A cast iron metamorphosis

Oh the things pinterest will make me do! Well not make exactly but you know what I mean. Suddenly because you saw a pretty pin about flower arranging, or cake pops or sewing your own panty liners, those things suddenly become feasible things for you to try despite the fact that they had never even been a blip on your radar beforehand. So it was with cast iron.

I saw a pin a while ago showing a grody cast iron skillet transformed into gleaming black magnificence. Then I found a grody cast iron skillet for $6 at a thrift store. It was meant to be. Following the pin took me to this series of blog posts explaining the science behind cleaning and seasoning cast iron, and with zero trepidation I dove right in.

The pan was in pretty rough shape when I got it. The inside was both covered in crud and rusty where the seasoning had worn away, but there weren't any really obvious flaws in the casting. I sprayed it liberally with oven cleaner, sealed it up in a garbage bag and left it in a corner for two days. The sludge that came off was too gross to photograph, but after a quick rinse and scrub I was down to bare iron and rust.

Since I didn't have any wire wool and the rust wasn't coming off with my scrubbing sponge, I decided to risk a vinegar bath (50% with water). Vinegar can damage the underlying iron so I was a little bit worried and didn't leave the pan in very long, maybe two hours, then scrubbed again and the pan was ready for seasoning.

According the posts I linked to above, flax seed oil is the best option for seasoning. I ordered a bottle from Amazon and in the meantime started seasoning using coconut oil as suggested in the comments. Coconut oil didn't seem to be giving me anywhere close the the finish I was expecting after four cycles of high heat treatment. The pan remained gray and didn't feel like it was becoming any slicker. However, once my flax seed oil arrived, the first coat turned the pan a WONDERFUL dark glossy black. I'm not sure if the coconut oil pre-seasoning helped with creating the illusive "black rust" people aim for with cast iron but damn, the pan was starting to look amazing.

Three coats of oil, three times heating to past 500F for an hour and I now have a thing of beauty to use in my kitchen. Behold... the skillet!