I use an open, hardwood fire for years to clean off light rust, years of greasy crud & to season cast iron without damaging any. It's not doing it with fire that causes damage to the cast iron, it's not knowing HOW to do it with fire that causes damage. However, using fire isn't a method that most people know how to do correctly and, therefore, shouldn't attempt using fire. Cast iron cookware has been around for a couple thousand years & that's way, way longer than modern ovens. So yes, our ancestors did season their cast iron with fire, they just knew HOW to do correctly. But, I agree with you as far as nowadays. It's definitely best if most people avoid the "fire" method for cleaning & seasoning their cast iron, as very few people have the now how do it correctly.
Cast Iron Chaos I'm inclined to agree with you, as I've not seen any on TH-cam actually use the "fire method" correctly. And, although using the fire is the way I do it, I don't recommend it to others because it requires a certain "know how" that the majority of people just don't have, aren't going to learn and definitely isn't the best method for them to use just for a couple skillets. But, for me, its the way I learned to clean/season cast iron. It's the way my dad did it for years & it worked well for him. I learned it from him & it still works well for me too. It's kinda like a blacksmith knowing how to judge the forge by look & feel through years of experience. However, it definitely not the best method for most folks nowadays.
I have a huge cast iron kettle that you use look like the tripod and it is nasty Rusty the way I bought it how would I go about cleaning it properly and seasoning cuz I can't put it in my oven please message me on Facebook messenger Bonnie vanhoose
My grandparents always seasoned them in the oven or stove top. My parents have done the same. I still have my grandmothers Wagner #12 behemoth skillet. It's black as coal and it's slick as ice. Best pan I own. Thanks for a great video as always.
Burning a cast iron is the only way I have ever done mine. The problem is that the people heated to hot. You don’t need or won’t a big hot fire to burn your pans. If you’re going to burn your pot or pan you must pay attention to it. The fire only needs to be as hot to get the grease runny .
Thanks for giving the temp at which the damage will happen. My oven won't hit such temps, I am saved from my own carelessness. There are several videos on Yt instructing people to toss them in the fire. Once you have gotten that natural nonstick surface to where you want it to be, you don't want to risk messing it up for keeps.
Thanks for this video. I have my wife's Grandfather's cast iron which I have cleaned with fire with a 66% success rate, witch is to say two out of three pans are great, the other is warped, but still usable. I won't be using fire anymore. Recently I found two old cast irons, while cleaning out my deceased granfather's attic. I won't be using fire. Thanks again.
OH NO!!! I'm guilty of this, my mother did it so I did it to remove excess build up on the bottom. I've been lucky up to now. Thanks for posting this information.
I've heard this bad advice myself and agree it is a BAD idea! All I know is that drastic temperature changes either way of cast iron (for example, taking a HOT pan off the stove and washing in COLD water is risking a cracked pan). I just put up a video talking about tips on locating vintage cast iron. That said, I didn't talk about this particular issue, but what I did say was that by searching for them at a large antique mall where there are many vendors, you will not only find some with a good price, but you will ALSO be able to test them better for warping and most of these at a mall don't have that much rust in my experience. The rustiest ones I have found were from a barn sale and small antique stores that collect as much junk as they do antiques. Thanks for another good video. Take care, LLS
My mother used to clean and de-carbonize her cast iron skillets in an open fire every summer. She passed away in 2002. I have two from her collection, and use them without issue to this very day. Nostalgic for me to say the least, since at 70, they are much older than I am. They were handed down to her by her mother. I don't intend to clean or de-carbonize mine in an open fire for a couple of reasons. Not the least of which is the fact that other than contained grills, open fires are prohibited in the township where I live. Nevertheless, I disagree with your admonitions. Sure, if you stoke a fire temperature high enough to white-hot forge a double troweled plow blade, throw your cast iron in, and leave it unattended until the fire dies out, that might not be the best thing for it. On the other hand, by its very nature, cast iron is made to withstand, absorb, and evenly distribute heat. It's one of its utilitarian properties, which has made it so valuable for centuries. Careful monitoring of the burn process eliminates the heat related issues you raise...which is what should be done, regardless of the method used! Incidentally, before General Electric, Westinghouse, et.al, open fires were all that cast iron cookers knew! Some of those same pieces are still very much in use today; thanks to a little common sense, and no Internet before the twentieth century.🍳
"we are lucky our cast iron hasn't been warped or messed up because of cleaning with fire ill keep pushing my luck." that's how you sound. why risk it with something so special? use a wire brush or something else that humans have came up with as we progress in time and technology. don't let your ego or family pride or whatever this is make you take a chance on destroying a family heirloom like I've done. I "cleaned" a no5 BS&R in a fire just like my grandma and it warped and was completely fucked from that point forward. old cast iron eventually will not be able to be replaced we all need to cherish this stuff especially things given or passed down the family. best of luck to you and like reading comments that make me think. whether we agree on this or not I know we agree cast iron is amazing and i hope yours lasts forever. be safe out there my friend o7
@@CruelSun69 That's not at all what I'm saying my friend. In any event, people who know what they're doing have and will continue to use whatever methods they feel work best for them...others opinions, luck, or divine providence, notwithstanding.
i am confused, i thought Cast Iron pots & pans were made for cooking over an open flame or on a camp fire. didn't the cowboys use cast iron pans to cook over a fire while rustling cattle on the range. am i missing something ? i have a rocket stove i made, it gets very hot. it can boil 4 cups of water in 3 min's. i was thinking of getting a cast iron griddle plate to set on it to cook on, but now im not sure what to do. any advice would be helpful. Thanks.
Perfectly fine for cooking on. Just don’t leave the empty pan on there unattended, you wouldnt do that on a stove burner on high either. It would be too hot for what your cooking long before any damage to the iron.
It's amazing how many old wives tales and popular phrases still exist regarding vintage cast iron. Throwing it in the fire to wire wheel restoration to, just scrub it with salt and a potato to remove the rust. Or I often hear, my parents got one, they only use it to cook corn bread with. My favorite is, well if anything you can use it to smash someone over the head with, yikes!
On Facebook, one of the members of the Cast Iron Cooking group posted this comment: " I have my husbands grandmothers skillet. It's a Favorite #9 Pique Ware. A lot of buildup on the bottom but smooth as glass on the inside. Of all the cast iron I have restored, I will not restore her skillet. It took her too many years to get that buildup on it and it's the last thing we have of hers. I took it outside last year (because I was going to see if I found a lid for it and had been using it for years) and noticed it was fire damaged, warped, and actually has a crack in it. My husband remembers countless times when his grandmother would tell his grandfather to put in in the coals after he had a fire and it burned down. They would get it out after it cooled down. So this skillet is now my baker skillet and I will say cornbread, pineapple upside down cake and everything else just flips right out. I would never think about using this pan to fry anything or any other fire damaged pan because of the possibility of it cracking and someone being burned."
Thank you for posting this video! I was about to throw my cast iron pot in the wood heater!!! Thank you for preventing me from ruining my cast iron!!! I appreciate you!
We've always burnt our cast iron fry pans. If it's bad rusty build a small fire using oak wood. It ain't got to be a big fire. I'm still using fry pans I've burned out. Good vidio though.
This is a TH-cam video. So do I believe you or not? I use fire at least once on all my cast. Never had an issue. And I got a lot of cast iron. I'll keep doing what I been doing. It works very well.
I have a fire pit that's two stacked semi rims. Literally every single piece of old, rusty cast iron I get, I get a fire going, chuck it in, and leave i til morning. Never had a single issue. Zero work to strip it and you can use that energy to sand the inside smooth before seasoning.
Funny, a lot of people say this but they don't seem interested in providing pictures to verify the cast iron is perfectly undamaged, with no red color or anything.
@@castironchaos Maybe because TH-cam won't let you attach pictures in comments? Lol I've got about 6 pieces I've restored, as well as pieces I've done for my friends and families. Bear in mind, I've been doing it for years and have also dabbled in blacksmithing. The metallurgical knowledge required to not destroy your cast iron in a fire is extremely minimal. Maybe I'm giving people too much credit, though. Lol
Post them elsewhere, then. I've said numerous times, fire cleaning will not always damage cast iron. There is a *possibility* it will be damaged. That's the point of this video.
Thank you for posting this video. I had heard of multiple ways of cleaning cast iron. I won't even use the self cleaning oven method for concerns of excess heat. Old, vintage cast iron is not being made any more so why risk destroying it? I recently purchased off of Ebay a #8 large slant logo Griswold from a person that knew nothing of cast iron. Neither the photos nor the description hinted at fire damage. When it arrived it was obviously fire damaged. Fortunately it did not cost much! I am experimenting with buffing off the damage and maybe it can become a usable pan. If not then only my time is at stake. Wish me luck! Thank you for all of you videos.
Me and my Grandmother cleaned and reseasoned dozens of pans over my life. We would build a small fire let it burn and keep it up for a whole day until a few hours before dark and get a nice bed of coals. Right before dark we would lightly douse the flames down and let it cool ,lay out the pans on a peice of steel or concrete slab and cover them with coals. The next morning we would build a fire in the fire ring bring out the bucket of lard and an old grate to suspend the pots flat 18 or so inches above the fire and slather them with a paint brush in lard every few hours all day. I still use those very same pots today at 32 and we did that when I was 16 or so.
All of the pans I have were my great grandmothers and well over 100 years old so maybe age and quality has alot to do with the finished product but mine are still perfect to this day 16 years later.
Zero but we used coals not fire and the temp was tamped down by dousing the coals with water . We handled the pans with regular oven mitts so I would say our temp was less than 500 degrees
I'm glad I was able to help someone, so thank you. For a lot of people, their minds are already made up on this subject. That's why this video has more dislikes than most.
Well, I for one have witnessed a nice old cast iron pan being ruined by throwing it in a fire many years ago. Personally, I wouldn't risk loosing a single one of mine that way. What the old timers did a hundred years ago, was a hundred years ago. There are better ways to do things hundred years later. I just picked up a #8 deep sided skillet that I wanted a couple of days ago that was very rusty and had been left out in the rain. When I soaked it in vinegar to remove the rust, I soon found out that sometime in the past it, it too was thrown into the fire...….. and ruined. DUUUHHHHH !!!!
when i lived in tn, they often threw their ci in a fire. i had never heard of that b4. first time i heard someone say that, i frowned and thought, that is not right, it might crack. didn't know about all the rest of it. glad i didn't listen to them and did mine the way granny told me.
Right? My granny didn't tell me but I remember her oiling hers up and putting it in the oven with nothing in it. I asked her why she was cooking nothing and she told me she was "seasoning the pan." Made no sense to a six-year-old but I'm a quick study and always remembered that. Wish I'd have made better notes on the temp and timing, though!
Found a 10 qt Dutch oven by the dumpster. Had been cooked in, no rust inside. Patches of rust under the lid and out side. Bottom was rusted. Covered inside and out with fresh bacon grease. A lot of the rust come off when I wiped it off. Thin coating on now for about a week. No sign of more rust. Where do I go from here? Tks for any help.
The electrolysis method is the best. You can also use angle grinder with wire brush, but the electrolysis is the one which cause zero damage to the item. There is no problem with heat and direct fire but DO NOT use water to cool them down suddenly. When the pan is hot (oven is the best though and not direct fire) 300-350 Celsius, you can put linseed oil on them, and let it burn the oil onto them. Repeat it few times, and rub it with a cotton clothes. Once again: Never give heat shock to any cast iron material! Also when its not in used for long time, put some tallow on them. If its only for decoration purpose, you can put some beeswax on it. Beeswax can be also removed once you decide to use them for food purpose.
I have had good luck with burning my cast iron off ! i didn't get them too hot ! Although i lost a cast iron stove in my grandparents old house ! it burned a few years after they moved out about 1982 ! about 2005 i found all the pieces & begin putting it together & some parts like the doors were warped too bad ! so i sold it for junk iron ! most old houses has lots of fat lighter lumber ! & it burns real hot ! enjoyed youre video , Thanks for youre tips !
Great video and admire your passion. Two things I can not stand the smell of is bleach and oven cleaner. So for people that want an easy way to restore cast iron. Find a local company that does sand blasting, call them to see if they do BAKING SODA blasting on cast iron. The company I used charged $10 per skillet. When I got the skillets back they were metal grey color and looked like they had just been removed from the sand castings at the cast iron factory. No rust or anything and NO this process does not remove any metal. Choose a time when you know the humidity is going to be low for several days and season as soon as you get them back.
Could you not put the pots in a larger pot filled with oil the heat the oil to bring the temperature of the pan up and the pores of the cast iron. Kind of like soaking up the oil?
A timely video, thank you. I just recovered a cast iron pan from my house that burned down in the Tubbs fire in California. I was wondering about that stubborn red color. The ban also has melted glass stuck on it and I cannot remove it. I think it is time to put that pan in the garden as an ornament...
I beg to differ, but I dont put then in fire to "burn the rust off", the grease is what I am burning off and when finished, turns out great! Someone is burning too hot to get the effects you are talking about.
Yes they are, and that's the point. The common "advice" to do this is usually along the lines of "build a big fire and throw it in," or "bury it in the coals and get it red hot." That's indeed getting it too hot.
Wow, what a great video & information. Hope your efforts saves some great CI from just throwing them into the fire. Even trying to teach antique store owners about the effects of fire burning CI is at times a chore. I have a small collection of CI, about 150 pieces & have used electrolysis, steel wire wheels on a power tool to clean & then season with Crisco for a as new completed job & yes I do cook with them. Hope you find your #12 BSR, take care. Your videos are great for learning, keep them coming.
I laughed out loud at the “and there are experts in chem trails and ghost hunting too” comment written in the left hand corner, amigo! Thank you for this....I was just considering a pit fire to clean an extremely filthy Wagner and Griswold....I much appreciate saving me an error.
I was drying my pan and forgot it on the burner for like an hour, it turned kind of gray, when I rubbed it I had black residue on my fingers, should I throw it away? what do you guys think?
Wonderful video, thank you! I totally agree with you: Sure, fire-cleaning PROBABLY works, but, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to risk it, especially if you consider the longevity these products are supposed to have. As for the comeback, I believe MANY "old ways and techniques" are making a comeback because many new products just aren't up to snuff, are harmful to us, or aren't a very good return on investment.
Hi there, I have a Lodge sportsman grill BBQ and I was wondering if I can use wood instead of charcoal but after seeing your video I assume I can't use wood. Am I right?
This was an interesting & well done video. Perhaps I have just always been lucky, or maybe I'm doing something right (or different than others), but I have never had a piece of my cast iron damaged (as far as I can tell) by putting it into a fire. I even put it into my woodstove fires on occasion, and it gets plenty hot in there. I have also even found a couple of pieces of cast iron in the ashes of fire pits that someone else left behind. It's interesting that it would damage a piece by being in a hot fire when, at one point, the iron of which they are made was.....molten iron. There must be some extra action that does the damage, such as over rough handling, cooling too fast, or even spraying hot cast iron with cold water. Hard to imagine someone actually doing that, but I saw the clip in your video! For the record, I don't use the fire as a method to clean rust but rather to burn off accumulations that have built up over time. Makes me want to check my pieces for that red color you showed, though I think I would have noticed. I still feel comfortable doing it, but....it does give me something to think about.
Read up (or watch up) on how they forge knives. Just because metal can be molten, does not mean that it's the same consistency throughout different heating and cooling methods. They even thermally shock the red hot edges on oil to make them more hard (but less flexible) to make it retain an edge longer. They don't do it with the rest of the blade's body to retain its flexibility. The same thing goes for cast iron. It was cooled properly to give it its ideal state. Throwing it into fire puts its molecules into an altered state that no longer recovers and returns to what it was when it was sold to the owner. It matters because although you can melt the cast-iron and start from scratch, you're missing the part where your iron is cast. How about an easier analogy. Once ice-cream melts, you can't freeze it back to its smooth texture and instead, you get tiny icicles that you can feel in your mouth. This is why supermarkets throw out ice cream after a power outage that lasted for a certain length of time.
It changes the molecular structure of the iron..Thats literally what "tempering" means and if you temper something improperly, youve ruined it. Period. I feel like each and every one of your fired CI's has terrible, splotchy, seasoning and rock like chairs, LOL.
I have a few pieces. A couple I bought, some were gifts or inherited. I was glad for you, and others like you, who have taken the time to explain the science. But now, I'm hesitant to use my cast iron when I go camping. I can just see myself letting the campfire get too hot.
I use hot hard wood coals to cook and can adjust the heat by removing or adding coals or moving the cooking pan up or down....the flames from a fire will cover your pan with soot...
Once or twice, I had carelessly my Lodge three notch soaking in the sink (don't do this), and as a result, it had developed rust under the seasoning (worse on the outside than the inside, fortunately). I just cleaned it mechanically, chipping off the bad stuff with putty knife and screwdriver. I didn't take all of it to bare metal, just the rusty parts, then I reseasoned it. I basically treated it like I was prepping it for repainting. A wire brush, either hand held or powered would probably work too. Mechanical cleaning is probably not the most efficient way to do it if you've got a lot of pieces to clean, and there is some risk of damage if you get too aggressive, but it will get the job done.
Glad I have only done with with a cheap Ozark Trail 8" as a joke. Posting a glowing red pan online got people going. I sanded the red stuff off, because it's just a cheap pan, and I'll continue to use it in, on, and around campfires until it cracks.
Just curious if cooking with a Griswold or wagner over a campfire would cause it to warp, Crack, or turn red? I would ideally like to use a cast iron mainly on a camp fire but not ruin it. Is it better for it to be thicker pan all over or thick bottomed? I greatly appreciate any response. Thanks
There's a big difference between cooking *over* a fire versus *in* a fire. There shouldn't be a problem, and cast iron was made to be used over a fire.
I lived in the Ozarks for years. Cooked and CLEANED in, on fire.worked for me . I've had a dutch oven over 30 yrs still looks perfect.As does all the rest!
I have been told more than once to "lay it in a fire" to season it and also "never clean it especially not with soap or water"...both of these seem a bit unreasonable and contradict the directions on the cheap WalMart cast iron frying pan I got. Main reason I wanted one was to be able to sear a steak then toss the pan and steak in the oven for cooking...so far, for better or worse, it seems to work well cleaning it with some soap and water immediately after use (ok, after it cools enough to touch) and then immediately rubbing down with olive oil and heating until the oil begins to smoke. Pan still looks and seems to cook about the same as when I got it a year or two ago.
I messed up seasoning my pan with too much oil at too high heat and now I have this shadow effect running across the inside of my pan like a lightning streak I can't scrape off nor soak off and even tried cooking again at broil. Nothing. Is my pan lost or can I season OVER IT?
Thank you for all of your videos. They are very helpful for this cast iron lover/novice. I am in the market to purchase an enameled cast iron Dutch oven. I see in one of you videos you use a tramontina Dutch oven. To keep with in my budget, I am considering a tramontina or a lodge. Do you recommend one over the other? I have read the tramontina can be rough and easily chipped. Not read much about the lodge. Any help you can give me would be very much appreciated. Thanks again for all your help.
Lodge's enamel is quite high quality, and worth the price - especially if you find it on sale. The cheaper enameled pans, such as Tramontina and Cuisinart, work just fine but the enamel on the inside can begin crazing within a few years.
As with any advice, it must be taken with a grain of salt. Throwing your cast iron in a fire is careless and yes can destroy your pan. When done properly however, with good technique and knowing a bit about chemistry and temperature, fire (think forging temps not cozy back yard fire temps) in my opinion, is still the best way of preparing your pan for seasoning. Get to temp slowly and back down slowly! You'll know when you get there, the pan will look all shiny and silver. It helps to brush it clean once in a while with a wire brush while you are heating it up. Who wants to deal with chemicals and elctro-thinga-majobies in their house for weeks on end. P.S. above the fire, not in it! Good luck!
I did not know that fire would ruin a cast iron pan. I know warping and cracking, but did not know it would ruin a cast iron pan ability to take seasoning. Currently using a hand drill with paint removal sander attachment. Also Use Vinegar To clean up. I was just researching fire to clean cast iron.
ive seen my grandmother and mother season cast iron in fires since i was a child but it was seasoning they was doing, not trying to get rust off which does not make any sense to me why someone would do that. thanks for the video
I made the mistake of throwing antique cast iron in a bonfire. Bummer. It’s very heat damaged, all I think I can do is just to move forward and keep using it.
So what about the oven self-clean method with temp going up to about 900f to turn all the old seasoning to ash? Is this still an acceptable approach given its a lower temp than the critical temp you mentioned and an oven temp is much more controlled than a fire?
There's a risk when using any method like this on a vintage and fragile -- yes, cast iron can be fragile -- vintage pan. Self-cleaning oven, sandblasting, and uncontrolled fire all have the risk of damaging a pan. www.reddit.com/r/castiron/comments/61gjqq/self_cleaning_oven_yay_or_nay/ What's more, there's also a risk of the oven itself being damaged. The self-clean feature is designed for use with an empty oven, not an oven packed with heavy cast iron.
You can clean it in a fire but you have to use common sense, don't use a damn bonfire to clean it, build a very small fire, sit the pot on the coals and let it burn off the gunk and cool down as the fire dies out. If you want to charcoal briquets can be used.
More than likely the fired pots were (as said) house fire, or was a cowboy held pan (by those trammel loops). As for my comments about enameling a cast iron, there is no bonfire, but GRAY coals, with the pots or skillets held 6 inches above the heat, that is barely 250F, and there is no burning, warping, and only hot enough to use veg oil and have it smoke and shellac up the surface.
I just saw a video that showed some cast iron pans warped from cooking on high on an electric stove. Is it safe to fry with the pan on high on an electric stove if it is at least half full of grease? That is the best results for French fries.
i have an electric stove myself, and on an electric range it's only necessary to use the stovetop at a heat setting of 6 to 7 at most. This will get the oil to frying temperature with no difficulty.
That shouldn't be a problem. The key is that the temperature doesn't get hot enough to damage the iron, into the 1100 to 1200 degree range. 450 to 550 is well below that.
What a very informative video that makes great logical sense! If it's your beloved grandmother's cast iron that you remember from your childhood her using to make Thanksgiving dinner, etc... why would you ever treat it poorly or risk it being damaged when there are the safer alternatives? Is there any value to fire-damaged cast iron other than lawn decoration? :)
My boyfriend bought a cast iron fry pan, and followed directions on card, by smearing oil on and placing in the oven. It didn't say to wipe off and it came out with fat all over it, and discolouation. Is there a way to rectify this? We've tried salt and scouring but still looks discoloured ...
Cooking with it as-is will still produce good results, and the pan will turn black in color. If you want, you could strip the pan completely and try seasoning once again, like this: th-cam.com/video/2Pvf0m9jTeE/w-d-xo.html
I accidentally left my 15 inch Lodge on the top of a gas range with the flame set to medium, or even less, and all the seasoning burned off. I re-seasoned and the inside looks good. The outside has a little rust, but it's not that freaky color on the damaged pans in your video. It looks like rust. So do you think the pan is probably OK?? Thanks.
Bob Robinson Medium heat may bring the pan up to 500 or 600 degrees, which can burn off the seasoning as you saw. But that should still be well below the point where the iron is affected. Clean off the rust and re-season the pan. :)
Yes, self cleaning oven will remove carbon buildup, flaking, stickiness, and SUPERFICIAL rust. Best case scenario: It will take the pan down to base metal. I did this with several skillets and re-seasoned them and they're great. But when I did this with my Dutch oven it uncovered lots of rust that was hidden underneath the seasoning. I tried scrubbing with coarse sea salt and oil which took off some rust. Two baking soda and vinegar treatments took off some more. Vinegar and water bath for 12 hour took off even more. I'm going to soak it in vinegar and water longer tomorrow and see what happens. I'll check it every hour because once vinegar dissolves rust it goes to work on iron. This can cause irreversible pitting. The cooking surface of this Dutch oven is smooth so I don't want to mess it up.
my 2 cents sir....cast iron can warp with a fire and change some dimensional. but cast iron can be fixed by some fire damage....sand them flat and remove all the rough parts ....then season it will be just fine.....now don't tell everybody buy then Cheap!!!
Great info! I wonder how many great pieces have been lost to this method. On another note, building a fire to "clean" a pan doesn't really seem like less work, or quicker to me.
Lye has some disadvantages, in particular that it can't remove rust. But it has some real advantages, especially in that it doesn't use electricity. An E-tank can only work on one or two pans at a time, and of course if you use it constantly it may run up your electric bill. With a lye tank, you can place as many pans into the lye as it will fit, and take them out bit by bit in order to clean them. You can leave pans in the lye tank for weeks or months, and the lye won't affect the iron at all. It also makes the pans much easier to clean with electrolysis, since much or even all of the layers of seasoning will be stripped away by the lye.
Cast Iron Chaos, I am heartbroken. I wish I had seen this before I followed the advice from a "Know-it-all". He told me to bury my first piece of CI (Wagner Ware #8) in the charcoal coals of my barbeque grill. The inside was okay, but the outside had a lot of built up crud. It came out of the grill with a coating of red rust. It looks totally ruined now. :(
I've used this method for 40 years. Build a fire in the wood stove let it start to die down and then lay the pan in the coals. Works like a charm every time. I wouldn't throw it in a hot fire though.
NO. Some cleaning cycles go in excess of over 1000F (fun fact: if you put your teflon pans in the oven on clean, youll kill everyone on your house! :D) In fact, most oven manufacturers dont even recommend using that setting, as it is known to damage the internals. Its only included cuz stupid consumers literally wont buy an oven without it, ROFL. www.thekitchn.com/why-you-should-almost-never-use-the-self-cleaning-function-of-your-oven-175110
I’ve never been told to put it in fire. You bury it in the coals at the end of the day when you bank them for the night. It’s like baking off the crap.
I'm not an expert but I have used the fire method 30 or 40 times cracked one pan number 10 Griswold I put cooking oil on them when I take them out usually spray oil I tried vinager once it took 2 months to work cast iron is poured in mold as liquid red hot not saying that a fire might not damage a pan but not likely I am sure you don't agree with me but that doesn't make me wrong using chemicals or electric tank can change the metal or bond other metal's with it
You just said you cracked a Griswold #10 when fire cleaning. Fire cleaning won't damage a pan every time, but there is a *possibility* it could damage the pan. That's what happened to your pan there. Lye and electrolysis are safe and will not affect a cast iron pan.
@@castironchaos electrolytes is how they plate one metal over another softer to harder I think not saying what you are doing is wrong just not the only way
So... don't put that skillet on a suitably flat piece of wood in your hearth which will inevitably put it into contact with some of the flames? But then what about a gas stove or grill? Those flames are blue, meaning they should be hotter than the yellow flames in that fireplace?
This guy does NOT know what he's talking about. Cast iron loves heat and will not warp or crack just because you put it in a fire. What cast iron does not love is shock. Taking ANY metal from one temperature extreme to another will always cause damage. The red color of the rust is NOT an indication of fire damage. It IS an indication of what species of sulfur reducing microbes have been feeding on the iron. All that said, fire is NOT a means to get rid of rust. Fire is a quick and effective way to burn off your seasoning and "reset" your cast iron. But you don't need to take my word on this. If you want good, sound advice from a real expert, then check out Cowboy Kent Rollins TH-cam channel. He has around 40 years experience with cast iron. And he has several excellent videos that teach you everything you need to know.
For the most part I agree with what you say about not using fire to clean your cast iron. I however have a 99% mechanical reasoning aptitude and have had perfect success cleaning cast iron pans of all sizes in my wood stove. I am very careful, however, to pre heat the pans on top of my wood stove while the fire burns down to heavy coals. I usually add a couple thin sticks on top of the coals to raise the pans up off the coals so the pan does not make cold spots by suffocating the coals under the pan. I generally begin with the pan upside down to be sure to not over heat the bottom and make sure I do get the sides plenty hot. I open the draft a bit to keep the coals nice and hot. I watch carefully through the glass front of my stove or keep checking with a wood stove with no window. I keep moving the pan around since even a bed of coals can have uneven heat. I turn the pan upright near the end to be sure to get the bottom good and hot as well. As soon as I see the slightest bit of iron turning red the pan is done. Better if none of it turns red though, but so far I have had zero damage to any of my pans doing this. Generally 20 to 30 minutes in the stove does the trick. When stripped I remove the pan, while very hot still, and place it again on top of my hot wood stove to "cool"....cool to less very hot, actually. Please do not try using oven mitts people! They will burn! You need tongs or pliers or a poker to lift via the loop in a handle. Then after a bit, I place a metal trivet under the pan to make it less hot. Eventually I remove the pan from the wood stove, but they are fine left on the trivets. You must always slowly raise and slowly lower the temperature. You must evenly heat the pan which is difficult in coals. You must not over heat any part of the pan. If you are a mechanical prodigy like myself, this method is excellent. It is faster and does a better job than all other methods...IF you know what you are doing. All of my pans come out grey when washed with detergent after stripping, and they will all flash rust within a minute, after washing. After washing they go straight onto my wood stove or electric if the stove has no heat, to be totally dried. If you are not ready to season the pans right away, either keep them on the wood stove on trivets or oil them right away with your seasoning oil, to keep them from rusting further and from absorbing water from the air. The only pan I have ever damaged was one where I turned on the incorrect burner to boil my kettle, but the cast pot was on the burner that got very hot. This red hot burner quickly heated just the bottom of my pan and turned it into a bit of a spinner :-( I plan to grind it flat again ;-)
If you wanna know how to really use cast iron and clean it go watch cowboy kent rollins, not this guy this guy has no clue what he is talking about. If somebody is stupid enough to leave an iron pan in a fire long enough to ruin it then well they really do not deserve to be using iron. And looks like this guys done it a few times and puts blame elsewhere
@@castironchaos i have to add though i watched your updated collection video, and for new cast iron a guy in lancaster pennsylvania makes a killer number 8 skillet. In my opinion its just like using an older iron pan. Smooth, takes seasoning very well and heats evenly. It is called the lancaster cast iron company. He just started in 2019.
@@castironchaos and also i am jealous of your collection. I lucked out today and got me a griswold number 5 and an older lodge number 8 might be an unmarked wagner because i think lodge put notches in all of there skillets with the rings.
Darn, I just put my dutch oven in the bbque with hot coals for 2 hours to burn off old rancid seasoning. I figured it would be the same as cooking over coals.
My experience has been great with putting my cast iron in red hot fire. ...and I'm super old so- I wouldn't worry! Don't use oven cleaner unless you just love to eat chemicals!
I've cleaned lots of cast iron in fires because that's the way I was taught. Once I learned better though, I haven't put one in a fire now in several years. I only ever lost one to fire and it was a free overseas pan that had a small crack in it to begin with so I wasn't heartbroken over it. I never use fires anymore but here's something to wreck your brain, I have a cast iron forge that I tinker with. It's over a hundred years old and it is a commercial shop forge, designed to burn coal. It probably weighs over 100 lbs without trouble. A friend of mine pulled it out of a junk pile at a scrap yard he worked at and when I saw it, I immediately made him an offer, which he accepted. It's been sitting in my yard ever since, without protection from the elements, and oddly, with no rust. I haven't been able to satisfactorily explain that to myself. I've had it hot enough to completely burn up railroad spikes, not melt, burn up... no puddle of melted metal left behind. Completely gone. I have cooked over it while working though. It makes a mean hot dog when I'm not cranking the air. Great video sir. Always a pleasure to watch
When the forge fire is getting too much air, the steel in the fire will burn. It happens quite often when you do not pay attention to the steel in the fire........
Your fire damaged cast iron needs to be tempered. The overheating makes the brittle. They need to be reheated and cooled very slowly. Done right and they can be like new. We can argue the point but neither of us saw them when they were new. Some old cast iron was made to be used in a fireplace and most of it didn't survive until now. It got brittle and it broke. A lot of the older cast iron that did survive was lightly used if at all. How lucky we are to have temperature controlled cooking appliances at our disposal.
The metal itself has been permanently altered, and re-heating it will not magically change it back the way it was. Heat reactions don't work like that.
Papaw ...my uncle worked at a steel plant for 30 yrs and that was how it was done. The molecules aren't damaged they are just misaligned from the initial manufacturing process. They let them cool then put them in an oven at about 700 to 800 degrees over a length of time and the molecules re align themselves.
It’s called annealing. With hardened steel you can heat it in fire and slowly cool it to anneal or soften it. Not sure how it works with cast iron. Perhaps a metallurgist does.
@@rickcherry7552 usually annealing is done when the metal in question needs to have work done to it to reshape it or have tool work done to it. The pot that was shown didn't look as though it was misshapen but simply may have a spot or several spots that may be unstable. Tempering is done when there is instability in a metal. It's a more precise method than annealing whereas the metal is heated slowly to prevent disturbing the unstable area(s) and induce cracking that the process is trying to correct. Once heated to the desired temperature for a period of time it is allowed to cool naturally in still air to prevent uneven cooling. Once its cooled to room temperature it is almost indistinguishable to the naked eye from a new formed piece. Problem is finding someone to do it correctly for a single piece of cast iron.
@@bigunc327 This is correct and does work. There are charts for the timing on re heating cast iron to remove brittleness. Its done when cast iron breaks or needs repair. The cooling down part is very important. I use an oven set to 500 degrees, and drop it about 50 degrees every 30 minutes.
It depends. If the seasoning doesn't adhere to a pan because of fire damage, not really. This would make the pan more likely to rust because the seasoning isn't blocking oxidation; there's also the possibility that the pan may crack because the metal itself is more brittle.
I have put my cast iron pans in a fire and never had a problem with warping. It is the only way I clean crusty pans. In an hour or less your pan will be clean.If you put a pan in a fire place and leave it there to long maybe it could hurt it I don't know. I think you must put it in and let the fire die before removing it. All I know is I have had nothing but success cleaning pans in a fire place.
Lol, I actually think I got blocked from that group on facebook. There are still plenty of safe ways to use coals to clean cast iron, NOT throwing it fire for damn sure but adding coals to the pan where there is possibly plastic melted onto it or other issues like that. I dont care about facebook at all but this channel seems to be a decent channel. So dont block me on here and I'll hopfully learn how to build a lye tank and I already do plating, so many I'll try electrolysis on cast iron. I was not aware that heating the metal changed it though, I figured it was way hotter when it was poured so why would getting it hot effect it. I really had no idea that fire could hurt cast iron. My whole family uses cast iron and I learned how to clean it with "fire" coals from my great grandma and none of are cast iron is damaged or has been lost. But again we arent throwing it into fires, is usually small fires that are burned and then the coals are used. But that really sucks about all that cast iron getting ruined and people still selling it after its already burned. But any ruined frying pay can still be cut up into a spatula, and when it breaks it breaks but it can flip frying potatoes and stuff untill its fully dead. Use sanding disks to smooth it down and get all that raspy stuff off and it's good to go.
It is cast iron , it was molten hot metal from its birth ! As you state you don't even know ,I assume you are not a metallurgy expert ? You sir are mistaken ,why do they use them for camp fire cooking are they damaging it ? Of course not!
Most certainly. After all, we don't place the skillet into the fire and bury it in the coals, which is what most of the advice to "throw it in the fire" says.
i put my pan in wood stove with very low fire and good coals and it came out beautiful, moderation in everything is key to success.
betty herndon true. 500 to 600 degrees would be fine
I use an open, hardwood fire for years to clean off light rust, years of greasy crud & to season cast iron without damaging any. It's not doing it with fire that causes damage to the cast iron, it's not knowing HOW to do it with fire that causes damage. However, using fire isn't a method that most people know how to do correctly and, therefore, shouldn't attempt using fire. Cast iron cookware has been around for a couple thousand years & that's way, way longer than modern ovens. So yes, our ancestors did season their cast iron with fire, they just knew HOW to do correctly. But, I agree with you as far as nowadays. It's definitely best if most people avoid the "fire" method for cleaning & seasoning their cast iron, as very few people have the now how do it correctly.
Of all the videos on TH-cam showing cast iron cookware cleaning with fire, no one has ever made one that demonstrates the proper way to do it.
Cast Iron Chaos I'm inclined to agree with you, as I've not seen any on TH-cam actually use the "fire method" correctly. And, although using the fire is the way I do it, I don't recommend it to others because it requires a certain "know how" that the majority of people just don't have, aren't going to learn and definitely isn't the best method for them to use just for a couple skillets. But, for me, its the way I learned to clean/season cast iron. It's the way my dad did it for years & it worked well for him. I learned it from him & it still works well for me too. It's kinda like a blacksmith knowing how to judge the forge by look & feel through years of experience. However, it definitely not the best method for most folks nowadays.
I used the fire method on a couple of yard sale finds, but I used my ceramic grill and didn’t go over 700 degrees.
@@oldtimer4567 well smartie why dont you tell us how!?
I have a huge cast iron kettle that you use look like the tripod and it is nasty Rusty the way I bought it how would I go about cleaning it properly and seasoning cuz I can't put it in my oven please message me on Facebook messenger Bonnie vanhoose
Speed x1.25, thank me later
Bingo
tbh I'd go 1.5
Not all hero’s wear capes.
I can't even imagine how to watch this on normal speed now
I’m on 2x
My grandparents always seasoned them in the oven or stove top. My parents have done the same. I still have my grandmothers Wagner #12 behemoth skillet. It's black as coal and it's slick as ice. Best pan I own. Thanks for a great video as always.
Why to put a monster name to a beautiful skillet?
Burning a cast iron is the only way I have ever done mine. The problem is that the people heated to hot. You don’t need or won’t a big hot fire to burn your pans. If you’re going to burn your pot or pan you must pay attention to it. The fire only needs to be as hot to get the grease runny .
Thanks for giving the temp at which the damage will happen. My oven won't hit such temps, I am saved from my own carelessness. There are several videos on Yt instructing people to toss them in the fire.
Once you have gotten that natural nonstick surface to where you want it to be, you don't want to risk messing it up for keeps.
Thanks for this video. I have my wife's Grandfather's cast iron which I have cleaned with fire with a 66% success rate, witch is to say two out of three pans are great, the other is warped, but still usable. I won't be using fire anymore. Recently I found two old cast irons, while cleaning out my deceased granfather's attic. I won't be using fire. Thanks again.
OH NO!!! I'm guilty of this, my mother did it so I did it to remove excess build up on the bottom. I've been lucky up to now. Thanks for posting this information.
I've heard this bad advice myself and agree it is a BAD idea! All I know is that drastic temperature changes either way of cast iron (for example, taking a HOT pan off the stove and washing in COLD water is risking a cracked pan). I just put up a video talking about tips on locating vintage cast iron. That said, I didn't talk about this particular issue, but what I did say was that by searching for them at a large antique mall where there are many vendors, you will not only find some with a good price, but you will ALSO be able to test them better for warping and most of these at a mall don't have that much rust in my experience. The rustiest ones I have found were from a barn sale and small antique stores that collect as much junk as they do antiques. Thanks for another good video. Take care, LLS
My mother used to clean and de-carbonize her cast iron skillets in an open fire every summer. She passed away in 2002. I have two from her collection, and use them without issue to this very day. Nostalgic for me to say the least, since at 70, they are much older than I am. They were handed down to her by her mother. I don't intend to clean or de-carbonize mine in an open fire for a couple of reasons. Not the least of which is the fact that other than contained grills, open fires are prohibited in the township where I live.
Nevertheless, I disagree with your admonitions. Sure, if you stoke a fire temperature high enough to white-hot forge a double troweled plow blade, throw your cast iron in, and leave it unattended until the fire dies out, that might not be the best thing for it. On the other hand, by its very nature, cast iron is made to withstand, absorb, and evenly distribute heat. It's one of its utilitarian properties, which has made it so valuable for centuries. Careful monitoring of the burn process eliminates the heat related issues you raise...which is what should be done, regardless of the method used!
Incidentally, before General Electric, Westinghouse, et.al, open fires were all that cast iron cookers knew! Some of those same pieces are still very much in use today; thanks to a little common sense, and no Internet before the twentieth century.🍳
"we are lucky our cast iron hasn't been warped or messed up because of cleaning with fire ill keep pushing my luck." that's how you sound. why risk it with something so special? use a wire brush or something else that humans have came up with as we progress in time and technology. don't let your ego or family pride or whatever this is make you take a chance on destroying a family heirloom like I've done. I "cleaned" a no5 BS&R in a fire just like my grandma and it warped and was completely fucked from that point forward. old cast iron eventually will not be able to be replaced we all need to cherish this stuff especially things given or passed down the family. best of luck to you and like reading comments that make me think. whether we agree on this or not I know we agree cast iron is amazing and i hope yours lasts forever. be safe out there my friend o7
@@CruelSun69
That's not at all what I'm saying my friend. In any event, people who know what they're doing have and will continue to use whatever methods they feel work best for them...others opinions, luck, or divine providence, notwithstanding.
@@bustabass9025 just be careful I thought the same thing
@@bustabass9025 and I'm sorry for your loss.
@@CruelSun69
Thank you and God Bless. 🕊✝️
i am confused, i thought Cast Iron pots & pans were made for cooking over an open flame or on a camp fire. didn't the cowboys use cast iron pans to cook over a fire while rustling cattle on the range. am i missing something ? i have a rocket stove i made, it gets very hot. it can boil 4 cups of water in 3 min's. i was thinking of getting a cast iron griddle plate to set on it to cook on, but now im not sure what to do. any advice would be helpful. Thanks.
You are missing something. They banked the coals and used the residual heat. You're thinkin of the movies ;)
Perfectly fine for cooking on. Just don’t leave the empty pan on there unattended, you wouldnt do that on a stove burner on high either. It would be too hot for what your cooking long before any damage to the iron.
It's amazing how many old wives tales and popular phrases still exist regarding vintage cast iron. Throwing it in the fire to wire wheel restoration to, just scrub it with salt and a potato to remove the rust. Or I often hear, my parents got one, they only use it to cook corn bread with. My favorite is, well if anything you can use it to smash someone over the head with, yikes!
On Facebook, one of the members of the Cast Iron Cooking group posted this comment: " I have my husbands grandmothers skillet. It's a Favorite #9 Pique Ware. A lot of buildup on the bottom but smooth as glass on the inside. Of all the cast iron I have restored, I will not restore her skillet. It took her too many years to get that buildup on it and it's the last thing we have of hers. I took it outside last year (because I was going to see if I found a lid for it and had been using it for years) and noticed it was fire damaged, warped, and actually has a crack in it. My husband remembers countless times when his grandmother would tell his grandfather to put in in the coals after he had a fire and it burned down. They would get it out after it cooled down. So this skillet is now my baker skillet and I will say cornbread, pineapple upside down cake and everything else just flips right out. I would never think about using this pan to fry anything or any other fire damaged pan because of the possibility of it cracking and someone being burned."
Cast Iron Chaos I know how to save your pot
Thank you for posting this video! I was about to throw my cast iron pot in the wood heater!!! Thank you for preventing me from ruining my cast iron!!! I appreciate you!
We've always burnt our cast iron fry pans. If it's bad rusty build a small fire using oak wood. It ain't got to be a big fire. I'm still using fry pans I've burned out. Good vidio though.
This is a TH-cam video. So do I believe you or not? I use fire at least once on all my cast. Never had an issue. And I got a lot of cast iron. I'll keep doing what I been doing. It works very well.
I have a fire pit that's two stacked semi rims. Literally every single piece of old, rusty cast iron I get, I get a fire going, chuck it in, and leave i til morning. Never had a single issue. Zero work to strip it and you can use that energy to sand the inside smooth before seasoning.
Funny, a lot of people say this but they don't seem interested in providing pictures to verify the cast iron is perfectly undamaged, with no red color or anything.
@@castironchaos Maybe because TH-cam won't let you attach pictures in comments? Lol
I've got about 6 pieces I've restored, as well as pieces I've done for my friends and families. Bear in mind, I've been doing it for years and have also dabbled in blacksmithing. The metallurgical knowledge required to not destroy your cast iron in a fire is extremely minimal.
Maybe I'm giving people too much credit, though. Lol
Post them elsewhere, then. I've said numerous times, fire cleaning will not always damage cast iron. There is a *possibility* it will be damaged. That's the point of this video.
Thank you for posting this video. I had heard of multiple ways of cleaning cast iron. I won't even use the self cleaning oven method for concerns of excess heat. Old, vintage cast iron is not being made any more so why risk destroying it? I recently purchased off of Ebay a #8 large slant logo Griswold from a person that knew nothing of cast iron. Neither the photos nor the description hinted at fire damage. When it arrived it was obviously fire damaged. Fortunately it did not cost much! I am experimenting with buffing off the damage and maybe it can become a usable pan. If not then only my time is at stake. Wish me luck! Thank you for all of you videos.
Me and my Grandmother cleaned and reseasoned dozens of pans over my life. We would build a small fire let it burn and keep it up for a whole day until a few hours before dark and get a nice bed of coals. Right before dark we would lightly douse the flames down and let it cool ,lay out the pans on a peice of steel or concrete slab and cover them with coals. The next morning we would build a fire in the fire ring bring out the bucket of lard and an old grate to suspend the pots flat 18 or so inches above the fire and slather them with a paint brush in lard every few hours all day. I still use those very same pots today at 32 and we did that when I was 16 or so.
All of the pans I have were my great grandmothers and well over 100 years old so maybe age and quality has alot to do with the finished product but mine are still perfect to this day 16 years later.
How many of your pans have a permanent deep red color, I wonder?
Zero but we used coals not fire and the temp was tamped down by dousing the coals with water . We handled the pans with regular oven mitts so I would say our temp was less than 500 degrees
Thankyou so much for this people who don't know will listen to those people and you settled and ongoing argument for me 🤗
I'm glad I was able to help someone, so thank you. For a lot of people, their minds are already made up on this subject. That's why this video has more dislikes than most.
Well, I for one have witnessed a nice old cast iron pan being ruined by throwing it in a fire many years ago. Personally, I wouldn't risk loosing a single one of mine that way. What the old timers did a hundred years ago, was a hundred years ago. There are better ways to do things hundred years later. I just picked up a #8 deep sided skillet that I wanted a couple of days ago that was very rusty and had been left out in the rain. When I soaked it in vinegar to remove the rust, I soon found out that sometime in the past it, it too was thrown into the fire...….. and ruined. DUUUHHHHH !!!!
when i lived in tn, they often threw their ci in a fire. i had never heard of that b4. first time i heard someone say that, i frowned and thought, that is not right, it might crack. didn't know about all the rest of it. glad i didn't listen to them and did mine the way granny told me.
Right? My granny didn't tell me but I remember her oiling hers up and putting it in the oven with nothing in it. I asked her why she was cooking nothing and she told me she was "seasoning the pan." Made no sense to a six-year-old but I'm a quick study and always remembered that. Wish I'd have made better notes on the temp and timing, though!
Thanks for the knowledge! I've heard that fire advice several times.
A small fire pit is safe. Not a bonfire
Found a 10 qt Dutch oven by the dumpster. Had been cooked in, no rust inside. Patches of rust under the lid and out side. Bottom was rusted. Covered inside and out with fresh bacon grease. A lot of the rust come off when I wiped it off. Thin coating on now for about a week. No sign of more rust. Where do I go from here? Tks for any help.
The electrolysis method is the best. You can also use angle grinder with wire brush, but the electrolysis is the one which cause zero damage to the item. There is no problem with heat and direct fire but DO NOT use water to cool them down suddenly. When the pan is hot (oven is the best though and not direct fire) 300-350 Celsius, you can put linseed oil on them, and let it burn the oil onto them. Repeat it few times, and rub it with a cotton clothes. Once again: Never give heat shock to any cast iron material!
Also when its not in used for long time, put some tallow on them. If its only for decoration purpose, you can put some beeswax on it. Beeswax can be also removed once you decide to use them for food purpose.
I have had good luck with burning my cast iron off ! i didn't get them too hot ! Although i lost a cast iron stove in my grandparents old house ! it burned a few years after they moved out about 1982 ! about 2005 i found all the pieces & begin putting it together & some parts like the doors were warped too bad ! so i sold it for junk iron ! most old houses has lots of fat lighter lumber ! & it burns real hot ! enjoyed youre video , Thanks for youre tips !
Great video and admire your passion. Two things I can not stand the smell of is bleach and oven cleaner. So for people that want an easy way to restore cast iron. Find a local company that does sand blasting, call them to see if they do BAKING SODA blasting on cast iron. The company I used charged $10 per skillet. When I got the skillets back they were metal grey color and looked like they had just been removed from the sand castings at the cast iron factory. No rust or anything and NO this process does not remove any metal. Choose a time when you know the humidity is going to be low for several days and season as soon as you get them back.
Is there any way of repairing enamel coated cast iron that was mishandled and now has a lumpy, flakey - butdoesn’t flake off, finish?
Could you not put the pots in a larger pot filled with oil the heat the oil to bring the temperature of the pan up and the pores of the cast iron. Kind of like soaking up the oil?
A timely video, thank you. I just recovered a cast iron pan from my house that burned down in the Tubbs fire in California. I was wondering about that stubborn red color. The ban also has melted glass stuck on it and I cannot remove it. I think it is time to put that pan in the garden as an ornament...
MonoLake02 I am in LA. So deeply sorry for what you’ve just gone through. Wondering if you’d like a small cast iron skillet. Email me
I made a mistake seasoning a new Dutch oven it’s super tacky lol any advice would be appreciated
I beg to differ, but I dont put then in fire to "burn the rust off", the grease is what I am burning off and when finished, turns out great! Someone is burning too hot to get the effects you are talking about.
Yes they are, and that's the point. The common "advice" to do this is usually along the lines of "build a big fire and throw it in," or "bury it in the coals and get it red hot." That's indeed getting it too hot.
Wow, what a great video & information. Hope your efforts saves some great CI from just throwing them into the fire. Even trying to teach antique store owners about the effects of fire burning CI is at times a chore. I have a small collection of CI, about 150 pieces & have used electrolysis, steel wire wheels on a power tool to clean & then season with Crisco for a as new completed job & yes I do cook with them. Hope you find your #12 BSR, take care. Your videos are great for learning, keep them coming.
I laughed out loud at the “and there are experts in chem trails and ghost hunting too” comment written in the left hand corner, amigo! Thank you for this....I was just considering a pit fire to clean an extremely filthy Wagner and Griswold....I much appreciate saving me an error.
I was drying my pan and forgot it on the burner for like an hour, it turned kind of gray, when I rubbed it I had black residue on my fingers, should I throw it away? what do you guys think?
Sounds like the seasoning burned off, but I doubt it was hot enough to damage the pan. Re-season the pan and keep on cooking.
Wonderful video, thank you! I totally agree with you: Sure, fire-cleaning PROBABLY works, but, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to risk it, especially if you consider the longevity these products are supposed to have.
As for the comeback, I believe MANY "old ways and techniques" are making a comeback because many new products just aren't up to snuff, are harmful to us, or aren't a very good return on investment.
Hi there, I have a Lodge sportsman grill BBQ and I was wondering if I can use wood instead of charcoal but after seeing your video I assume I can't use wood. Am I right?
You can certainly use wood in the Sportsman grill. A small amount of wood in side that space is very different from tossing the grill into a big fire.
So then how do you clean up a very thick build up on the outside of your cast-iron skillet?
A lye tank would be the most reliable, and safest, way to do this.
@@castironchaos I will have to really study out the lye bath procedure. Thanks.
When I bought my Dutch oven it was advertised to be able to put directly into a fire to cook. Can you explain?
That's referring to cooking with coals, which have a controlled, even heat as opposed to the uncontrolled and unpredictable heat of a big fire.
This was an interesting & well done video. Perhaps I have just always been lucky, or maybe I'm doing something right (or different than others), but I have never had a piece of my cast iron damaged (as far as I can tell) by putting it into a fire. I even put it into my woodstove fires on occasion, and it gets plenty hot in there. I have also even found a couple of pieces of cast iron in the ashes of fire pits that someone else left behind. It's interesting that it would damage a piece by being in a hot fire when, at one point, the iron of which they are made was.....molten iron. There must be some extra action that does the damage, such as over rough handling, cooling too fast, or even spraying hot cast iron with cold water. Hard to imagine someone actually doing that, but I saw the clip in your video! For the record, I don't use the fire as a method to clean rust but rather to burn off accumulations that have built up over time. Makes me want to check my pieces for that red color you showed, though I think I would have noticed. I still feel comfortable doing it, but....it does give me something to think about.
Read up (or watch up) on how they forge knives. Just because metal can be molten, does not mean that it's the same consistency throughout different heating and cooling methods. They even thermally shock the red hot edges on oil to make them more hard (but less flexible) to make it retain an edge longer. They don't do it with the rest of the blade's body to retain its flexibility.
The same thing goes for cast iron. It was cooled properly to give it its ideal state. Throwing it into fire puts its molecules into an altered state that no longer recovers and returns to what it was when it was sold to the owner. It matters because although you can melt the cast-iron and start from scratch, you're missing the part where your iron is cast.
How about an easier analogy. Once ice-cream melts, you can't freeze it back to its smooth texture and instead, you get tiny icicles that you can feel in your mouth. This is why supermarkets throw out ice cream after a power outage that lasted for a certain length of time.
It changes the molecular structure of the iron..Thats literally what "tempering" means and if you temper something improperly, youve ruined it. Period.
I feel like each and every one of your fired CI's has terrible, splotchy, seasoning and rock like chairs, LOL.
I have a few pieces. A couple I bought, some were gifts or inherited. I was glad for you, and others like you, who have taken the time to explain the science. But now, I'm hesitant to use my cast iron when I go camping. I can just see myself letting the campfire get too hot.
There's nothing wrong with using your cast iron *over* a fire, so go ahead and use it as always.
I use hot hard wood coals to cook and can adjust the heat by removing or adding coals or moving the cooking pan up or down....the flames from a fire will cover your pan with soot...
Once or twice, I had carelessly my Lodge three notch soaking in the sink (don't do this), and as a result, it had developed rust under the seasoning (worse on the outside than the inside, fortunately). I just cleaned it mechanically, chipping off the bad stuff with putty knife and screwdriver. I didn't take all of it to bare metal, just the rusty parts, then I reseasoned it. I basically treated it like I was prepping it for repainting. A wire brush, either hand held or powered would probably work too. Mechanical cleaning is probably not the most efficient way to do it if you've got a lot of pieces to clean, and there is some risk of damage if you get too aggressive, but it will get the job done.
What about cleaning in oven on self clean or on gas grill on high? Does that harm cast iron?
Great channel and videos. Keep up the good work
It sounds like you're Talkin at .75 speed.
I put the speed to 1.25 and it sounded perfect! Haha
Glad I have only done with with a cheap Ozark Trail 8" as a joke. Posting a glowing red pan online got people going. I sanded the red stuff off, because it's just a cheap pan, and I'll continue to use it in, on, and around campfires until it cracks.
Just curious if cooking with a Griswold or wagner over a campfire would cause it to warp, Crack, or turn red? I would ideally like to use a cast iron mainly on a camp fire but not ruin it. Is it better for it to be thicker pan all over or thick bottomed? I greatly appreciate any response. Thanks
There's a big difference between cooking *over* a fire versus *in* a fire. There shouldn't be a problem, and cast iron was made to be used over a fire.
I lived in the Ozarks for years. Cooked and CLEANED in, on fire.worked for me . I've had a dutch oven over 30 yrs still looks perfect.As does all the rest!
Out of curiosity, could you show us a photo of your dutch oven?
I have been told more than once to "lay it in a fire" to season it and also "never clean it especially not with soap or water"...both of these seem a bit unreasonable and contradict the directions on the cheap WalMart cast iron frying pan I got.
Main reason I wanted one was to be able to sear a steak then toss the pan and steak in the oven for cooking...so far, for better or worse, it seems to work well cleaning it with some soap and water immediately after use (ok, after it cools enough to touch) and then immediately rubbing down with olive oil and heating until the oil begins to smoke. Pan still looks and seems to cook about the same as when I got it a year or two ago.
I do wish you would add a warning about the vinegar method you showed. If left too long (even overnight) vinegar will damage the iron also.
LOL a dude on you tube saying don't listen to people on you tube. Thats gotta be some extra kind of special.
Glad my husband made me check before we put it in the fire like his Mom told us to !
I messed up seasoning my pan with too much oil at too high heat and now I have this shadow effect running across the inside of my pan like a lightning streak I can't scrape off nor soak off and even tried cooking again at broil. Nothing. Is my pan lost or can I season OVER IT?
Thank you for all of your videos. They are very helpful for this cast iron lover/novice. I am in the market to purchase an enameled cast iron Dutch oven. I see in one of you videos you use a tramontina Dutch oven. To keep with in my budget, I am considering a tramontina or a lodge. Do you recommend one over the other? I have read the tramontina can be rough and easily chipped. Not read much about the lodge. Any help you can give me would be very much appreciated. Thanks again for all your help.
Lodge's enamel is quite high quality, and worth the price - especially if you find it on sale. The cheaper enameled pans, such as Tramontina and Cuisinart, work just fine but the enamel on the inside can begin crazing within a few years.
As with any advice, it must be taken with a grain of salt. Throwing your cast iron in a fire is careless and yes can destroy your pan. When done properly however, with good technique and knowing a bit about chemistry and temperature, fire (think forging temps not cozy back yard fire temps) in my opinion, is still the best way of preparing your pan for seasoning. Get to temp slowly and back down slowly! You'll know when you get there, the pan will look all shiny and silver. It helps to brush it clean once in a while with a wire brush while you are heating it up. Who wants to deal with chemicals and elctro-thinga-majobies in their house for weeks on end.
P.S. above the fire, not in it! Good luck!
Great video making an important point. Thanks
And sadly, we hear it every day.
I did not know that fire would ruin a cast iron pan. I know warping and cracking, but did not know it would ruin a cast iron pan ability to take seasoning. Currently using a hand drill with paint removal sander attachment. Also Use Vinegar To clean up. I was just researching fire to clean cast iron.
ive seen my grandmother and mother season cast iron in fires since i was a child but it was seasoning they was doing, not trying to get rust off which does not make any sense to me why someone would do that. thanks for the video
I made the mistake of throwing antique cast iron in a bonfire. Bummer. It’s very heat damaged, all I think I can do is just to move forward and keep using it.
Luckily, it’s just reddened, but not cracked or wrapped.
So what about the oven self-clean method with temp going up to about 900f to turn all the old seasoning to ash? Is this still an acceptable approach given its a lower temp than the critical temp you mentioned and an oven temp is much more controlled than a fire?
There's a risk when using any method like this on a vintage and fragile -- yes, cast iron can be fragile -- vintage pan.
Self-cleaning oven, sandblasting, and uncontrolled fire all have the risk of damaging a pan. www.reddit.com/r/castiron/comments/61gjqq/self_cleaning_oven_yay_or_nay/ What's more, there's also a risk of the oven itself being damaged. The self-clean feature is designed for use with an empty oven, not an oven packed with heavy cast iron.
How about in the oven while cleaning oven?
You can clean it in a fire but you have to use common sense, don't use a damn bonfire to clean it, build a very small fire, sit the pot on the coals and let it burn off the gunk and cool down as the fire dies out. If you want to charcoal briquets can be used.
Funny, this guy does exactly that and you can still see the red color of the pan when he washes it off. th-cam.com/video/qjNhI9WtyrY/w-d-xo.html
More than likely the fired pots were (as said) house fire, or was a cowboy held pan (by those trammel loops). As for my comments about enameling a cast iron, there is no bonfire, but GRAY coals, with the pots or skillets held 6 inches above the heat, that is barely 250F, and there is no burning, warping, and only hot enough to use veg oil and have it smoke and shellac up the surface.
I just saw a video that showed some cast iron pans warped from cooking on high on an electric stove. Is it safe to fry with the pan on high on an electric stove if it is at least half full of grease? That is the best results for French fries.
i have an electric stove myself, and on an electric range it's only necessary to use the stovetop at a heat setting of 6 to 7 at most. This will get the oil to frying temperature with no difficulty.
What about the charcoal/char wood grill on the grate at say 450 to 550 F and can I use smoke wood during seasoning, or should I not?
That shouldn't be a problem. The key is that the temperature doesn't get hot enough to damage the iron, into the 1100 to 1200 degree range. 450 to 550 is well below that.
Cool, and thanks for the fast response. Much appreciated.
Cast Iron
Chaos
What a very informative video that makes great logical sense! If it's your beloved grandmother's cast iron that you remember from your childhood her using to make Thanksgiving dinner, etc... why would you ever treat it poorly or risk it being damaged when there are the safer alternatives? Is there any value to fire-damaged cast iron other than lawn decoration? :)
My boyfriend bought a cast iron fry pan, and followed directions on card, by smearing oil on and placing in the oven. It didn't say to wipe off and it came out with fat all over it, and discolouation. Is there a way to rectify this? We've tried salt and scouring but still looks discoloured ...
Cooking with it as-is will still produce good results, and the pan will turn black in color. If you want, you could strip the pan completely and try seasoning once again, like this: th-cam.com/video/2Pvf0m9jTeE/w-d-xo.html
Excellent advice.
I accidentally left my 15 inch Lodge on the top of a gas range with the flame set to medium, or even less, and all the seasoning burned off. I re-seasoned and the inside looks good. The outside has a little rust, but it's not that freaky color on the damaged pans in your video. It looks like rust. So do you think the pan is probably OK?? Thanks.
Bob Robinson Medium heat may bring the pan up to 500 or 600 degrees, which can burn off the seasoning as you saw. But that should still be well below the point where the iron is affected. Clean off the rust and re-season the pan. :)
Can you use the self cleaning oven safely?
Yes, self cleaning oven will remove carbon buildup, flaking, stickiness, and SUPERFICIAL rust. Best case scenario: It will take the pan down to base metal. I did this with several skillets and re-seasoned them and they're great. But when I did this with my Dutch oven it uncovered lots of rust that was hidden underneath the seasoning. I tried scrubbing with coarse sea salt and oil which took off some rust. Two baking soda and vinegar treatments took off some more. Vinegar and water bath for 12 hour took off even more. I'm going to soak it in vinegar and water longer tomorrow and see what happens. I'll check it every hour because once vinegar dissolves rust it goes to work on iron. This can cause irreversible pitting. The cooking surface of this Dutch oven is smooth so I don't want to mess it up.
my 2 cents sir....cast iron can warp with a fire and change some dimensional. but cast iron can be fixed by some fire damage....sand them flat and remove all the rough parts ....then season it will be just fine.....now don't tell everybody buy then Cheap!!!
Great info! I wonder how many great pieces have been lost to this method.
On another note, building a fire to "clean" a pan doesn't really seem like less work, or quicker to me.
Based on some of the comments this video is generating (especially on Reddit), quite a few pans are going to continue to be lost.
Why use lye if you also use the electrolysis tank? I use the E tank only and have no issues. Am I missing something?
Lye has some disadvantages, in particular that it can't remove rust. But it has some real advantages, especially in that it doesn't use electricity. An E-tank can only work on one or two pans at a time, and of course if you use it constantly it may run up your electric bill. With a lye tank, you can place as many pans into the lye as it will fit, and take them out bit by bit in order to clean them. You can leave pans in the lye tank for weeks or months, and the lye won't affect the iron at all. It also makes the pans much easier to clean with electrolysis, since much or even all of the layers of seasoning will be stripped away by the lye.
Cast Iron Chaos, I am heartbroken. I wish I had seen this before I followed the advice from a "Know-it-all". He told me to bury my first piece of CI (Wagner Ware #8) in the charcoal coals of my barbeque grill. The inside was okay, but the outside had a lot of built up crud. It came out of the grill with a coating of red rust. It looks totally ruined now. :(
You have my condolences. I can only suggest trying to clean it off and season it. There's a chance it could still be used.
@@castironchaos Thanks for the reply. It's been in an e-tank for two days now. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
@@Massa909 How did it turn out?
@@castironchaos It actually turned out GREAT! It's absolutely flat, smooth and accepted seasoning well.
@@Massa909 Glad to hear it!
I usually put the hot embers of the remains of a fire into my cast iron. Works like a charm
I've used this method for 40 years. Build a fire in the wood stove let it start to die down and then lay the pan in the coals. Works like a charm every time. I wouldn't throw it in a hot fire though.
Would you recommend cleaning cast iron in a self cleaning oven?
NO. Some cleaning cycles go in excess of over 1000F (fun fact: if you put your teflon pans in the oven on clean, youll kill everyone on your house! :D)
In fact, most oven manufacturers dont even recommend using that setting, as it is known to damage the internals. Its only included cuz stupid consumers literally wont buy an oven without it, ROFL.
www.thekitchn.com/why-you-should-almost-never-use-the-self-cleaning-function-of-your-oven-175110
I’ve never been told to put it in fire. You bury it in the coals at the end of the day when you bank them for the night. It’s like baking off the crap.
I'm not an expert but I have used the fire method 30 or 40 times cracked one pan number 10 Griswold I put cooking oil on them when I take them out usually spray oil I tried vinager once it took 2 months to work cast iron is poured in mold as liquid red hot not saying that a fire might not damage a pan but not likely I am sure you don't agree with me but that doesn't make me wrong using chemicals or electric tank can change the metal or bond other metal's with it
You just said you cracked a Griswold #10 when fire cleaning. Fire cleaning won't damage a pan every time, but there is a *possibility* it could damage the pan. That's what happened to your pan there. Lye and electrolysis are safe and will not affect a cast iron pan.
@@castironchaos electrolytes is how they plate one metal over another softer to harder I think not saying what you are doing is wrong just not the only way
So... don't put that skillet on a suitably flat piece of wood in your hearth which will inevitably put it into contact with some of the flames?
But then what about a gas stove or grill? Those flames are blue, meaning they should be hotter than the yellow flames in that fireplace?
This guy does NOT know what he's talking about. Cast iron loves heat and will not warp or crack just because you put it in a fire. What cast iron does not love is shock. Taking ANY metal from one temperature extreme to another will always cause damage. The red color of the rust is NOT an indication of fire damage. It IS an indication of what species of sulfur reducing microbes have been feeding on the iron.
All that said, fire is NOT a means to get rid of rust. Fire is a quick and effective way to burn off your seasoning and "reset" your cast iron.
But you don't need to take my word on this. If you want good, sound advice from a real expert, then check out Cowboy Kent Rollins TH-cam channel. He has around 40 years experience with cast iron. And he has several excellent videos that teach you everything you need to know.
"Sulfur reducing microbes feeding on the iron?" Okaaaaay.... I don't need to say any more here.
For the most part I agree with what you say about not using fire to clean your cast iron. I however have a 99% mechanical reasoning aptitude and have had perfect success cleaning cast iron pans of all sizes in my wood stove. I am very careful, however, to pre heat the pans on top of my wood stove while the fire burns down to heavy coals. I usually add a couple thin sticks on top of the coals to raise the pans up off the coals so the pan does not make cold spots by suffocating the coals under the pan. I generally begin with the pan upside down to be sure to not over heat the bottom and make sure I do get the sides plenty hot. I open the draft a bit to keep the coals nice and hot. I watch carefully through the glass front of my stove or keep checking with a wood stove with no window. I keep moving the pan around since even a bed of coals can have uneven heat. I turn the pan upright near the end to be sure to get the bottom good and hot as well. As soon as I see the slightest bit of iron turning red the pan is done. Better if none of it turns red though, but so far I have had zero damage to any of my pans doing this. Generally 20 to 30 minutes in the stove does the trick. When stripped I remove the pan, while very hot still, and place it again on top of my hot wood stove to "cool"....cool to less very hot, actually. Please do not try using oven mitts people! They will burn! You need tongs or pliers or a poker to lift via the loop in a handle. Then after a bit, I place a metal trivet under the pan to make it less hot. Eventually I remove the pan from the wood stove, but they are fine left on the trivets. You must always slowly raise and slowly lower the temperature. You must evenly heat the pan which is difficult in coals. You must not over heat any part of the pan. If you are a mechanical prodigy like myself, this method is excellent. It is faster and does a better job than all other methods...IF you know what you are doing. All of my pans come out grey when washed with detergent after stripping, and they will all flash rust within a minute, after washing. After washing they go straight onto my wood stove or electric if the stove has no heat, to be totally dried. If you are not ready to season the pans right away, either keep them on the wood stove on trivets or oil them right away with your seasoning oil, to keep them from rusting further and from absorbing water from the air. The only pan I have ever damaged was one where I turned on the incorrect burner to boil my kettle, but the cast pot was on the burner that got very hot. This red hot burner quickly heated just the bottom of my pan and turned it into a bit of a spinner :-( I plan to grind it flat again ;-)
If you wanna know how to really use cast iron and clean it go watch cowboy kent rollins, not this guy this guy has no clue what he is talking about. If somebody is stupid enough to leave an iron pan in a fire long enough to ruin it then well they really do not deserve to be using iron. And looks like this guys done it a few times and puts blame elsewhere
Thank you for taking the time to make this comment. I'm sure it will come in handy, someday. :)
@@castironchaos i have to add though i watched your updated collection video, and for new cast iron a guy in lancaster pennsylvania makes a killer number 8 skillet. In my opinion its just like using an older iron pan. Smooth, takes seasoning very well and heats evenly. It is called the lancaster cast iron company. He just started in 2019.
@@castironchaos and also i am jealous of your collection. I lucked out today and got me a griswold number 5 and an older lodge number 8 might be an unmarked wagner because i think lodge put notches in all of there skillets with the rings.
Paid 15.00 each for them
Darn, I just put my dutch oven in the bbque with hot coals for 2 hours to burn off old rancid seasoning. I figured it would be the same as cooking over coals.
I bet it'll be fine.
My experience has been great with putting my cast iron in red hot fire. ...and I'm super old so- I wouldn't worry! Don't use oven cleaner unless you just love to eat chemicals!
I have had great results doing the same thing. 👍
At about 8 min..."Consider that these are TH-cam videos". Yep...just like this one.
Yes, exactly. Which is why fire cleaning videos can't be trusted any more than this one. After all, they only show successful results, not failures.
I've cleaned lots of cast iron in fires because that's the way I was taught. Once I learned better though, I haven't put one in a fire now in several years. I only ever lost one to fire and it was a free overseas pan that had a small crack in it to begin with so I wasn't heartbroken over it. I never use fires anymore but here's something to wreck your brain, I have a cast iron forge that I tinker with. It's over a hundred years old and it is a commercial shop forge, designed to burn coal. It probably weighs over 100 lbs without trouble. A friend of mine pulled it out of a junk pile at a scrap yard he worked at and when I saw it, I immediately made him an offer, which he accepted. It's been sitting in my yard ever since, without protection from the elements, and oddly, with no rust. I haven't been able to satisfactorily explain that to myself. I've had it hot enough to completely burn up railroad spikes, not melt, burn up... no puddle of melted metal left behind. Completely gone. I have cooked over it while working though. It makes a mean hot dog when I'm not cranking the air. Great video sir. Always a pleasure to watch
When you said "burn up railroad spikes" I about lost it. lol Great imagination
When the forge fire is getting too much air, the steel in the fire will burn. It happens quite often when you do not pay attention to the steel in the fire........
Thank you so much.
Your fire damaged cast iron needs to be tempered. The overheating makes the brittle. They need to be reheated and cooled very slowly. Done right and they can be like new. We can argue the point but neither of us saw them when they were new.
Some old cast iron was made to be used in a fireplace and most of it didn't survive until now. It got brittle and it broke. A lot of the older cast iron that did survive was lightly used if at all. How lucky we are to have temperature controlled cooking appliances at our disposal.
The metal itself has been permanently altered, and re-heating it will not magically change it back the way it was. Heat reactions don't work like that.
Papaw ...my uncle worked at a steel plant for 30 yrs and that was how it was done. The molecules aren't damaged they are just misaligned from the initial manufacturing process. They let them cool then put them in an oven at about 700 to 800 degrees over a length of time and the molecules re align themselves.
It’s called annealing. With hardened steel you can heat it in fire and slowly cool it to anneal or soften it. Not sure how it works with cast iron. Perhaps a metallurgist does.
@@rickcherry7552 usually annealing is done when the metal in question needs to have work done to it to reshape it or have tool work done to it. The pot that was shown didn't look as though it was misshapen but simply may have a spot or several spots that may be unstable. Tempering is done when there is instability in a metal. It's a more precise method than annealing whereas the metal is heated slowly to prevent disturbing the unstable area(s) and induce cracking that the process is trying to correct. Once heated to the desired temperature for a period of time it is allowed to cool naturally in still air to prevent uneven cooling. Once its cooled to room temperature it is almost indistinguishable to the naked eye from a new formed piece. Problem is finding someone to do it correctly for a single piece of cast iron.
@@bigunc327 This is correct and does work. There are charts for the timing on re heating cast iron to remove brittleness. Its done when cast iron breaks or needs repair. The cooling down part is very important. I use an oven set to 500 degrees, and drop it about 50 degrees every 30 minutes.
But can you still use it?
It depends. If the seasoning doesn't adhere to a pan because of fire damage, not really. This would make the pan more likely to rust because the seasoning isn't blocking oxidation; there's also the possibility that the pan may crack because the metal itself is more brittle.
You know that accounting guy that's always trying to hire Ben in Parks and Recreation? This dude is him, but on a whole other level of nerd
I have put my cast iron pans in a fire and never had a problem with warping. It is the only way I clean crusty pans. In an hour or less your pan will be clean.If you put a pan in a fire place and leave it there to long maybe it could hurt it I don't know. I think you must put it in and let the fire die before removing it. All I know is I have had nothing but success cleaning pans in a fire place.
THANK YOU
Lol, I actually think I got blocked from that group on facebook. There are still plenty of safe ways to use coals to clean cast iron, NOT throwing it fire for damn sure but adding coals to the pan where there is possibly plastic melted onto it or other issues like that. I dont care about facebook at all but this channel seems to be a decent channel. So dont block me on here and I'll hopfully learn how to build a lye tank and I already do plating, so many I'll try electrolysis on cast iron. I was not aware that heating the metal changed it though, I figured it was way hotter when it was poured so why would getting it hot effect it. I really had no idea that fire could hurt cast iron. My whole family uses cast iron and I learned how to clean it with "fire" coals from my great grandma and none of are cast iron is damaged or has been lost. But again we arent throwing it into fires, is usually small fires that are burned and then the coals are used. But that really sucks about all that cast iron getting ruined and people still selling it after its already burned. But any ruined frying pay can still be cut up into a spatula, and when it breaks it breaks but it can flip frying potatoes and stuff untill its fully dead. Use sanding disks to smooth it down and get all that raspy stuff off and it's good to go.
I don't know if you get to this later but what about using the oven on self cleaning?
Sand them down
Then clean them
Since when can a fire remove rust off anything.
It can't, and yet there are still people who say "throw it in the fire and burn off the rust."
Are you a moderator in the Cast Iron Cooking group on Facebook?
Yes, the group is a lot of fun.
Right, I thought so too. Until I got banned a few months for posting that I hated glasstop stoves. Anything you can do to help with that?
@@spcespff I have no idea who you are because Facebook requires real names, and there's no one named "spacespff" on there.
My name is Tim Murphy.
@@spcespff Rule #2: 2. Blocking admins will result in your account being banned from the page.
Funny to watch a TH-cam video criticizing other TH-cam video for being TH-cam video lol.
Brian Choi Meta.
It is cast iron , it was molten hot metal from its birth ! As you state you don't even know ,I assume you are not a metallurgy expert ? You sir are mistaken ,why do they use them for camp fire cooking are they damaging it ? Of course not!
So can you cook over a campfire?
Most certainly. After all, we don't place the skillet into the fire and bury it in the coals, which is what most of the advice to "throw it in the fire" says.
Instructions unclear burned cast iron
So this isn't the problem with cooking in a fire is it?