How To Clean Wrought Iron Fireplace Tools

The photo above is capable of causing divorces, ending friendships, and starting wars. Think I'm joking? Then you've never talked to a no-soaper. All I'll say is this: Woe to you if you ever touch a no-soaper's cast iron pan with a sudsy sponge.

That's the nature of bandage iron. Because it'due south ane of the greatest pieces of cookware in the kitchen, and because it requires some special care, passions can run high. But the truth is that maintaining cast iron cookware isn't much of a job at all, and many of the stricter rules that people insist on needn't exist so strict.

Here's the skinny on taking care of your bandage iron cookware so that it'south e'er at its best, without any of the mumbo jumbo you're likely to encounter elsewhere.

Cleaning and Intendance Tips for Vintage, Rusty, or Damaged Cast Iron Cookware

If you buy a vintage cast iron pan that's in demand of some rehab, or if your one-time bandage fe pan has grown rusty or damaged through neglect, all is not lost. Cast iron is very strong, and with a niggling endeavor, you can become your pans into brand-new status. To learn how, follow our bandage iron restoration instructions here.

Cleaning and Care Tips for New Cast Iron Cookware

If you've read our bandage atomic number 26 skillet review, you already know how strongly we experience about finding the right pan. Only even with the best new cast iron, you may need to requite it an initial seasoning. It'south an piece of cake process, which you tin read about in greater depth here. The master thing y'all need to know is that seasoning is a hard, protective coating on the pan that'southward created by rubbing the pan with oil and then heating it. When exposed to oestrus, each layer of oil transforms into an extremely sparse, plastic-similar coating. As those layers build upward, the pan becomes increasingly protected against rusting (which, in its stripped-bare country, information technology volition speedily do just by sitting in the open up air), while also developing the nonstick characteristics that make bandage atomic number 26 then useful.

Once you've established your initial layers of seasoning, the most important next step is to use your pan as often as you lot can, peculiarly for anything that involves cooking with fat or oil: searing meats, frying bacon, sautéing vegetables, frying chicken, et cetera. With each utilise, you lot'll set down successive layers of seasoning that will only make your pan better and better.

And that'south where the issue of cleaning comes in.

How to Clean Cast Iron Afterwards Cooking

Permit's start with a very basic premise that we can all concur on: A muddy bandage fe pan needs to exist cleaned. The question, then, is how. 1 of the almost widespread beliefs is that you tin't use soap, and the reason you'll normally be given for this is that soap is powerful enough to strip abroad the seasoning you've worked so difficult to build upwardly.

Lather is good at washing away grease and dirt, so perhaps it's understandable that people think it can also wash away seasoning, since the seasoning is substantially broiled-on fat. But fifty-fifty though the seasoning started out every bit a fat, it's been then thoroughly transformed ("polymerized" is the technical discussion) that it'southward no longer at risk of being stripped away by a bit of soap, especially not the gentle modern soaps we work with today.

No, if you lot wanted to remove the seasoning, you'd need to either scour it with something very abrasive, like steel wool; heat information technology at a very high temperature for an extended flow of time without any fat in it; soak it in a strong lye solution; or strip it via electrolysis. Suffice it to say, it takes quite a bit of effort to actually take the seasoning off a cast atomic number 26 pan.

But lather? Soap ain't gonna do jack to that seasoning. We know, because we regularly launder our pans with soap at Serious Eats, and they're equally beautifully seasoned as always.

And then grab your dish soap and a sponge* (preferably a non-scratch sponge), and let's get cleaning.

*Some of y'all may exist wondering nigh those chainmail cast iron scrubbers that accept become popular in recent years. Practice they work? Nosotros've tested them, and yes, they can help remove very stubborn, burnt-on grit. Simply the chainmail, with too much scrubbing, can too brainstorm to wearable abroad the seasoning. Nosotros've ever institute a basic not-scratch scrubber sponge to more than do the play a trick on.

Pace 1: Wash the Cast Fe Pan Well

Photographs and video: Vicky Wasik

Once you lot're done cooking in your pan, go ahead and wash it with some warm soapy water, wiping information technology with a kitchen sponge. If there are a few stubborn burnt-on $.25, you'll be fine using the constructed scrubber on the back of many kitchen sponges, as it's not as harsh as steel wool.

If, for some reason, you've scorched some nasty stuff into the pan, yous can cascade salt into information technology, fix it over high heat, then rub the charred gunk out with some paper towels. The salt acts as an abrasive that's rubber for the seasoning, while the heat can aid carbonize any remaining bits of food, making them easier to scrub abroad. Then just rinse out the salt, wash the pan with warm soapy water, and go along to the next step.

Step 2: Dry out the Bandage Iron Pan Thoroughly

Water is the enemy of bandage iron, so the last thing you want to do is leave it dripping wet post-wash. Sure, the seasoning volition prevent any rust from forming right away, but if the pan is left to stand up with water in information technology, even those tough layers of polymerized oil won't exist enough to stop the relentless oxidative skirmish between iron and H₂O.

So make certain to dry the pan thoroughly with towels right after washing. Fifty-fifty better, once you've hand-dried the pan as best you tin can, set it over a high flame. The heat will speed evaporation, driving off any final bit of wet and guaranteeing that the pan is totally dry.

Step 3: Oil Lightly and Heat the Cast Iron Pan

The last step is to prime the pan for its next utilize by laying downwards one bonus layer of protective seasoning before putting information technology away. To practice that, only rub the pan very lightly all over with an unsaturated cooking fat, like canola, vegetable, or corn oil, making sure to buff away whatsoever visible greasiness and so that the bandage iron almost doesn't look like you've oiled it at all.

And so put the pan back over a burner set to high heat, and leave it for a couple of minutes, until the pan is heated through all over and lightly smoking. You could do this in your oven for more even heating, à la the initial seasoning procedure, merely I find that too cumbersome as function of a daily ritual; for just one quick last seasoning footstep, the stovetop works fine. (Annotation that if you rub the pan with oil and put it abroad without heating it, the oil can become sticky and rancid before the pan's adjacent utilize, which is a real bummer. If you've accidentally permit this happen, just launder out the pan with lather and water to get rid of the gunk, and so dry it and estrus information technology, and you should be good to go.)

And that's information technology—easy enough that anyone can practise it, without resorting to fisticuffs.