Rusted Cast Iron? Help

I found this skillet at my Mom's and it had a bit of rust on it. Searching the net for how to rescue it left me w/ several opinions. I ended up scrubbing it w/ SOS, coating w/ crisco, and heating it in the oven to re-season it.

I put it away and forgot about it but now I want to use it but it still looks "iffy" to me.
Rereading searches tells me not to use SOS pads. Some say to take a steel brush and start over?
I picked up this brush to throw in my cordless drill and have at'er.
Good idea? Bad idea? Anythougts on how this thing looks?
Maybe it's fine as is and doing a few batches of bacon will help speed things along?

We used to scrub our fraternity house griddle with a Scotchbrite pad and a little Crisco after warming it up a bit.

I think the wire brush on the drill is overkill.

- Chris

Put it in an electric oven, start a self-cleaning process on maximum temperature and maximum time. It will carbonize and evaporate remains of he old coating and corrosion will be easy to brush off with a gentle steel wool.

Re-season it by smearing some hard fat on a moderately heated metal, and be sure to coat the entire surface of the pan including its handle and bottom, otherwise corrosion will start at uncoated spots and spread inside the pan.

Bake the pan in the oven gradually increasing temperature, starting with about 150F; when there is no more smoke increase temperature to 300F, again when all smoke is gone increase temeperature to little bit above 500F, and wait untill all smoke is gone again.

Repeat fat smearing and baking steps three times.

Is that a cast iron or steel pan?

I've never tried it, but I have heard people used to put them directly into a wood fire, to clean the rust and crud off, then reseason them.

My personal method for cleaning cast-iron cookware:

Fill it up to about an inch from the top with clean, cold water. No detergents, no vinegar, no salt, nothing but water is needed.

Put it on the stove, and crank the burner to screamin' hot. Let the water boil vigorously for about 15 minutes. This will melt all of the oil and crud that have soaked into the pot, and it will float to the top in a brown, gooey mess.

Pour the boiled water down the sink. BE CAREFUL IT DOESN'T SPLASH BACK ON YOU.

Repeat this process. The second time, the crud will float to the top in a white foam. Spill it out.

Repeat a third time. When the water boils up clear, you know it is as clean as it can get. Spill it out.

Let the pan cool down, then re-season it with whatever method you like. Personally, I like to use Grapeseed or Canola oil, as it has a high smoke point.

mmack66 said:

Is that a cast iron or steel pan?

Click to expand...

Here's the bottom. "10 1/2 INCH SKILLET- TAIWAN"
...and really heavy.

dpm802 said:

My personal method for cleaning cast-iron cookware:

Fill it up to about an inch from the top with clean, cold water. No detergents, no vinegar, no salt, nothing but water is needed.

Put it on the stove, and crank the burner to screamin' hot. Let the water boil vigorously for about 15 minutes. This will melt all of the oil and crud that have soaked into the pot, and it will float to the top in a brown, gooey mess.

Pour the boiled water down the sink. BE CAREFUL IT DOESN'T SPLASH BACK ON YOU.

Repeat this process. The second time, the crud will float to the top in a white foam. Spill it out.

Repeat a third time. When the water boils up clear, you know it is as clean as it can get. Spill it out.

Let the pan cool down, then re-season it with whatever method you like. Personally, I like to use Grapeseed or Canola oil, as it has a high smoke point.

Click to expand...

This was yet another method I had read. Thanks for the reminder. I think I will try this first as it is pretty easy to do.

I have actually "restored" several cast iron pieces, that I picked up at my local thrift store...it's actually a cast iron gold mine. Sometimes overpriced IMHO, but again cheaper than buying one new. I have found some hidden gems among the dreck, especially some vintage Griswold, and Wagner pieces. it just takes a little elbow grease to get it back to useable condition.

What you are seeing in your pan, is the result of improper/incomplete seasoning.... Here's what I do.

Get your steel brush, to fit in your electric drill...cordless drills don't maintain enough RPM's for extended periods. also make sure the wire brush is steel, and not brass otherwise you will leave a powdered brass sheen on your iron. Go to town on the pan with the drill this should be sufficient to remove all the rust, and most if not all of the carbon layer etc. If you are really picky you can hit the stubborn spots with some very fine emory cloth, use a light touch though because you don't want to create deep scratches in the cast iron.

Your pan should be nearly "naked" or close to it, you can rinse off the sanding/drill dust with warm water but don't use soap. I let my pans dry out in the sun for several hours, after this washing, and don't handle with bare hands...this can cause rust spots before seasoning.

On to the seasoning....put a very light coating of either Safflower or peanut oil on the pan with a paper towel, and let sit in the sun for 30 minutes or so. Shortening works too but the higher oven temp I use to season my cast iron causes shortening to smoke a lot.

Heat oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit, yes this is as hot as most ovens go but this method was recommended to me by an "old timer" in the Griswold cast iron collectors club. He explained that the 350 degrees recommended by most people did not quite adequately carbonize the fat on the pan. The safflower and peanut oil smoke point is 450 degrees so there will be smoke created....either open the windows in the house, or the Wife, GF, or mother will not appreciate the process.

This step can be done on a gas barbecue with a temperature gauge...I have done both with good results. Once the oven/BBQ is heated put the pan on the rack upside down, this prevents pooling of the oil, which creates the uneven seasoning.

Leave the pan in for one hour if you can stand it, depending on the smoke factor. At the end of an hour the pan should be perfectly, and evenly black. I let my pans cool down in the oven slowly...or you can take the pan out and put it on the cooktop.(Wear oven mitts)

The more you cook with it the better it will become, be wary of cooking acidic foods in the seasoned pan, or you will end up having to reseason it. I use a stiff scrub brush, and hot water to clean my pans, never use soap, S.O.S pads etc...this will also remove the seasoning.

hope this helps...I know there are probably many other opinions, and methods to achieve the same results, but just relating what has served me well.

Best of luck,

Thanks KaiserKrebs,
It looks like I may be going this direction as its not cleaning up very well yet.
The brush I got for my drill is Course. They had "Fine" also. I hope the Course is not overkill.

I have a Big Green Egg that can do 700F+. I'll back it down to the 500's and since it's outside, smoke won't be an issue. Since I can, do you think I should go for Higher temps?

RexHavoc said:

I've never tried it, but I have heard people used to put them directly into a wood fire, to clean the rust and crud off, then reseason them.

Click to expand...

+1
This works great. Use a hot fire, or even better a bed of hot coals. If it don't turn almost red, it ain't hot enough. Then brush it off, wash with hot water and re-season.

I never use soap on my cast iron, including an SOS pad. I have a metal scrubber that looks like metal shavings wove together that I use with hot water. Then I dry with dish towel and heat on the stove top until all the water disappears. If it startes to get a dull look, I'll take and rub a little fat or grease of some type on it while heating it after washing.

I restored a somewhat rusty cast iron pot to working order by first heating it at high temperature (500+ degrees) in a closed propane grill for at least an hour. Then it got scrubbed and seasoned. The heating process does help to remove the rust.

That does not look like rust to me.

Just looks like leftover seasoning.

Hey Gravy....I'd forgotten to mention that the oil should be rubbed over the whole pan, bottom, sides, handle, etc if it wasn't obvious. As far as the temp, I don't know about the 700 degrees in the big green egg...would that be achieved using charcoal?

I used my propane barbecue, and had to experiment with the temperature maintenance. I made a boo-boo the first time I tried it, and left both burners on. The open flame ended up causing all the oil to burn off before good carbonization ocurred. The next time, I got the barbecue up to temp and turned off one side of the burner, and put the cast iron pan on the off side. It worked much better that time.

Best of luck, let me know how it turns out for you. (Carbonized)

Well, as I type it's on the egg. I'm not trying to season it just yet, just trying to see if I can burn anything off before trying any more elbow grease.

It's face down on the grill grate and is starting to cool down towards 500F after about 90 min. I tried using the bottom of a bag of lump coal so I had a lot of small pieces which reduces good airflow. The gauge showed just shy of 700F for 10min but I imagine it was hotter lower down at grate lvl (my buddy put a probe at grate lvl and hit temp. over 1000F w/ a properly made coal pit in his BGE.
The majority of the time was spent at 625-650F on my dome gauge.
We'll see.

Mostly cooled just off the BGE.


Scrubby + some hot water and dried on the stove.
Shows a little bit of pitting at the 10 o'clock position, sidewall.


I threw some veg. oil on it till I season it. Is the brown color OK? Or do I need to attack it somemore? The flash really brings it out. It looks much better in regular light.

Looks like the BGE did a good job of burning off most of the crud. As far as the remaining oxidation, it depends on how much it bothers you, and or how much additional work you want to put in. Obviously if any of the rust is a bit rough to the touch, I'd go at it with the wire brush again, and the real stubborn stuff with the fine emory cloth.

Some pans are very smooth textured like some antique Wagner's others have a bit rougher finish, and are a little easier to get back to that "virgin" cast iron look. I have gotten some pans to that state but it's rough on the fingers sanding that much. If it was me I'd go at the sidewall a bit at the three o' clock position. I wouldn't worry too much about the pitting at the 10 o' clock...once it gets seasoned, the carbon will fill in those pitts a little. Big gouges or heavy scratches on the cooking surface are harder to deal with.

Looks good so far, keep me posted on the end results...Makes me think there should be a thread with photos of the "Heavy Iron" from the kitchen

Like Fnord5 mentions above, I don't think it's really rust thats left after my initial scrubbing, but it does look like some pretty ugly staining.
It actually doesn't look that bad w/o the flash exposure. I didn't want to spam w/ all the photos so I'll just show this last pic which is closer to how it looks in passing. The flash photos really bring out the imperfections...which explains how I look in most of my personal photos

I think I'll do some minor touch-ups and move on to seasoning it. Thanks for all the help.