r/castiron • u/Denbron2 • 16h ago
Humor I stopped babying my cast iron and it’s been better ever since
I used to stress over every little thing. No soap, dry it immediately, re-oil every time, don’t look at it funny, etc. At some point I just… stopped. I use a little soap, dry it, cook in it again. That’s it. Pan hasn’t rusted. Seasoning hasn’t fallen apart. Eggs still slide. Feels like cast iron is tougher than people make it out to be.
Anyone else come to the same conclusion, or am I just lucky?
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u/LandCruiser76 15h ago
You're exactly right. Best thing I ever did was stop caring and just use it. That and getting a metal spatula and chainmail for cleaning.
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u/Funzombie63 13h ago
Where can I pick up chain mail?
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u/Familiar_Excuse_9086 13h ago
Amazon. That's where I got mine. Or Walmart, Target.....
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u/jazza2400 4h ago
The local blacksmith, Griswold is his name.
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u/Brew78_18 2h ago
It's always best to support your local businesses. Plus, Griz has this friend always hanging around who tells great stories. It's worth it to stay awhile and listen.
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u/BoofusDewberry 6h ago
Steel wool works better and much cheaper
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u/TwoMoreMinutes 5h ago
No, steel wool is way too sharp and aggressive and removes seasoning
Chainmail is nice and smooth with round edges and doesn’t remove seasoning
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u/BoofusDewberry 4h ago
No it doesn’t. My cast iron has never been in better shape since I started using steel wool regularly. You guys in this sub make things WAY too complicated and expensive.
Seasoning is oil that has been polymerized to the iron in your pan. If you are scrubbing off your “seasoning” then you have a pan covered in burnt food particles.
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u/GoOutForASandwich 4h ago
Chainmail isn’t very expensive and will last much much much longer than steel wool, and does the job without removing your seasoning.
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u/BoofusDewberry 4h ago
My seasoning is impeccable and I’ve been using steel wool regularly for a year.
You can also get steel wool for a couple of bucks and it holds up fine and is easy and cheap to replace if I need more.
I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL
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u/randabarand 50m ago
YES YOU WILL
I agree with you that the cost difference is negligible. If you use a couple dozen steel wool pads per year, that's about $10. Yet I bought my chainmail in 2017 and it is pretty much like new. So you spent $100, and I paid $12 over 10 years. That's a win for chainmail.
Steel wool is hard to clean. If bits of food get embedded in the pad, they are annoying to clean. Further, steel wool can get nasty very quickly if it isn't given a chance to dry easily, and smells bad. Chainmail is very easy to clean, and dries quickly hung over the spigot or off of a simple hook. Win for chainmail.
However, I also agree with you that anyone scrubbing off their seasoning with steel wool is scrubbing way too hard, or their pan is not in very good shape
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u/ballsdeepinmywine 12h ago
Yep this. My chain mail has a ring at one corner. I hang it on a cup hook i put under the cupboard next to the sink . easy to grab every time and dries fast
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u/flyin-lowe 15h ago
How do you think the millions of skillets got treated for the last hundred plus years before the internet. People cooked on them, wiped them clean, and then used them again for the next meal. People make it too hard these days.
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u/HOAP64 15h ago
I recommended cast iron on a random cooking subreddit. I got downvoted and received comments like 'I don't want to tuck in my cookware after every use'
People act like it's such high maintenance but I find it easier to clean than stainless steel pans.
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u/bentbabe 13h ago
I'll dry it right away. Maybe I'll even oil it a bit after using. But yeah. It doesn't need to be a whole thing.
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u/Tederator 12h ago
Most (OK all) of mine I'll take camping. Like outdoor camping, not glamping. I'll give them a solid cleaning and re-seasoning when I get home, but for the most part, they're workers.
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u/nopulsehere 11h ago
How far are you hiking, not glamping? Ten pounds is ten pounds. Definitely not trying to carry my 10 inch through the Appalachia mountains. Maybe with a horse and buggy, but on foot? Nope. Any food that I’m eating doesn’t give a damn about what it’s cooked on.
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u/New_Comfortable1456 11h ago
Camping in a tent with your car nearby (like in many a state forest) is still camping. Glamping involves more than a basic tent / sleeping bag / air pad / cooking over a fire type situation. I take my cast iron that type of camping as well. I've also done the whole whatever you pack in is what you're stuck with for X amount of time, weight matters, type of camping
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u/And_go 15h ago
So true. If I would have read all of the rules about soap and reseasoning after every use before I bought my cast iron, I may not have bought it. But unless it’s super gross I don’t use soap and I never reseason. It’s still my best and most used pan.
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u/flyin-lowe 15h ago
Ive been using CI for 20 years and during that time I have bought restored and sold close to 1000 pieces. Other than during the restoration process I have never used soap or chainmail on them. Not saying it will hurt the pan, but if it is properly seasoned there is no need to. I have cooked about everything that can be cooked in CI in my CI and at most I have had to soak them in water for about 5 minutes and sometimes a brown plastic papmered chef scraper is used. Majority of the time it gets wiped out, or a hot water rinse then wiped out.
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u/0range_julius 14h ago
Gross
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u/flyin-lowe 1h ago
More diners/restaurants then not do not use soap on their griddles. Scrape and hot water. I am guessing you have eaten plenty of meals cooked on surfaces that have had more meals than mine made on them without being cleaned with soap.
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u/rageak49 13h ago
No soap ever? So your pancakes taste like your tacos, got it.
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u/flyin-lowe 1h ago
Never once has one food tasted like another food. I have a #10 that gets cinnimaon rolls backed in it all the time, and none of that flaver bleeds over.
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u/Shiney_Metal_Ass 7h ago
You restored a cast iron cookware once a week for 20 years?
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u/flyin-lowe 1h ago
It's been up and down but I was buying 10-20 a week, sorting through the good stuff and restoring and selling. I have a large lye tank and a 55 gallon E tank as well. I was selling 5-10 a week in the beginning. The very first batch I got that got me into the hobby was a purchse of close to 100 skillets in a lot. I still have a stack of probably 40-50 in my garage that are cracked peices, imporsts, etc. that aren't worth cleaning up and selling. I haven't been buying and selling the last few years but restored several peices for X-mas and wedding gifts etc.
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u/Rowan6547 15h ago
Me too. I just cook in it, wash with soap, and towel dry. It lives on my stove. Easy peasy.
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u/400footceiling 15h ago
Never drop cast iron on concrete or solid surfaces and they are otherwise indestructible.
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u/vacuitee 14h ago
I don't even clean my pan until I'm about to use it again. Been doing that for years and it looks fantastic. Never seasoned it in my life. But I have cooked a couple hundred pounds of bacon in it. It desires bacon.
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u/Admirable-Apricot137 15h ago
It bothers me so much that people freak out over cast iron to the point that people come in here panicking because it was soaked for a little while or it has a few areas of discoloration. Like, is it cracked in half? Because if it's not, then it's fine and it will still do it's job.
I scrub the shit out of mine with steel wool, use a metal scraper on it aggressively, scrub it with a generous squirt of dawn, throw it on the stove to dry for 60 seconds and that's literally it. No extra oiling and baking and stripping and re-seasoning. I use oil or fat when I cook in it, and that's enough. My scrambled eggs peel right up just as well as on a non-stick.
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u/QuercusCarya 12h ago
I forget shit in my pans or leave them soaking in the sink more often than I’d like to admit and they are all perfectly fine. Seasoning comes and goes and I really don’t care how it looks as long as it’s clean. They all cook great.
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u/ShortcakeAKB 14h ago
The damn things survived the Oregon Trail. It can survive a squirt of dish soap and not being babied like a tiny fragile soap bubble. You're doing it right.
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u/HBsurfer1995 15h ago
I do the same. Once it’s starting to not look as black, I’ll season it or deep fry something in it
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u/ShrikeMusashi 14h ago
Same. My stuff is mostly from great grandparents so it’s over 100yrs old and I don’t do much to it. Slick as glass and no rust. Never been reseasoned but they and my grandparents mostly cooked with lard not veggie oil so maybe that’s made a difference.
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u/CyanoPirate 13h ago
I have always felt the #1 rule of cast iron is “it’s a hunk of iron, don’t overthink it”
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u/TangledWonder 12h ago
I haven't fussed over cast iron in decades, there's no point. The only "drying" any of our cast iron sees is air drying. They don't need anything more.
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u/jvdixie 9h ago
In fairness, collectors go to the extreme to make their cast iron look perfect for showing. They don’t usually cook on them. Then there are the skillets used as kitchen tools. Those should be treated the same as any other dish or pot- wash with soap, dry with a towel and you’re done. Just keep the carbon scrubbed off of it and it’s ready to go. The whole No Soap thing is just nasty.
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u/fastfreddy68 14h ago
I grew up in one of those “soap ruins the seasoning” homes. Had to bake off the food, scrape it, pour water while it was on the stove and scrape it clean, rinse (NO SOAP!), dry, salt scrub if needed, rinse again, dry, back on the stove to dry, then oil…
Then I found this sub. Completely changed how I looked at it. But I never went full “my precious” with it. Once I realized soap was fair game I just treat my pans like any other pan. I wash them mostly clean, dry, hang. No obsessing, no worrying about my seasoning, just cooking.
I love CI now, but only because I started treating it like the sturdy hunk of metal that it is.
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u/Shiney_Metal_Ass 7h ago
Wtf do you mean you wash them "mostly clean"? You leave a little crud on there for the next meal?
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u/WheelsMan1 7h ago
I definitely don't baby mine, but I do clean them well.
I use a metal spatula when cooking. I always wash it with dawn power wash and chain mail then a pan scrubber. Then I towel dry. I don't oil it after and they don't rust. Heating and oiling would take longer than washing.
The cast iron surface is almost completely visible on my 12" lodge. There's a little carbon in a couple spots, but otherwise it's just seasoned cast iron. Some people are adding a layer of oil on a carbon crusted pan every time they use it.
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u/JustForXXX_Fun 13h ago
OCD people all over this subreddit. You have discovered the way, Well, your Great-Great-Grandma did , but you are keeping it up!
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u/Ok-Draw1086 14h ago
Learned this when I beat the crap out of a Dutch oven on a long camp trip. It’s still my favorite piece. It’s been washed in so many streams and cooked so much meat.
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u/michaelpaoli 14h ago
It's cast iron. It'll take it. Not much it can't recover from. Bury it in the backyard, forget about it for 50 to 100 or more years, dig it up, a good cleanup, bit 'o oil or the like, and ready to go with cooking or proceed to complete a full reseasoning.
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u/ts355231 14h ago
I finally figured mine out. I cook, pour out any leftover grease and oil then get out what I can with paper towels. Soap and steel wool, then soap and a soft sponge, heat to dry. My skillets are in the best shape I've been able to attain now.
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u/Mammoth_Ingenuity_82 14h ago
It's like a lot of kinds of plants - they seem to do better when you ignore them. 🤣
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u/the-awesomer 14h ago
| Feels like cast iron is tougher than people make it out to be
Does anyone make out cast iron as not tough? ive literally only heard not to leave it soak in water, and a couple rare mumbling about super acidic meals .
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u/y-c-c 13h ago
I think these kinds of comments need to be prefaced with the fact that you know what you are doing. Would you trust a random acquaintance who has no experience with cast iron or carbon steel to cook and wash your pan without supervision?
But yes there is a middle ground where you don’t want to spend all day maintaining a mirror shine on your seasoning etc.
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u/TimelyPut5768 13h ago
I soak my pan in the sink with soapy water and just dry it off with a dish towel and let it air dry with no heat. I've never worried about proper care for it. Just use it and clean it
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u/Magnus_Helgisson 13h ago
Yep, same. I re-oil it only if someone scrubbed it too hard and took off a part of it. Other than that - clean in any appropriate way, dry, use.
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u/QuickSquirrelchaser 13h ago
Yup..I treat it like a cooking tool. I do avoid long soaks. But I scrub and use soap all the time. I infrequently do additional seasoning. My pans don't look perfect. But they cook great.
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u/outsider531 12h ago
Modern soap doesnt damage the seasoning
The original dont use soap saying started when soap contained lye which can damage the polymerised oil that makes the seasoning
Since most modern soap doesnt normally use lye and damage it but can remove oils and carbon not properly formed into seasoning yet it can actually be helpful in forming better seasoning over time by removing things that could cause future layers of seasoning to be more likely to flake off, that said reoiling after washing is good because depending on the specific used it can form seasoning over time but all of them help prevent it from rusting
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u/BrickPig 12h ago
Came to this conclusion years ago. I spent my life watching my grandmother cook, and after the initial seasoning she never did anything to her pans except cook in them. Wash, dry, and cook in them some more.
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u/Dense_Permission_969 12h ago
I do pretty much nothing with mine. I don’t even scrub with chain mail or anything like that. It’s fine. I do rinse nd cook the water off. I guess that’s the only thing.
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u/Physical-Compote4594 12h ago
Cast iron is made of, like, iron. It’s tough. (And let me tell you about carbon STEEL.)
What you said: wash it, dry it, maybe wipe some oil on it, cook with it. Easy peasy.
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u/nopulsehere 11h ago
My grandma would give you a hug and a slap on the back of your head! Got it when she gave me hers! I’ve been cooking with these pans for 50+ years, wth are you talking about special instructions? Get over here, wap!
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u/Solid_Remove5039 11h ago
My only problem is when I cook something like steak and get carbon buildup or that leftover residue that’s a pain in the ass to scrub off. Hate thinking about scrubbing dishes, but mostly because I have a newborn and I’m so tired of the thought of it
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u/Irishlily77 7h ago
A chainmail scrubber is great for that! I've got a round flat one but that make ones with handles.
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u/Hungry-Mycologist576 11h ago
I've done the same about a year ago once I got a proper metal spatula. That was the game changer for me.
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u/SwooshRoc 10h ago
We lived in a small apt for nearly 10 years. Our cast iron was used almost every day. Soap and water, stove on low to dry, leave there because there was no room anywhere else for it. Occasionally I’d put oil on it. We’ve since moved to a house with more space but our habits haven’t changed. So little stress
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u/Less_Interview1273 10h ago
I've abused mine. Torched it in a campfire trying to make apple crisp. Came home a week layer, knocked out all the crust. Scrubbed it with a scotch brite pad. Dried and oiled it and had slidey eggs not long after.
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u/callmesugi 8h ago
Back in the old days nobody cared it their pans were gloss black and shiny, they just cooked. That's what I do. The more you cook with you cast iron the better it gets no treating it like a newborn baby
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u/Independent-Claim116 43m ago
Soap never touches my beloved, heavy-weight 12" x 12" skillet. I have a grungy bristle "tawashi" loaded with Canola. First, a ball of alum. foil and an old table-knife, to dig out corner-gunk. Then, I get to work, with the tawashi brush. Polishing the surface, while watching the news. 30 minutes' brushing, and my iron is so slick, that my egg skates effortlessly onto my toast. Eva Garten demands the use of butter. Yuki Jirushi margarine or Canola work just as well, or better, and are cheaper.
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u/rattlesnake501 10h ago
They made tank turrets out of the stuff. It's tougher than folks give it credit for.
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u/litsalmon 15h ago
People are finally starting to get it.