Way to ruin my first ever cornbread!

J

JenniferM

Member
Picture first because it's all downhill from here.

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So this was my first time using this new(to me) pan. When I bought it, it was pretty well cleaned up and seasoned, but I am anal and have to re-wash everything I buy so it's "mind clean". Anyway, I didn't smell anything out of the ordinary when scrubbing or reseasoning this pan, even when in the oven at 450 degrees. But sure enough, when that pretty cornbread was done, and I went to take a bite, I could smell & taste something odd ... like some kind of chemical. I don't know what it is, surely not the oil I used on the pan. And after two or three bites, I realized it had to be something from the pan, so I stopped eating it. But the tip of my tongue feels funny, almost numb. It's almost a turpentine-like kinda smell. Any ideas what it might be or why it was on there? Maybe a cleaner used on it by the previous owner?

I don't want to do squat with the pan now till I know, or else I may just toss it out altogether. It is an old Puritan, and was not expensive. But I am more worried about our health than the money. :cry:
 
Thanks Doug, for the info & link. I would have thought any residual chemicals used to clean it would be detectable by smell or surely an obvious odor while it was getting hot. I guess not. :(

Will the aerosol oven cleaner or self cleaning oven methods take it down to bare iron? The lye bath seems a bit daunting, especially for one piece. :|
 
Jennifer, did you take it down to bare metal? Just a thought, but you might want to boil some plain water in it for a while. I sometimes do that as part of the stripping process. It seems to speed it up a little as the water sometimes turns a brownish color. On some, I can see little flecks of crud swirling around in the water. I am not a scientist, but I would guess that the heat would maybe open the pores of the metal and help release whatever is there. Might be worth a try...
 
Either should work. I would probably go with the spray cleaner and bag. People use the SCO without incident, but I always tend to err on the side of caution.
 
That is terrible Jennifer. I feel bad for you. The oven cleaner will work it just takes a lot of patience. Where did you get the pan? Did it come from ebay?
 
Thanks much everyone. I can try the oven cleaner method but when it says "place in a warm area outdoors" that might be a challenge in 20-degree temps. How warm does "warm" need to be?

Bonnie Scott said:
That is terrible Jennifer. I feel bad for you. The oven cleaner will work it just takes a lot of patience. Where did you get the pan? Did it come from ebay?
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It did come from an ebay seller, good feedback, long time seller, etc. I reached out to him to see if he recalled what was used to clean the pan, and he just replied that he actually used the Easy Off oven cleaner method, and used that for all his pans when cleaning them. He offered to replace it at no cost, which is kind of him to do.

Is it possible that some sort of chemical could have been pooled in the pan at some point that would leech into the iron so much and manage to "outlive" the oven cleaner?
 
If properly taken down completely to bare iron with no visible build up remaining, Easy Off HD should have done it. Important to note that the HD version is the 100% lye one; maybe it was done using the regular? Maybe take a look at your cornbread ingredients, too, just to eliminate possibilities.
 
I don't think I could ever trust that pan again. I wouldn't be surprised if it had been used as a pan to clean tools in. I would ask for another pan just to be safe. Break up with that pan Jen. Let it go.
 
Doug D. said:
If properly taken down completely to bare iron with no visible build up remaining, Easy Off HD should have done it. Important to note that the HD version is the 100% lye one; maybe it was done using the regular? Maybe take a look at your cornbread ingredients, too, just to eliminate possibilities.
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Thanks Doug. Possible about the oven cleaner. Not sure what in my ingredients could have produced that taste & odor. Egg, milk, corn meal mix, oil ... I do plan to make another (in a different pan) tomorrow and will see how that turns out.

Bonnie Scott said:
I don't think I could ever trust that pan again. I wouldn't be surprised if it had been used as a pan to clean tools in. I would ask for another pan just to be safe. Break up with that pan Jen. Let it go.
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Yea, I don't know that I can trust it either, even with another cleaning. If the seller wants me to ship it back, I would do so gladly. It's not worth risk to my family's health. He actually just messaged me again, and said not to bother sending it back, but he is sending me a replacement #8 pan tomorrow.

He noted that he puts the pans covered in the oven cleaner in a covered roaster pan and into the oven at 250 for an hour. So it probably just wasn't long enough to take out whatever was in this pan in its previous life. :icon_scratchchin:
 
Might put some water in it and boil it for a while. It if smells or tastes funny you know it still funky after oven cleaner in a bag. With the funky stuff I've pulled off of skillets I bet with a good cleaning most anything cleans off.
 
JBPoole said:
Jennifer, did you take it down to bare metal? Just a thought, but you might want to boil some plain water in it for a while. I sometimes do that as part of the stripping process. It seems to speed it up a little as the water sometimes turns a brownish color. On some, I can see little flecks of crud swirling around in the water. I am not a scientist, but I would guess that the heat would maybe open the pores of the metal and help release whatever is there. Might be worth a try...
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I just put some water in the pan and gave it a quick boil, and it's disgusting to look at, much less think about. Is this normal? There is definitely rust looking grit, but also an odd, kinda oil-like slick but not oily to the feel on the water. Sorry the pictures are so big.

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JenniferM said:
He noted that he puts the pans covered in the oven cleaner in a covered roaster pan and into the oven at 250 for an hour. So it probably just wasn't long enough to take out whatever was in this pan in its previous life.
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I'm perpetually puzzled by why some people feel the need to deviate from the accepted, tried and true practices. Just spray it, bag it, and leave it be. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.

It's hard to tell for sure from the photos, but it doesn't look all that clean nor seasoned, either. I think you have a chance, though, to fix it and learn some skills in the process.
 
Even though I've only stripped 2 pans, I can tell you it's not as easy as it seems. It took me three sessions of Easy Off for each pan, and then serious elbow grease in scrubbing to get down to bare metal. If you didn't get all the old seasoning off, the oven cleaner may have leached into whatever seasoning that didn't come off.

The second pan I did fit into a gallon sized Ziplock bag, and it never left my basement(because of the cold) so I don't think that a warm environment is all that necessary. It may have added to the elbow grease part, though.
 
I really have no where outdoors that is considered close to "warm" at the time to do this. We don't have a garage or work shop. Maybe come later in the spring ... I will wash it up, toss a coat of oil on it to prevent rusting, and maybe try it in the spring. Come summer, I can put it on the driveway and fry eggs. :icon_rofl:
 
Have you thought about spraying it down and bagging it outside and then putting the bag with the skillet in it in a container with tight fitting lid (like a Rubber Maid container) and bringing it inside? Maybe it's just me, but I don't see anything wrong with that. It's oven cleaner that you "normally" spray in your oven and leave overnight sealed up in there. As long as you close off the fumes and put it in a safe place in the house I would think it would be fine. Just take it outdoors to rinse off/reapply cleaner.
 
First I want to say, at least your seller is sending you a new skillet, first problem solved. Sorry to here about your cornbread.
Do not feed the birds.:chuckle:

After you get that one, and every piece that you purchase you really need to learn to clean and season your own iron.
There are a lot of experts out there that are seasoning cast iron.

I used to hit this new antique shop in NH 2 years ago. I got talking with the owner, seemed like a nice guy. I asked where all his cast iron was, if he had any in the back room as I was looking for crusty and dusty iron. He only had cleaned and seasoned pieces in the shop. I told him that I would purchase all of what he had if they passed my muster,(good eye here). So he takes me out back and shows me his cast iron and his metal cleaning set up. I should have called the EPA and a chemical hazmat clean up crew. What I saw there was nothing than short of a chemical accident waiting to happen. He was cleaning cast iron pieces that were then being sold. I thought of the all people buying his cast iron and thought it was best to teach this person the right way of doing cleaning, and to think that people were buying this cast iron to eat off made me mad. Happy to see that he has rid himself of those toxic chemicals. It was costing him a lot of $$ for nothing. He is also working in a safer environment. He was willing to help himself, because if not I was calling the EPA.

This is why I purchase dirty and crusty iron. EVERY piece that I purchase gets cleaned to the bare metal and seasoned.

You do not really know just what cleaning products that one used

There is a very time consuming process to cleaning and seasoning cast iron. There is the science and the chemistry behind the process and the products that one uses. You never just throw cast iron into a hot fire, good way to warp or crack it. There is chemistry at work in the products that one uses in cleaning and seasoning. You have cleaners that have high metals in them and are carcinogenic inside your body. You also have hard and soft oils, you need to know what polymerization is and so you need to start with the right cleaning products and finish with the right oil. Lets not start the oil debate.:chuckle:

I have chosen to only use Organic and Food Grade cleaning and seasoning products. But that is just the way I am.

I make food products and sell to the public,(maple syrup) there is only one way of doing it — the right way. Vermont is the strictest state when it comes to its maple syrup. Our syrup contains nothing but the pure sap, with no additives what-so-ever from our Hard Sugar Maples that has been boiled down in our lead free, stainless steel pans, over the evaporator. We never use any chemical, pesticide, or herbicide products on our trees or during the syrup boiling process at any time in our sugarhouse ever.

I sell cast iron, it is seasoned the way I would eat off of them. Our farm is farm is Certified Organic.

I am Organic, just my choice :icon_thumbsup:

Like Doug posted Start here. http://www.castironcollector.com/restore.php
 
Thanks for the feedback Jeffrey. The seasoning part (and the variations in oil preference) I understand and have done successfully. But I will be reading through the stripping/cleaning methods this weekend when I can fully digest the information. I know - at a glance - I have some questions about it, but will start a separate thread with those later. :)
 
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