Originally published at: Season cast iron on the BBQ | Boing Boing
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I had to season my pans two or three times until I got the hang of taking care of them. Now I doubt I’ll have to do it again for 20-30 years.
I did them in my oven, the trick is not to leave a ton of oil on them or it will smoke like hell. You’re better off rubbing oil on and wiping it off so that you think there isn’t even any oil on it, and doing that a few times, than trying to put a slick seasoning layer on in the first go.
My pans start off with browning greasy foods, and eventually graduate where I can do more difficult things like eggs or cornbread.
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This is a great idea and I’m going to try it but that apparently-Canuckistani chap is a bit of an over-explainer.
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Oh he is certainly of the Great White Northern sort. I enjoy his videos, he helped with one particularly tricky solo Kamado Joe ceramic fitting thing.
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Season the grates on your grill while you are at it.
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Good tip, i need to season a cast iron pot i got late last year and i’ve been holding off on it because i’ve been nervous over somehow messing it up. What kind of oil did you use? 
It’s really not difficult. You’ll see these things online where people have these elaborate 12 step procedures using some free range organic Mongolian Yak-Beet oil or something, but really almost any oil will work and you can season by just using the pot to pan fry stuff until the coating is nicely built up. It doesn’t take all that long either. Pretty soon the coating is self sustaining so long as you don’t do marinara sauce a dozen times in a row and scrub hard with soap after each one.
The only special thing I do with the cast iron is to always clean and dry it after eating. I don’t leave it sitting in the sink for the next day, possibly getting filled with water or sitting in a puddle. You can get away with that with an aluminum or stainless steel pot, but cast iron doesn’t like it.
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Avocado oil all the way, flash point/smoke point is very high, 520 degrees F. That’s how we do it round here…
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Food-grade linseed oil, too.
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Same. Then this summer I took a week to slowly build up a nice seasoning on one of my pans, and even though the glossy shine has rubbed off it’s almost as non-stick as fresh teflon.
extra virgin olive oil because I had some handy. I cook so much sausages, bacon, and ham in my pans that it doesn’t matter. I used to try lard, corn oil, and other things, works fine too. It starts off kind of transparent brown color, but once I fried veggies up in it it darkens up.
I had one pan that got a bad texture that kept flaking off. maybe it was the olive oil. I don’t know. so I rubbed it down with one of those fancy chainmail scrubbers each time I used it. after a week it quit shedding flakes and built up a new coating.
For price those plastic scrapers that Lodge sells do the trick for cleaning it, obviously don’t melt it by putting it into a hot pan. Hot water and 20 seconds of scrapping does the trick most of the time.
For a dutch oven, it takes a very long time to build up a good seasoning. For starters most of us wouldn’t cook with a dutch oven nearly as often as a frying pan. And with a dutch oven you don’t use the whole pan surface quite as much as you would a frying pan. The sides are always a bit weak in seasoning. Then there is a tendency to put veggies that have acids in them or flour for thickening stews that can stick and burn.
My best pan is a tiny little square one I use for making grilled cheese sandwiches. I use it often enough with butter in it for it to have built up a nice seasoning. It ended up being my go to pan for making a single fried egg because nothing sticks to it anymore. I think they sell for like $8.
I’ve had a cast iron pan that gets nightly use for like 8 years and haven’t felt like it needed to be reseasoned. Is this unusual? I wipe it with oil very occasionally but mostly cooking with olive oil seems to keep it seasoned unless I’m being very dumb about it. It isn’t rusty and seems as non-stick as when I bought it.
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I’m a HUGE fan of Allen Millyard (if ya dont know him, check out his youtube, hes a mad engineering guy who grafts motorcycle engines together in a backyard shed)
in almost EVERY video, he talks about using his BBQ for this or that.
If he can use BBQ for prepping motors for TIG welding? I am positive seasoning cat iron is also do-able 
Winter BBQ, just right for pre heating aluminium casting prior to TIG welding 🙈 pic.twitter.com/MRh589cfQR
— Allen Millyard (@AllenMillyard) January 5, 2020
You are doing it right.
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his calm voice, his insane engineering, and the fact he does this in a backyard shed smaller than 2 silicon valley cubicles…
Great idea! I have many cast iron, some 100 years old. Since I don’t use them all I must store them and re-season when I decide to use. I even have a new Kickstarter one on order that says its pre-seasoned, but I will season it anyway. Cheers and thanks jiw.
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