Hello from Washington State

Martha S

New member
Hi!
I have always kept and used cast iron, starting with raiding my mother's stash, as she moved on to lighter pots and pans. Now, many years later, I realize that I am a collector, not just a pack-rat! My most exciting find is claiming one of my grandmother's cast iron skillets, which turns out to be at least 107 years old. I used this site to track it down, it is an Erie brand. Thanks!
 
Yes, I learned that too. I had to burn off a thick layer of crud to find out that it had a name cast into the bottom. My other find from my grandmother's estate is a Wagner 8" egg pan, with a thick, smooth as teflon seasoning.....which we promptly decomposed accidentally, cooking something wet. It has been re-commissioned back to fried eggs and butter/suet only. The crud on the outside of that one will remain for nostalgia.
 
I had to burn off a thick layer of crud to find out that it had a name cast into the bottom.

I hope you are not burning your pans in a fire. That can be a successful way to clean iron or the baked on carbon but can also crack or warp or overheat a pan resulting in a damaging mill scale on the surface. Much better to use other ways such as a lye bath and electrolysis or a wire wheel for rust removal.
 
Thanks for alerting me to not burning a pan in a real fire. I had put my skillet in the oven during a self-clean cycle. I hope that is ok, it came out perfect.
 
Self clean cycle is fine but it can be hard on the oven if you do it more than a few times. Just don't put any piece in the self clean that has a wire handle which will remove the temper from the handle rendering it permanently soft and bendable.
 
Hi, thanks, Steve,
Yes, I cooked my stove's electronics on the fourth self-cleaning cycle! Had to buy a new panel = expensive! They know all about it at the appliance stores.

I noticed a warning on this site to not use a self-cleaning oven as it could alter the cast iron and it would never season up correctly again. I should have read the FAQ's and not used some random youtube for my info! Anyway, now I have to wait and see if my grandmother's skillet is damaged. So far, after say ten uses, it still retains a grey look, not turning black yet.
 
I have never known of a problem with using a self cleaning oven to clean iron cookware other than it's very hard on the oven (as you found out) and the shelves also. If you have a nice stove and want to keep it nice don't use the SCO to clean iron.

Doug, do you say that SCO cleaned iron cannot be seasoned well afterwards? Where is that info?
 
The advice about using a SCO talks about variations in operating temps and the possibility that warping or cracking might occur, and to only use it for a pan you can afford to lose or replace. In other words, to err on the side of caution. It's fire damage that can render pans unseasonable.
 
It seems that an oven would be damaged before an iron pan. As far as I can find out the SCOs get to about 500 C or 900 F which is not even a red heat for cast iron. Warping or cracking would only happen if the pan were heated unevenly and that seems impossible with HOT AIR all around the skillet and no direct contact with hot metal. The damage and wear to ovens in the self cleaning cycle seems to be of more concern than any damage that would not seem to happen to cast iron. (I'm listening...)
 
There's a difference between that which we sometimes do and that which we can unequivocally recommend. If I thought that every time someone put any piece of cast iron into any self-cleaning oven (SCO) that their pan would emerge clean, pristine, and undamaged, I would so state. But, if through my reading and research, I believed that there might be a possibility of damage, however slight or rare, I would be remiss in failing to state that such a possibility exists. I don't want to ever be on the receiving end of an email telling me that someone relied on information I published and the result was damage to their prized possession, whether the fault lay in their misinterpretation or not.

Similarly, articles on the website will always promote protective gloves with lye, the well-ventilated, outdoor use of electrolysis, and the prohibition of power tools in the cleaning of cast iron, regardless of any discussions in the forums to the contrary.
 
Good reply Doug but I still feel a SCO will not damage cast iron, just don't put wire handles in the oven. The oven is more likely to get damaged than a cast iron pan. I don't see how it's even possible to damage a cast iron pan. I'll add to not put a porcelain or plated iron pan in a SCO.
 
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