I was given this pan by a buddy downsizing. It hasn't been used in 5ish years and to me looks a touch rusted. Am I completely off base to just buff it out using barkeepers friend and then re-seasoning in the oven?
AllHailTheSheep 14 points 10 months ago
this is a lodge pan, I have one of these. they rust pretty easily as they aren't a super smooth cook surface. realistically you'd be perfectly fine just to clean with some salt and cook with it, reseasoning would be nice but optional. however, you can improve the pan a lot by actually sanding it down until it's smoother and reseason completely. this will VERY slowly happen naturally over time as well.
some people will say sanding cast iron is heresay, but lodge pans are bottom of the barrel as far as cast iron goes. doesn't mean they aren't good out of the box and cant be great with proper care, but they can definitely be improved with a bit of elbow grease.
there's tons of guides online for it as well.
ColeSloth 6 points 10 months ago
That works, or iron out and a wire brush, or wipe it out and season it with the bit of surface rust there and it will go away on its own.
Now the best thing you can do though, is to use an orbital sander (or a large amount of manual elbow grease) to actually sand the casting smooth on the inside of the pan before you season it. The casting being rough actually really hinders the non sticking, even with several layers of a proper seasoning job. Sand the bottom to get rid of the roughness from the casting and it will end up being your favorite thing to cook in. It will stay cleaner and more non stick and easier to wash than any other cast iron pan you can buy that's not under $120. The ones you can buy over $120? Go check one out. The inside bottom has been machined smooth to get rid of the roughness from casting.
ObviouslyNotBanana 6 points 10 months ago
That's, in my opinion, a skillet that just needs some dish soap and then to be cooked with.
CMDR_Horn 4 points 10 months ago
You could do that. I want to try this some day if I come across a free skillet, mine are all 2-3 generations old.
castiron
@lemmy.world
2719
129
4
A community for cast iron cookware. Recipes, care, restoration, identification, etc.
Rules: Be helpful when you can, be respectful always, and keep cooking bacon.
More rules may come as the community grows, but for now, I'll remove spam or anything obviously mean-spirited, and leave it at that.
Related Communities: !forgediron@lemmy.world !sourdough@lemmy.world !cooking@lemmy.world
go to feed...
castiron
@lemmy.world
2719
129
4
A community for cast iron cookware. Recipes, care, restoration, identification, etc.
Rules: Be helpful when you can, be respectful always, and keep cooking bacon.
More rules may come as the community grows, but for now, I'll remove spam or anything obviously mean-spirited, and leave it at that.
Related Communities: !forgediron@lemmy.world !sourdough@lemmy.world !cooking@lemmy.world
go to feed...
Eh a little surface rust never hurt nobody. Barkeepers friend is probably overkill in this case. I'd just dump in like 50g of kosher salt and maybe 20-30ml of a neutral oil and scrub it around real well before rinsing out the salt, drying the pan over heat and beginning the seasoning process.
save