge pans and dutch oven.
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