Saving My Mother's Cast Iron Pan -- Cleaning and Seasoning Old Cast Iron

Well, good morning. Welcome to Debbie's Back Porch. So glad to have you with us. This video is a little bit different. My mother brought me one of her old cast iron skillets and I told the folks in our Facebook group Debbie's Back Porch that I would film my attempts to restore this skillet. So I have done that and I'm gonna show you how I took it from this to this with no special equipment, just what I have in my kitchen, the way I always do it. Now, let me be clear. I'm not saying this is the only way you can do it. I'm saying this is the way I do it that works really well for me and I have lots of really nice cast iron skillets and pans, some of them 115, 120 years old. So let me show you what I did over a period of about three days. So here is the skillet as my mother brought it to me. She has no idea how old it is, where it came from, and it is pretty crusted over. So it's difficult to tell that. If we get this clean, we might be able to determine its date of manufacture and its brand. And it's definitely usable as it is, but I always like to take an old skillet down to the bare bones when I get it. So I've had this for a little while waiting on a cool morning because I do this in my self-cleaning oven, which needs cleaning anyway. So I put it upside down into my self-cleaning oven and turn on the self-clean cycle. On my stove, it is a three-hour cycle, but I can stop it at any time. Now this is gonna smoke my kitchen up. It always does. So I turn on the fans and open a window and after three hours, I'll show you what we have. Now all that ash in the bottom of my oven will just wipe off, but I've let this cool in the oven. It's still a little warm to the touch, so I'm using a potholder. But I waited about an hour after the cycle was over and look what the self-cleaning oven has done to all of that crusty residue on the bottom of the pan. Now I know everybody doesn't have a self-cleaning oven, and I think that this would work if you just turned your oven up as high as it will go, but it would take much longer. But see all of this ashy residue that's just gonna wipe right off. Now I have a dry paper towel here, and I'm just gonna brush everything off into this pan, and it is kind of messy and you probably do want to wear gloves because this will stain your hands. So I'll just wipe it off inside and out. And I can already tell the manufacturer and the date on this. It is a Birmingham Stove and Range manufactured mid-60s, mid-1960s, and you can tell that because it has a Made in the USA logo on it. And these are good old skillets, by the way. I already have one almost identical to this that I got when I got married in 1966. So when we get this all wiped down and as much residue off as we can, I'm gonna wash this in hot soapy water with a little splash of vinegar in the water. And you want to use a dish pan or some or a container of some kind to do this because as the residue washes off, it's very oily and greasy and will stick to your sink. And I have a white sink and it will definitely stain. So I'm gonna wash this really well and then I'll show you what I got. And when you look at the difference in this pan, you're gonna think, oh, that's clean. We can go from there, but it really isn't. It really has some little spots of residue left on it, some rough spots. And I'm gonna scrub them as much as I can. You can use steel wool. I have these little Scotch-Brite pads, but steel wool is good to use. So you can see here, it looks pretty good. But if you're touching it, you can feel some really rough spots. Scrub it as much as you can. And then I'm gonna get the soap off and kind of evaluate. There's some pretty rough spots here and some on the inside. And you may not be able to see it, but it looks like maybe my dad got a an electric sander to it. So I'm gonna hit the rough spots with this razor scraper to loosen them. And then I'm gonna put it back in the oven for another three-hour cycle. This skillet's kind of got some bad spots. It's roughed up a little, but you know, we can save it. It's hard to ruin a good cast-iron skillet. So I'll be back after we run it one more cycle. So this is after the cycle and it really didn't get any more of it off. I'm gonna have to get the Dremel tool to these spots. And now I'm gonna wear a mask because little pieces are gonna fly. And I'll put on some plastic gloves. So somewhere in a great big tool bin, there is a drill with a sanding disc on it that I used for years. Which works better than a Dremel tool. But I can't find it. So I'm going to use this Dremel tool and I have a wire brush on the end. I use wire or steel wool, even when I use my little sander. So I'm just going to hit these rough spots and get those off. And I'll do it pretty carefully on these spots, but I'm also going to clean around the heat ring. Because stuff tends to build up around the heat ring and it's much harder to get off. So as long as you're using a wire brush, this shouldn't do any damage. And according to the tools you have, you may have one that you can attach a steel wool disc to. That would work also. So I'm just going to go around the roughest spots. And clean out around any little nooks and crannies. And you want to use your hand to feel for any rough spots. And you know, the ultimate goal here is not about looks. It's about smoothness. And you can see around those edges there where someone, probably my dad, has done some kind of rough cleaning on it. But just remember now, what we're looking for here is a smooth surface. I have some cast iron pans that look like a mirror and some that don't. But the ones that don't look like a mirror cook just as well. So I'm going to get off what I can. I'm not going to spend too long on this. This is already the next day. As you go, you want to wipe it down with a damp, lint-free cloth. Whatever you use, you're going to have to throw away at the end. So don't use your good dish towel. But when you get it wet like that, you can see if there are any rough spots, anything else you need to work on. This one looks like we're just about ready to season it. I'll do the bottom. And you know, there's some rough spots on the bottom that I didn't get. And I don't think I can. So I'm going to go with it. Do want to get the Dremel tool around the lip here. Because again, anytime you have little nooks and crannies and creases, the buildup can be a little bit greater. And while I'm doing this, let me just tell you, some folks talk about putting these skillets in a hot fire. Don't do that. The uneven heat can cause a warp. And you can't fix a warped skillet. So don't forget the handle. Get down around the handle. You want to get that clean too. And then when I get done with this, I'm going to wipe it down and rinse it off and let it dry really well. And then we're going to start the seasoning process. So I've washed it with some vinegar water and soap. I'm going to dry it really well. I have a lint-free old dish towel. I hold on to them just for projects like this. And you know, I wish that I could have gotten this one just a little bit shinier. But any further work on this, in my opinion, is for looks and not for use. If I did this all the time and I had an e-tank and all of that equipment, I might could get every single speck off. But I don't. And my skillets are not for display. They're for use. And my guess is for most of you, that's what your skillets are for. So we've got a good serviceable skillet here. I can still see some of the damage from my dad's earlier cleanings, but it's going to be just fine. So I have another lint-free towel here. I'm going to fold it up. And let's talk about the fats that you use. People will argue over it. I use lard. Basically, what you want is an oil, a fat with a fairly high smoke point. Because what we do in this process is build layers of polymerized fat oil. So I use lard. You can use flaxseed oil. You could use Crisco. Lots of folks use Crisco. I wouldn't use a vegetable oil and definitely do not use olive oil. And I never use corn oil or canola oil because of all the chemicals used to raise it. The herbicides, the Roundup. But you could use grapeseed oil. It has a high smoke point too. So I put it on pretty thick. And now I'm with a different cloth. I am wiping it off as much as I can. And I mean really work hard to wipe it off. Uh, you don't want any little lumps. And don't forget to get the handle. And give a little special attention to the little nooks around the lip. And the fire ring, the heat ring. Because the fat will pool up in those spots as it melts. So wipe it good. So now I'm going to lubricate the inside. And you can see those rough spots. They're going to drive me crazy for a little while. But you know, as you use the skillet, a lot of that will smooth out. Uh, you know, with use. Because you know really the most important step to seasoning a cast iron skillet is to use it. And I just want to make sure you know those rough spots you see are not buildup of any kind. It's clean. That's from rough use. And over time with use and proper cleaning, those are going to fade away. So I have my oven heating to just 300 for the first seasoning step. And when I get this wiped down really well, I'm going to put it back in the oven upside down for an hour. And that's just to get it heated for it to start absorbing the oil, the fat. And I will be back to you after that one hour cook. And here we are. I'm going to do the same process again. I let it cool down first, by the way. I'm going to rub this with the lard again, just as I did before. Wipe it down really, really well. And I can see a couple of spots there that are not even. You can see that they absorbed the fat unevenly. All in all, though, it looks pretty darn good. Better than I had expected on the first seasoning cycle. So now I've oiled it again, wiped it down, and I'm going to put it back in the oven at 450 for two hours. Then we'll see what we've got. This is after the second heating and cooling. And I'm going to oil it one more time. You can see in the bottom there that it's still got a few uneven spots. I'm not going to worry over those. As I've said, with use, they will even out. So I've rubbed it in lard again. It's going to go back in the oven for another two hours at 450. Got a little lint there. I'll be back. And this is what we have. I'm not real happy with the way it looks right there in the middle. But when you touch it and run your hands over it, it's very, very smooth and feels almost like glass. So now for the final and very important step. We're going to cook something. Now I did another rub with lard, wiped it off. See, it looks pretty good. Uh, and any imperfections that are still in it will fade with use. Um, the, the final step to me needs to be, well, let me show you the bottom. See, the bottom looks pretty clean. Looks pretty good. It's not perfect. It's pretty darn good. Some bacon's going to fix it right up. So I'm just going to cook this bacon. I'm actually going to cook a whole dinner and then I'll come back. So I cooked dinner. I cooked bacon. I made a potato salad dressing. And this is what we've got. This is not oiled up. I left it naked so you could see the finished product. And I'm pretty darn happy with it. I hope you found this process helpful. I don't do this all the time. But when I run across a really good old skillet, I don't mind putting some time into making it look good and cook good. Cast iron is almost indestructible. And I can see my great granddaughter using this skillet. Thank you for joining us on Debbie's Back Porch. Hope to see you again tomorrow.