CAST IRON TRASH TO TREASURE – HOW TO RESTORE

CAST IRON TRASH TO TREASURE

HOW TO RESTORE YOUR CAST IRON

I picked up this old cast iron skillet at a flea market.. it is nasty and the sides are caked with baked on CRUD!!!

I know it will be beautiful when I am done with it.. lets get started

I stick it in my SELF CLEANING OVEN.. upside down on the rack.. and I turn on my self cleaning oven.. it locks and gets very high temp for 3 hours… the smell will be horrendous.. open windows doors and turn on fans…

the baked on gunk will have cooked off and turn to ASH..

after your self cleaning oven unlocks and cools completely you can take out your cast iron skillet.. always use a mitt cause you never know how hot it will be, cast iron retains heat for a long time

Now time to start from scratch.. you have a clean cast iron.. it needs SEASONED now.. so take a little oil and lightly rub all over the pan evenly ..

Put your cast iron pan into the oven at 350/400 degrees and BAKE it for a hour or two..  to get the sheen baked on..

Now it should be nice and even not GUMMY or sticky

NOW you use it to season it perfectly

I like to fry bacon in my newly seasoned pan and as I do that more and more my pan gets better and better with use .. you know it is perfectly seasoned at last when you can fry an egg on it without the egg sticking.. It is better than any teflon pan you could every have.. but remember cooking on cast Iron is much different cause the heat is retained in the cast iron so you have to cook on lower temp then you normally do with teflon …

i wish i would have taken a pic of this cast iron griddle before i started rescuing it … you can’t imagine the crud .. got it from thrift store for two bucks, when hubby saw it he said it was too far gone but with some good ole fashioned elbow grease it is ready for me to cure in the stove

some are so hardened that you need steel wool to sand down, this one the baked in crud was soft enough in some places that I actually was able to get my thin blade that is in the picture underneath and scrape I kept at it and then used a spoon to get around the edges then some steel wool then scraped again..

then clean it and dry it and put some oil on to soften the crud you missed and start all over..

then clean it, dry it, oil it lightly let it set all night.. then if your happy with it you can start the curing process in the oven.. put some veg oil over the whole pan back front handle ect using rag, rub it in evenly and lightly not heavy or you will have goopy bumps in the curing process and will have to start all over.

put in oven to cure for 1 hour 30 minutes and when oven timer is done turn off oven and leave it alone leave it in there till it starts to cool down on it’s own.

several curings and you will have a shiny black finish again..

COMMENTS and TIPS BY GROUP MEMBERS ON MY FACEBOOK GROUP

• Lucia Rasbot Wow!
• Veronica Hutchinson McBee my brother has our mama’s…….if i had it i would use it as she did…………
• Serena Adkins Ellison I have some of my grandmothers and mothers cast iron
• Serena Adkins Ellison This photo above was a griddle I picked up from the thrift though .. someone really abused it
• Tami Renee I found an awesome cure for crud…dawn has some serious stuff in a grey bottle
• Eddie Severt I have a griddle just like it, it is great for pancakes.
• Veronica Hutchinson McBee and my Mama would make hoe cakes………
• Lynn McGinnis Seems that I had a post that showed that you could use a peeled potato to clean one up. It worked for my brother.
• Patricia Stover My grandma use to build a big fire outside to get all that crud off. lol
• Carol Gilliam Massey My mother gave me my grandmothers 4 skillets 1 corn pone 1 griddle and 1 bean pot they have been in a box for 8 yrs and they are gummy I tried to SOS them but it won’t come out any body have any suggestions how to get the sticky out
• Carol Gilliam Massey We tried to burn it already didn’t work
• Lynn McGinnis Are you sure you got it hot enough, Carol? That usually works. I tried to cure mine & got too much oil in the bottom and they turned gummy. If the fire didn’t work, then you might have to resort to the steel wool…and Dawn.
• Pamela Jean Davis My dad would always take a blow torch and heat it and scrape it till all the crud was off inside and out. Fond memories.
• Serena Adkins Ellison I got mine in the oven curing right now..
• Serena Adkins EllisonCarol Gilliam Massey do you have a self cleaning oven? Since you have so many pieces to do, try putting them all in the oven and then set it to clean.. the gummy stuff should turn to ash.. if not then you will have to do it the old fashioned way elbow grease and some steel wool
• Carol Gilliam Massey Ok thank u Serena I will try the dawn first my oven is not a self clean:(
• Eddie SevertCarol Gilliam Massey you can build a HOT fire to burn them clean, you can get them almost red hot and it won’t hurt. I have done it many times.

• Markeen BelongstoJesus Gillette Most of my cast iron, I picked up for a song, at yard sales, completely rusted out… LOOKED hopeless… BUT…. I KNEW better ! I KNEW I could repair them… yes, take the rust out with salt ! THEN, season it… and you will LOVE that pan forever !!! I have a nice assortment of them
• Amy Abbott Townsell Jill Abbott Moore, I think you already know most of this, but I know how you love your cast iron…
• Jill Abbott Moore I restored a gorgeous 1800′s gem pan to perfection, but it was tedious work!! I do love my cast iron!!

  Jen Nicole Goff Lech Soak in vinager water over night up to two days all rust and will come off easily then season and walah
• Kim Johnson Dugger Dang!!!
• Kim Johnson Dugger Now ya gotta season it…right?
• Serena Adkins Ellison right..
• Carol Gilliam Massey Thank you do much for all this info I’m fixing to start on my grandmothers pans now!
• Serena Adkins Ellison take pics.. we loved this kinda stuff
• Joyce Anne Bacon If I get burned on food, I use hot water and one of those Pampered Chef scraping tools

• Serena Adkins Ellison I cured mine today