Picked up a cast iron skillet

[Foyle]

I found this cast iron skillet while hunting for razors at the antique malls today. This one was in good shape with only a little surface rust on the outside. I scrubbed it clean and gave it a seasoning with a little helpful advice from Rock Viper. I'll give it a try tomorrow morning with some bacon and eggs.

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[YetiDave]

Looks good! I always find I get some crap stuck to the pan after I cook bacon, and as such have to clean it if I don't want the eggs sticking too :/

 

[Foyle]

The bacon is frying up on it right now. So far there is zero sticking. This is so cool.

 

[rockviper]

I'm having coffee right now. Bacon and eggs with some toast (suck up the remaining grease in the toast for me , please!) sounds good right now.

 

[Foyle]

Made scrambled eggs in it after the bacon was fried. There were only a few little flakes of egg that stuck to the pan which easily wiped off when I cleaned it. Tomorrow I may try a sunny side up egg.

 

[Wid]

Any markings on the bottom?

 

[Foyle]

Like a maker's mark? It just says "made in USA, No 8, 10 5/8". "

 

[ouch]

The key to cast iron and black steel pans is to use them a lot. Use them all the time and maintenance is easy and they will get better and better. If you only pull them out a couple of times a year they require more care per use.

 

[YetiDave]

The key to cast iron and black steel pans is to use them a lot. Use them all the time and maintenance is easy and they will get better and better. If you only pull them out a couple of times a year they require more care per use.

Ever made pork rinds/scratchings in cast iron? I recently cooked down a couple of pounds of skin in the oven in a new Lodge, and not only ended up with a cup or so of really great cooking fat, but the seasoning improved greatly

 

[Foyle]

More bacon frying up right now.

 

[ckang79]

I just received my skillet this past weekend as well and cooked up some bacon. No problems with sticking but the eggs really stuck to the pan. Still working on the seasoning and hoping to get a real good non-stick surface to it soon.

 

[Foyle]

Here's what I was told to do. It worked like a charm. Since I got mine from and antique mall, I scrubbed the tarnation out of it with an SOS pad. Then, I smeared butter on the inside with a touch of salt and pepper, and a little oregano. I baked it in the oven at 325 for an hour. It worked like a charm. No sticking with the eggs. If you're frying bacon first and then eggs, be sure to wipe out the pan with a paper towel after the bacon fries to get all the bacon crud out of there. Then, put some butter or lard or other fat in the pan and put your eggs in. You shouldn't have any sticking.

Here's a method I found on YouTube that looks great. It's super easy. If you skip to the end you can get to the actual seasoning part. In the beginning she is just cleaning the pan and getting the rust off. The gist of it is to coat the pan with an oil and add heat until the pan just starts to smoke. Then, turn off the heat and let it cool. This polymerizes the oil and forms a non-stick surface. Baking in the oven does the same thing; it just takes a little longer.

 

[ckang79]

After you get a good seasoning on the pan, do you still use a lot of oil to cook with, or can you use less as the seasoning gets better?

 

[YetiDave]

For some foods you can get away with very little oil. I find the best way to cook pancakes is in cast iron that's just been wiped with kitchen paper that has a little oil on it - a barely visible layer should be in the pan. You should only need a tiny amount, but obviously some foods will cook better with more oil as it's a conduit for heat

 

[JTillman]

I use a cast iron skillet for almost everything I cook on the stove and/or grill. If you treat the skillet right, it will treat you right in return. I picked the habit of cast iron cooking up in boy scouts, and it has been a hard one to shake. There is very little you can't cook in a good cast iron skillet.
Have you tried blackening anything? That's my favorite way to cook things in a skillet. It's super fast and is absolutely delicious with almost any kind of meat.

 

[Alacrity59]

The difficulty with seasoning cast iron on the stove top is that when a pan is larger than the burner the edges don't heat as well as the middle. The good news is that usually, for me, it is the middle of the pan that occasionally needs a bit more seasoning. I've even moved the pan around on the burner to heat the edges more. With the exhaust fan going full blast I get yelled at less often than when I use the oven. (BBQ is the safest place to season, avoiding yelling wise)

 

[rxonmymind]

Here's one way of seasoning it. Wipe gently then throw it in the oven for 40 minutes on 275(? I think) to evenly re-season it. I don't have to this one.

 

[jbaca]

And remember typically bacon has some kind of curing and sometimes contains a sweetener (sugar) which can make other foods like eggs stick.

 

[Khedquist]

Mmmmmmmmmm bacon. Nice pan.