Did I ruin my cast iron skillet?

I have a 12" cast iron skillet. On Tuesday I attempted to make bahn mi, so I heated the pan underneath the oven broiler (gas oven) and broiled the pork in it. There was a lot of sugar in the marinade, so the result was that there were a lot of hardened black spots from the sugar.

I had a hard time washing it off and didn't get it all off. Then yesterday, I made a bacon, tomato and pasta dish. I cooked the bacon, onion, and tomato in the skillet.

When I tried to wash it afterwards, I saw that it had a funky look to it, and I remembered that you're not supposed to cook tomatoes in it. Now it's double hard to wash and I'm wondering if that's because of the blackened sugar, or the tomatoes. It doesn't feel smooth to the touch.

Did I ruin my skillet? Is there any way to get this stuff off?

Cast iron is pretty tough to ruin, unless you let it rust. In your case, I'd try filling it with water. maybe with a little baking soda added, and simmer it for a few minutes (the idea is to try and dissolve the sugars). Then try srubbing with a stainess steel or copper scrubby.

Good luck!

In my experience the only way to completely ruin cast iron is to crack via thermal shock. You could use a very harse abrasive scrubber, and then reseason. I'd bet everything will be fine.

Flip

nr706 wrote:Cast iron is pretty tough to ruin, unless you let it rust. In your case, I'd try filling it with water. maybe with a little baking soda added, and simmer it for a few minutes (the idea is to try and dissolve the sugars). Then try srubbing with a stainess steel or copper scrubby.

After that, you should re-season it.

The patina or whatever you call it should protect to a certain extent from acidic foods. The first thing to do is get the crud out of there, then if the surface isn't what it used to be, fry up some bacon, save the grease*, and go through the process of re-seasoning it. The nice thing about being solid iron is, whatever you scrape off, it's still iron underneath, you just have to get a good surface back on it.

* The guides say you can use olive or other vegetable oil. What's the fun in that?

If all else fails (and I don't think you'll need to resort to this), I've rescued some severely neglected cast iron skillets by throwing them in the oven on its self-cleaning cycle (I often clean my grill grates this way, too.)

I've used coarse salt and a small amount of oil to scrub off crud.

Thanks for the tips!!!

Agreed. Boil some water in it, followed by a good, non-soapy scrub followed by a full fledged re-seasoning in the oven should take care of most anyting. I've never used Bacon Fat to season cast iron myself, but some sources claim that best results come from Lard or Vegetable Shortening.

starbird wrote:I've never used Bacon Fat to season cast iron myself, but some sources claim that best results come from Lard or Vegetable Shortening.

I always use Crisco with good results.

Hi,

I would start with the least aggressive method: salt and oil then go from there.

I use cheap vegetable oil to season pans because it will just be thrown away afterwards.

Regards,

Just my experience: vegetable oil is totally useful for what I call "maintenance seasoning," i.e. seasoning the cooking surface after cooking and cleaning, but for full-on seasoning of the enitre pan in the oven, it can sometimes leave a sort of sticky residue that dust and such will adhere to in your cabinets or on your shelves.

starbird wrote:Just my experience: vegetable oil is totally useful for what I call "maintenance seasoning," i.e. seasoning the cooking surface after cooking and cleaning, but for full-on seasoning of the enitre pan in the oven, it can sometimes leave a sort of sticky residue that dust and such will adhere to in your cabinets or on your shelves.

Are you thinking of canola oil? The characteristics you mention is why I don't like the stuff.

I don't know how you season a pan. I usually do it via the oven and it is a pretty sedate activity.

Regards,

The way my Grandmother-In-Law taught me to quick season (maintanence) a pan after using it was to clean it out, then spread a little vegetable oil around the cooking surface with your hand (you can use a paper towel) put it over low heat for 20 min. then wipe it out, let it cool and put it away. This as opposed to the less frequent, slightly more drawn out process of smearing it all over (don't forget the lids) with lard or shortening and baking it in the oven (don't forget aluminum foil on the bottom of the oven) or buried in a full blown camp fire for that he-man experience.