Let's Talk BBQ
Other Cooking Equipment => Cast Iron & Campfire Cooking => Topic started by: JMH on January 10, 2017, 12:44:22 PM
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Made some cast iron deep dish pizza Sunday, and then proceeded to royally foul up the pan. Rinsed it out with water after cooling off, so that I could get all the loose flour out before touching up the seasoning.
Put the pan on the burner, and then got sidetracked by toddler bathtime. Smelled the burning oil, returned to the kitchen to see it rolling smoke. Grabbed the pan off the burner and put on what I thought was a wool knit hotpad. Oh crap, NOW it's smoking. Started melting/burning the hot pad (one knit by my wife, thought it was wool, but maybe had synthetic material too?). Took both those items outside and placed on concrete patio to cool off (10 degrees here in Neb).
Two issues/concerns with the pan now: 1) destroyed the seasoning on the inside/bottom of the pan. It's flat black with greyish/whitish swirls. Sides look a little splotchy, but not terrible. 2) melted stuff on bottom (outside) of pan from hotpad.
Once the pan was cool enough to manage, I scrubbed the bottom/outside with a scrubber sponge to remove the visible burned on hotpad material. Appears that it all came off, although I can still see the knit pattern, and smell the acrid burnt smell.
Thoughts on process to rescue the pan? I am thinking as a step 1 I am going to put a fair amount of oil in it and heat it up on my grill side burner to make sure I burn off any remaining hotpad material before heating it up in the house again? Any extra steps I need to take before re-oiling/re-establishing the seasoning on the inside of the pan (to address the grey/white swirly-stuff in the pan)? Thanks in advance.
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If it's bad enough I'd start over - put it top down in the oven and run the "Clean" cycle. Then cool and reseason.
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:thumbup:
If it's bad enough I'd start over - put it top down in the oven and run the "Clean" cycle. Then cool and reseason.
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Made some cast iron deep dish pizza Sunday, and then proceeded to royally foul up the pan. Rinsed it out with water after cooling off, so that I could get all the loose flour out before touching up the seasoning.
Put the pan on the burner, and then got sidetracked by toddler bathtime. Smelled the burning oil, returned to the kitchen to see it rolling smoke. Grabbed the pan off the burner and put on what I thought was a wool knit hotpad. Oh crap, NOW it's smoking. Started melting/burning the hot pad (one knit by my wife, thought it was wool, but maybe had synthetic material too?). Took both those items outside and placed on concrete patio to cool off (10 degrees here in Neb).
Two issues/concerns with the pan now: 1) destroyed the seasoning on the inside/bottom of the pan. It's flat black with greyish/whitish swirls. Sides look a little splotchy, but not terrible. 2) melted stuff on bottom (outside) of pan from hotpad.
Once the pan was cool enough to manage, I scrubbed the bottom/outside with a scrubber sponge to remove the visible burned on hotpad material. Appears that it all came off, although I can still see the knit pattern, and smell the acrid burnt smell.
Thoughts on process to rescue the pan? I am thinking as a step 1 I am going to put a fair amount of oil in it and heat it up on my grill side burner to make sure I burn off any remaining hotpad material before heating it up in the house again? Any extra steps I need to take before re-oiling/re-establishing the seasoning on the inside of the pan (to address the grey/white swirly-stuff in the pan)? Thanks in advance.
After you re-oil and clean it...try cooking some eggs in it. If they come out o.k. - then no harm, no foul. Cheap test.
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If you oven is like mine, I have to take the racks out for the clean cycle. You can also put it on the grill and crank it up (if a gasser), or get a good hot bed of coals going if charcoal. You want to burn all the residue off. You will have to re-season it, but if you are seeing that grey like you described, you are going to have to do that anyway.
Or, hit it with Easy-Off oven cleaner and then re-season.
Note: I presume you are talking about a "bare" black metal cast iron and not a enameled cast iron pan.
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JMH - do not feel bad - I have done the same thing recently (though, not the knit hot pad). Made cornbread and completely forgot it was on the stove with water boiling. I am starting completely over with it and going to have to bring it back to some resemblance of a working cast iron pan.
Good luck (see the thread I did on inheritance CI for some great feedback on restoring cast iron contributed by others.)