New Lodge Cast Iron
I just bought a new seasoned Lodge cast Iron skillet from Wally World. It's working better than I thought it would. I'm impressed b/c based on some comments you'd think cast iron is the devil's me...
Forum Discussion
Will it smooth out? Depends a lot on how you treat it. Keep tomato based recipes out of it for quite some time, never, never use soap in it, the more you fry with oil the quicker it will smooth over.
Soap or water? You need to retain the small amounts of oil that soak into the pores and that is by using water to clean it. How clean is that, water is the worlds best solvent and no matter how clean the pan eventually it will meet raw chicken. The high temperatures kill any initial bacteria in the chicken and do the same for the pan. After a good hot water bath or soaking scrub out the residue, dry it over heat and if it looks dry wipe oil on in to insure it's oiled. It will outlast both of us.
We do 90% of our cooking in CI and only have one T-Fal skillet. The skillet has lasted a long time, well over a decade, because we seldom use it.
Soap or water? You need to retain the small amounts of oil that soak into the pores and that is by using water to clean it. How clean is that, water is the worlds best solvent and no matter how clean the pan eventually it will meet raw chicken. The high temperatures kill any initial bacteria in the chicken and do the same for the pan. After a good hot water bath or soaking scrub out the residue, dry it over heat and if it looks dry wipe oil on in to insure it's oiled. It will outlast both of us.
We do 90% of our cooking in CI and only have one T-Fal skillet. The skillet has lasted a long time, well over a decade, because we seldom use it.
