I think you are over-thinking it. I also think you are being a bit anxious.

A skillet takes a while to get "good 'n seasoned", be patient. Also, I'd totally drop the scouring, sanding, salt, etc. Each of these is stripping the seasoning.

All of this being said, I;ll now confess that I've never bought a new bit of cast iron in my life. I don't even know what "pre seasoned" is and shudder to think.

All of my (extensive) collection came from yard sales, flea markets,etc except for the ones I inherited. I have skillets over 100 years old, easy.

My advice would be to COOK in them and not try to keep seasoning them. Cook everything in your cast iron - it's all I use for my family of 7 - and don't sweat the clean-up. I very often don't clean mine at all; just wipe any excess grease and hang it up. If I have anything that doesn't want to wipe out, I let water stand in the skillet for a few minutes then use my fingernail like Kent mentioned. Then I wipe and hang.

I use only lard, bacon grease, and very rarely coconut oil.

Are you sure you're cooking with enough oil? You don't want a tablespoonfull. Don't be timid! You want a good generous spash. Get yourself a drippings jar and pour leftover grease into it after cooking. I have 2 mason jars for grease, one for beef and one for pork and they sit (covered) out on my counter all the time (in the SC heat, too!) and never go rancid.

best of luck with your cast iron! :)

boiling water is your problem, never boil water in your skillet! when you heat it up the pores of the metal expand, which is one way grease is trapped in and later comes out when cooking (what a properly seasoned piece of cast iron is suppossed to do). When you pour boiling water in it, the water washes all the oil out of the pores, then when it cools there is no fat and oil left to be trapped in the closing pores. Also, as mentioned above, cook everything in it, DO NOT use the scouring pad EVER! if you must scrub it, do it when it is cool, thus most of the oil is already trapped in the pores of the metal and you are less likely to remove it. if you do scrub it, use only like a wooden spoon or something to take the big stuff off, never anything really abrasive. I have about seven pieces of cast iron cookwear, I cook everything in them, and I never have any problems (unless i try to boil water or something). Also, it does take a while for a pan to be seasoned, and my grandparents (who refuse to use any other type of cookewear and have so for the last 60 years) would laugh really hard to hear that you are purposely trying to season your skillet! just cook in it and let it do the work, use lots of lard! and never wipe any of it out after cooking bacon!! let it pool in the bottom and cool, slowly, on your stove. next time you heat it up to cook it will be there ready to assist you!!

Most of of what I would say has already been mentioned but here goes. Hopefully if you're paleo and thus not germophobic, you won't find this gross but I regularly cook in the same pan day after day without washing it! Just leave the fat there for the next meal. Beware if you have cats that like bacon grease, however!

My best friend is a pan scraper, which only costs 60 cents even at spendy Sur La Table. I got mine at a local home and garden store. I highly recommend it--using my finger nails makes me feel oogy.

When my pans get too grotty even for me, I spray them with hot tap water, use the pan scraper, wipe with a sponge if needed, and set on the stove to dry (or in the oven if it's still warm), then because I am cheap, I am using up some old cheap olive oil (bought for an olive oil lamp) to oil the pan after it dries. I figure once the oil has turned into another nice layer of non-stick carbon on my pan, it can't hurt me. I'll probably switch to lard when I run out of oil.

Another cheap/eco tip--I cut up all my old sheets and cotton clothes to make rags, which are great for wiping pans. Lint isn't really a problem with old cotton sheets and I never have to buy paper towels. A terry towel or something is going to leave more lint.

Sometimes if a pan needs it, I give it a good oiling and throw it in the oven, as is mentioned above.

Another thing you might check with the sticking is cooking temperature. I am an impatient cook and often turn the heat up too high, but if I'm careful about preheating my fat and watching the flame, I get much less sticking. And yes, as said above, not moving the food until it's ready.

Your pan just needs to be used, frequently, now that you have scrubbed off the pre-seasoning.

Next use - Don't wash it, just wipe it out, apply a thin layer of grease on the entire surface, and place in 200 degree oven for 4 hours. Turn it off, let pan cool on its own over night. Repeat next 4-5 uses, then just wipe out when done and put away.

My grandmothers would season their pans after use every month or so, but they were using their pans DAILY. The seasoning allowed them to wipe out excess stuff that might be burning.

Wish I had those pans. They weren't valued back then.

Most has been said already, but it is correct that the older cast iron skillets have a smoother finish to start with...the new Lodge is very rough. I am working on an older skillet I found to pass on to my daughter since I don't think she has the patience to go through the process. I worked on the rust first and did some on top of the stove heating of oil and cleaning up...did not do the oven thing. I cook my bacon every morning in the skillet and I use it to brown my meat. I pour off the grease (and save the bacon fat..yum) then I put a little water in and heat up to loosen any cooked on stuff, use a dish brush (no soap) scrub and pour that off, then use a paper towel to wipe out what is left, then add a little coconut oil or olive oil and rub it around before I put it up. It is getting blacker and slicker by the day. Daily use for 4 months now...so be patient.

I like the how to video on taking care of cast iron skillets from Cook's Illustrated. I think you can find it on their iTunes page here:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/cooks-illustrated-video-podcast/id270805564

Look for 'Reconsidering Cast Iron'. And yes, use animal fat.

I consider my skillet well seasoned, but food still sticks from time to time. It depends on the food and pan conditions. I never use soap. Just hot water and some hand scrubbing with my fingers or paper towels.

I avoid cooking acidic things in mine. It's bad for the seasoning.

I'm anxious to hear the responses here too - while I haven't been as methodical as you, I'm running into the same issues myself. I started with just a Lodge griddle, but have now also gotten a 12" frying pan. Both pre-seasoned.

I can tell you things that appear to help me so far, but still less than stellar results:

• Seasoning fat: I'll vary between coconut oil, grass fed lard, ghee, and butter.

• Clean-up: Just the soft part of a sponge with hottest tap water. With my griddle, I usually just give it a wipe-down to pick up any leftover food and excess fat unless I need to scrub it. If something's stuck I'll use my fingernail to loosen it.

• Re-touching: The best I've seen my skillet so far is when I've kept it in my oven, and had to turn the oven on for warming purposes (170f) and left the pan in. After every use, I'll make sure I put a thin coat of one of the above fats. After the skillet sat through a few warming cycles, it had a beautiful sheen on it. The next time I used it, the ground (grass fed) beef I browned still seemed to stick more than I would hope.

I think I would avoid scrubbing with salt and opting for a sponge, and an occasional fingernail.

As far as cooking, I try to leave things well enough alone until they're more fully cooked. Eggs and omelets seem to stick less that way. I haven't found bacon without added sugar, which often melts and gets sticky necessitating a more thorough scrub.

My jury is still out on temperature and duration of a full seasoning cycle, though.

http://blackirondude.blogspot.com/2008/12/cleaning-your-cast-iron-cookware.html Has some excellent tips.

12 answers, 1000+ views, and only 7 upvotes for this? (now 8)

I am answering just to bump this thread. This is important and obviously a much needed question. Look at the variety of answers. Look at how much people struggle with this.

Personally, I don't have a cast iron skillet, but we are looking into it, and I am very hesistant to get a pre-seasoned one for all the same reasons mentioned here. Does anyone know where to purchase a brand new really good quality NON pre-seasoned cast iron skillet? I know some people here say buy a used one, but uh, no that's ok. Not really into buying used cookware.

Thanks for all your answers folks. More answers are welcomed too!

If you're spending that much time seasoning, reseasoning, laboring, and stressing, you might as well find a nice non-collectible Griswold or Wagner of the appropriate size on eBay. If it's not an in-demand logo, the price will be reasonable even with shipping, and the surfaces are like freakin' mirrors compared to current Lodges.

That said, my mainstay pan is a late-model Lodge and while it took some work, it's done just fine given patience and proper care.

Wow, All I can say is someof these responses are a bit too much work.

The best advise I have seen is to use cast iron often.

When done wipe out the cast iron wit a paper towel let cool and put awy. If you have sticky residue heat the pan up and use a staninless steel spatulae with round corners to scrape the residue off. Don't be afrain you won't hurt it. Let cool and wipe out the loose carbon and burnt residue, let cool and put away.

The magic of cast iron is that it improves over time with use and even abuse.

If the seasoning ever gets chipped or uneven warm the pan slightly and add table salt to the pan and scrape with a paper towl, this will polish the seasoning smooth , add a light coat of oil and put awy till next time.

Enjoy the cast iron and get a good stainless steelspatuala

Cook in it (with lots of any Paleo fat), let it cool, set it on the back deck for the dog and cats to lick it clean. Place it back on the stove top and it's ready to go for the next meal. The cats and dog can't quite get all the fat out.

I season cast iron the same way a Chinese chef once taught me to season a carbon steel wok: Scrub off the manufacturer's coating, heat, rub with pork fat (bacon grease works fine), stir-fry a big handful of chives and scallions (in bacon grease) until very brown to remove some of the metallic residue, cool, wipe with paper towels to clean, re-rub with pork fat, use often.

This is a helpful thread. I made the mistake of cooking Brussel sprouts with a little bit of Balsamic vinegar for flavoring in a cast iron skillet and I think I removed the seasoning. D'oh.

I use a cast-iron pan a few times a day and what I do is just use it and then not wash it until I use it the next time, and then I scrub it all out and then add butter or whatever to it before it gets a chance to oxidize. Works great.

I recently overhauled one of my Lodge cast iron skillets, and I'm delighted with the result. One thing that has been bothering me for some time is the rough sand casting texture that Lodge neglects to machine away, the way it was done on classic cast iron pans. I read a comment online from a guy who polished his Lodge pan with an orbital sander, which he said took four hours to do. So, I started grinding away with my orbital sander, and it very quickly became apparent that I needed something that could remove metal much more aggressively. So, I switched to an angle grinder with a flap disc. I started with a 60 grit flap disc, followed by a 120 grit flap disc, and then polished with the orbital sander at 180 and 320 grit. That left the cast iron as smooth as glass.

For seasoning, I went with the flax oil method, and I'm very satisfied with it.

If anything is stuck when I'm done cooking, while it's still hot I pour water in it to sort of deglaze the bottom and give it a little scrape with a pan scraper (plastic tool that is awesome). Once it's cooled, scrub with just water (no soap!). Wipe it dry with a paper towel or dish towel. Then I add either safflower oil or coconut oil! Coconut oil works great. I don't have any sticking issues, especially if I make sure to add oil (coconut or olive) or fat (or cook bacon first), before cooking. Good luck!

Answering this to bump it again. Good question with lots of good information. I came here to see if using olive oil to season my cast iron pan is bad because of the low smoke point and found everything you could ever want to know about cast iron pans!

Ewwwwwwwww.

That is disgusting. Anyone ever check it out for pathogens?

again.

Ewwwwwwwww.