Using stick Crisco now. I used to use lard for my skillets and Dutch ovens, but if I didn't use the ovens for awhile, they would smell like a skunks rear end when I went to use them.

I just use vegetable oil.

A batch of cornbread with lotsa bacon grease.

Bacon grease and vegetable oil.

video posted to YouTube on Jan 2, 2022
YouTube channel: Cowboy Kent Rollins [2.4M subscribers]

Cowboy Kent is fun to watch!

Ron

I have grapeseed oil laying around, I'll start using that

You mean initial seasoning? That was a long time ago. I think lard.

I don't apply anything, generally speaking, to maintain the season on my cast iron. Generally, whatever oil or grease was in it from cooking is what gets added to the season. After rinsing it out with hot water and a brush, followed by a cold water rinse, I wipe it with a paper towel and place it on the stove on high till it smokes. Then I take it off. Done. The smoking is the residual oils (from the last time you cooked, left on the surface after rinsing and brushing) polymerizing on the surface (and carbonizing), which adds to the season, or replaces lost season.

If properly done, there's no oil becoming rancid, because it's been polymerized onto the surface.

I use bacon grease if available and vegetable oil if I have no bacon grease.

Yep, if there's not enough oil on it from the last cook, I tend to use bacon grease. Just a tiny bit on a paper towel, and wipe it on, then onto the hot stove top till it smokes.

same here

Grape seed oil

I have been cooking in cast iron using olive oil. It has given my cast iron the best non stick surface I have found. All I can say, is give it a try.

I had always used bacon grease or vegetable oil. Olive oil was an upgrade.

West Texas Intermediate, sparingly.

Flax seed is what the wife has used.

Bore Butter ..

Cowboy Ken is entertaining, but he gets a lot of stuff wrong...also, he's just "clickbait". That said, I would agree that flaxseed oil is expensive overkill and it flakes.

I also agree, smoking oil is extra oil on the surface of the pan, not polymerized oil...two different things.

I've used leaf lard for cooking, baking, and CI seasoning for years. Season new CI 1-2 times and start cooking with it...cooking builds seasoning, don't waste time "re-seasoning"

One of the best maintenance things you can do for seasoned CI is to scramble eggs in them...don't know why, but it puts a real nice black sheen back on the skillet.

Salted butter, just heat it till it melts, wipe it off and store the pan. Oh,and don't let your wife anywhere near them!

What ever is handy. I even scrub the cast iron (gasp!) every so often with a SS scrubby. Re season on the stove.

Interesting stuff here:


https://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/01/a-science-based-technique-for-seasoning-cast-iron/

Been using Sunflower Oil for a long time, because it has one of the highest smoke points @ 450 degrees.

Nothing beats a well seasoned Cast Iron Pan, it's the original Non-Stick pan.

KB

Avocado oil is highly heat resistant. It's smoke point is 520F. It's also good for frying.

Stove and pots/pans get vegetable oil after every use.

Yep. My eggs slide right off the skillet into my plate. No stick.

PS The season is actually oil that's been polymerized, carbon infused, and bound to the surface via heating till smoking. It's important to remove it from the heat as soon as it starts to smoke, as letting it smoke further will actually consume season rather than add to it. Heating to just the point of smoking adds the carbon infusion element to the seasoning. The combination of carbon and polymerized oils is what makes the surface nonstick. The carbon element is why a properly seasoned skillet is back.

It's been so long since I seasoned a new cast iron skillet I don't remember. I don't put anything on my seasoned skillets after I use them, except maybe a little vegetable oil if they're looking a little dry.

No, no, no. She got some things right, but more info was wrong. She was a writer who happened upon a popular subject and got traction from it for a while.

Been using Avocado oil lately.

+1, supposed to be the best.

Lard for the using irons ,bees wax for anything stored.

OK. What did she get right?

After you deep fry a few messes of fish and taters in a cast iron dutch oven it will be black and slick as glass best way to season them I have found.

I have messed around with lard, bacon, crisco, flaxseed, olive, and canola.

Plain old canola has worked just fine for me. After use and cleaning I will put it back on the stove to dry, then wipe or spray with canola. Heat until it starts to smoke then set it aside to cool.

Grapeseed oil.

If you actually do it right with flaxseed oil (which is food grade linseed oil) you will get a polymerized, non-stick coating that will probably last the rest of your life. It will even stand up to commercial dishwashers.

I keep a small can of Crisco in the fridge, and occaissionaly wipe a thin coat on them.
I mainly cook with olive oil, except when i fry fish, for that i use peanut oil.

Another for Grape seed oil.

Mineral to maintain primarily.

but, I have been really pleased with some of the new beeswax products.

Look into Crissbee.
FWIW, I restore old cast Iron when I find the right pieces. I have and electrolysis tank that we use, then build the seasoning back with mineral oil.

Mineral oil will not go rancid like vegetable oils and other oils.

5/30 full-synthetic Mobil…..or Carlini Canola spray from Aldi’s.

Based on what you guys are saying, I am going to switch to Flaxseed Oil.

Thanks for the education :o)

KB

I too have had great, long lasting success with flaxseed oil. Got a friend that takes the easy way out. He carries his cast iron to his favorite Chinese restaurant and gets them to season them. Gives them $5 per cast iron ware. Didn’t remember the oil they used, maybe sesame seed oil. What ever they use on their woks. Durable and takes like 5 minutes per item.

Love my cast iron especially Mama Lou’s 8” Griswold I inherited. Make cornbread generally every other day in it. Recently made chicken and dressing and cooked it in the Griswold instead of a Pyrex dish. Multiple pieces picked up at yard sales and junk shops and restored.

But, but, cowboy Kent says it’s too brittle!

Curious?

I have never seasoned my Dutch ovens, which are another essential cooking tool, FO SURE!

How many of you guys season your Dutch Ovens, and why does ceramic need seasoning?

Thanks!

KB

Crisco. It’s what my grandmother always used and works fine. I still have hers and my great grandmother’s frying pans.

Ceramic does not. Also the ceramic coating can crack if heated on stove top while empty.

Cook with them.

Yep,doing some hot wings in one today.

This is it ^ ^ ^
There's no special oils or pastes needed, or no
elaborate procedures or voodoo.
After it's sanded down smooth, wash the hooey
out of it and use it.
And there's no special imported exotic wood
utensils needed. Use whatever you regularly
use in the kitchen.
I can assure you that my ancestors that used
cast iron and stamped steel cooking vessels
never bought any special preparations or
cooking utensils to "season " their pots and
pans. First and foremost, they didn't have the
money to buy special stuff, and bought what
they did because it was cheap and durable.
My grandma would probably laugh at a bunch
of these people who insist that you need some
special grease or oil, or an exotic imported
hardwood spoon or spatula. She used the
old crap she had since the early 1900's
that she probably trader the peddler a
hen and some eggs, or a couple of pounds
of butter for.
The "seasoning " myth is a recent yuppie
cooking show phenomenon that everybody's
latched on to. Just use what you have and
take care of it, and it'll last for more than
100 years like a few of the C.I. and steel
cook vessels I use.

Canola oil, lard.

My grandmother used nothing but cast iron and went to great lengths to maintain the seasoning. I remember that from when I was a kid in the 1960s (I remember thinking how backwards grandma was for using that old, black, heavy, stuff to cook with). My mother remembered grandma carefully maintaining it, too, when she was little in the 1930 and 1940s, and even then grandma's cookware was old, and had been in her family for many years.

I inherited one of her skillets, but gave it to my nephew's wife, who had a great interest in it.

I do agree with you about cooking utensils. I use whatever I want, without concern for damaging the seasoning, since each time you cook, you're reapplying it anyway.

Best thing I ever found for seasoning a skillet was bear fat. Render down the fat from a black bear into lard and you will never have a problem with things sticking. Bear makes the best lard I have ever used.

Slight tangent:

When you oil your CI, do you wipe the outside/bottom of the pan?

Initially, I do, but after that just the interior.

I've heard that as well.

Do you have a gas range? It seems the blue flame erodes the bottom seasoning, then they can get some rust.

You can fry bacon, and eggs in a cast skillet using an arctiine torch.

Mine usually get hit with the SS scrubby under running water.
No harder than necessary.

You can buy olive oil in aerosol cans(Pam).
Expensive but convenient to give it a toot, wipe.
Set it back on the hot stove.

It is cast iron, after all.

I should have also added that many have the
impression that "seasoning " is like a coat of
paint or powder coat.
"Seasoning " is down inside the pores of the
cast iron, and can't be scraped off.
If you're able to scrape anything off, that's just
burned gunk, and needs to come off anyway
before it gets hot and pops off in little flakes in
your food and on the stove. Might even start a
fire if it lands on the wrong thing.

Use it like he posted earlier and enjoy it.
With minimal care your descendants will
be using it and talking about it in the next
century
Good Luck

C’mon man!

Somehow, I've never gotten any rust after close to fifteen years of cooking with cast iron.

Here's the bottom.

When the power's out, an' you're hungry.

Any oil that I might have.. It was my grandfather’s Macey’s.. 1912/14 He was a telegrapher for the RR..

Avocado oil cuz I’m a nerd

Bacon grease. I never wash with soap and water, I just run some hot water over it and wipe it down.

kwg

That's it.

When my cast iron gets horribly caked up on the outside, and it eventually will, I build a big hardwood fire and toss my cast iron in.
Once the gunk has burned off, I brush it with a fine wire brush.
Then it gets a liberal coat of olive oil (EVOO) inside and out, and goes into the oven at 350• for about an hour.
Cool them and use them.

DITTO...

Looks cut by the oxidizing flame.

Losing the makers marks, if that matters to you.

This pan gets the most use. Several times per day.
It’ll get an oil wipe before the morning eggs.

Electric range?

A gas range can be lit when power is out.

I plan to be buried with it, so it doesn't matter.

Truth be told, though, if I were to burn off all the carbon buildup by putting it in the oven on the clean mode, the bottom would likely look new afterwards.

Yep, that's been handy for me many times. Just turn it on and use the grill lighter.

It would take a lot of moving the torch (assuming wabi was trying to spell acetylene) to not induce thermal stress in the CI.

I think he was joshing.

That’s pretty neat. You can cook four different things at one time!

That’s the pan I found in an old camp in the Kenai mountains. Dismounted from my horse and felt something oddly flat under my foot. It’s great for fried eggs or pancakes.

Flax seed oil

Bare fat

If you meant ‘bear’, That’s been my go to lately, use what you got

That was a good find, I bet someone was heartbroken over losing that one.

I dunno. It was quite rusted and overgrown by vegetation. It had been there a couple years.

Got home from camping today. Picked up a bottle of the Grape seed oil and decided to give it a try. Satisfied so far.

image post sites

The lid is not correct for the pot, but I bought these at a garage sale for 25 bucks and cleaned these up

Grape seed oil or crisco.

That's a chicken fryer.

Lard, oven at 450 for 2 hours.

Never use soap on it.

That's a chicken fryer.[/quote]


Yes, it’s a hammered piece. I located the correct lid later. It’s what is known as a 4 in 1??

The lid is a skillet as well. Cool piece.

Vaginal secretions.

IURC, grape seed oil needs to be stored in the refrigerator?

Little fuzzy. Store tightly capped in a cool, dark place. This product may become cloudy at 45°F.

Pic must be 45*. It’s a little cloudy!

LOL

I think you guys spend more time "seasoning" and caring for your pans than you do cooking with them.

Yep. Kingston caint cook a dog turd in his cast iron.

I use bacon grease or lard. Like the man in the video says, just use the damn things.

A couple or more, according to the markings it would have been cast around 1909.

Is the handle still intact?

Yep.

OK, I gotta ask.

Are the pictures deceiving or are you cooking on the bottom of that griddle?

That's pretty cool, especially if you found the original high domed porcelain lined, easy clean lid it came with.
The markings on the inside of the lid are hidden being covered with the black porcelain lining.

Even though it just dates back to the 1940s there's not so many cast iron pieces out there with their oridginal accompanying hinged lid.  Complete it's worth quite a bit, you done good @ $25.

LMAO !!!

Crisbee cast iron seasoning is good stuff.

I cook primarily in cast iron. Unless we are smothering Okra. Cast iron will turn okra black. Taste fine, looks awful.

Stuff is really the cat's meow for maintaining.

Cook on the flat side. Pic of the bottom was to show the effect of the oxidizing blue gas flame from the range burner.