Best Way to Season Cast Iron Pans - Flax Seed Oil

Step 3 Bake at 500F for 30 Minutes

Place the oiled pan inside a 500F degree oven for 30 minutes.  Some sources say to heat the pan for longer, but, if you've put on a thin coat of oil I've found that 30 minutes is plenty long enough.

The pan will smoke a bit during this process.  That is completely fine and natural, your oven will not catch fire.
The hot flax seed oil will smell a bit strange.  That is also completely fine and natural, the smell will go away.

PRESS ON! 

Comments

[timnterra]

I have tried this but I read in a cast iron cookbook that you should turn the pan unside down and place a baking sheet under it to catch the dripping oil. The book said many of the pours in the cast iron are too small for liquid oil to fill them but when the heat vaporizes the oil it enters and fills the pours as a vapor. But... the vaporized oil will rise out fo the pan, instead of going into the pours, when the pan is right side up. Thus the need for turning it upside down so the vaporized oil can rise up and fill the microscopic pours in the pan. It worked well for me...

[rapier1]

That's not really how the science works there. The oil doesn't vaporize and then get deposited in the pores. The oil fills in the pores and then becomes carbonized - some of the oil smokes off but that's not important to the seasoning process. A pretty good method puts the oven no higher than 325 - just enough to be above the smoke point of the oil but that's about it. You end up with minimal smoking and maximum carbonization.

People are often instructed to turn the pan upside down because they almost always put too much oil in the pan. If you wipe the oil out of the pan (just leaving a *light* coating) there is no need to invert the pan. Inverting the pan may also be somewhat counterproductive. The goal is to fill the pits and then have the oil carbonize filling in those pits. If it's inverted the oil is more like to come out of those pits and collect on the high points. With enough coating those pits will eventually fill in but you'll end up with a rougher surface than you would otherwise.

[em21701]

I do this part on my grill. It can get hotter and the smoke stays outside.

[noahw]

That is an awesome idea! The smoke inside the house is really the main drawback to this. I'm going to have to update my Instructable with your method.

Thanks so much for this idea.

[em21701]

Your very welcome