Best Way to Season Cast Iron Pans - Flax Seed Oil

Step 5 Do All Your Cast Iron at Once

Final tip - do all your cast iron pans at once.  In my opinion, if you're gonna crank the oven up to 500F for several hours and make the house smell a little funny, you might as well make good use of it and season all your cast iron cookware at once.  The good part is that you won't have to repeat the process very often.  I've been going on the same seasoning session for several months now and they still look great.

Comments

[sqky]

i have used a combination of olive oil and canola oil, and left in about 1 hour, and repeated about 4-5 times, it worked out well. just try to store it in a dust free area as it remains slightly sticky.

if you are to impatient you can use a cooking brush to reapply when still warm, just remove from oven and place on an old cutting board or plywood.

if you don't use your cast-iron often place it in a paper bag and then inside a plastic bag, this is how i store my dutch oven when its not camping season.

[doczod]

Olive oil will leave the pan a little sticky. If you use just corn oil or vegetable oil, it won't be as sticky.

[rapier1]

Olive oil doesn't have to leave the pan sticky. If it is sticky they you just haven't heated it long enough to achieve full carbonization.

[MarkRobertson]

To avoid the in-house smell, a gas grill is great for this.

[raybob]

I did this with three of my cast iron pans using the method outlined on the Cooks Illustrated web site. I did 6 rounds and it took many hours according to their way which is longer than yours is.

The house didn't smell "a little funny": it was AWFUL, I'm talking choking fumes that lingered at the back of the throat for a couple of DAYS. Whatever this is it can't be good for you.

Do this when you can vent your kitchen with a huge fan. I'm not kidding; the smell is acrid and terrible. But the pans are now relatively well seasoned - they work best if heated up before food is put into them; there is still some sticking, but it's very minor compared to what it was before. I need to do a couple more coats to really get them done well.