Scraping scraping scraping.

First of all a properly seasoned cast iron pan can and should be washed with modern dishwashing liquid. If the seasoning comes off with 'hand friendly ' soap it was garbage seasoning anyway.

Second, this looks perfectly ready for seasoning. Nothing wrong with that. Just get the outdoor grill going grab some short chain oil and get to work.

Short chain oil!? At first I thought you were bs'ing about seasoning a pan with gear oil.

That sent me down a novel rabbit hole. Thanks for your input!
- I don't get the joke. I just tried Google and it had nothing for seasoning cast iron with chain or gear oil. Is this a thing?
Are you sure, I thought if a single molecule of soap touches my pan it would instantly look like this?
- Nope. I often use dish soap and a soft scrub pad on my cast iron just like my Grandmother and mother did with those same cast iron pans and dutch oven. A decent seasoning on cast iron is probably more durable than non-stick coatings. Just keep it out of the dishwasher. The high temp hot water and caustic dishwasher detergents WILL damage your seasoning. But, then you just need to re-season to fix it all better again.
  
  My lazy way to keep my cast iron and plain high carbon steel wok properly seasoned is to clean with hot water and mild dish soap then return to the stove top heat on high until hot, then shut the burner off and hit the insides with a light quick spray of cooking oil. Or I just use some plain vegetable oil and wipe on a thin coating with a paper towel. and leave it cool.
- Nah this is more reduce a tomato sauce territory.
  
  Modern dish soap is not acidic or a base so it's quite harmless to the patina, but it's also superfluous because you generally don't want to degrease the thing which is the only thing that soap is good for. Boiling some plain water in it cleans off anything that you want to get rid off. If you're terrified of bugs when not using soap for some reason get yourself a bonfire and heat your pan as hot as you want for as long as you want nothing will survive that. Just make sure to not melt it.

Relevent XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1905/

god damn i love relevant xkcds

coat that sucker with avocado oil and bring it up to 200°C for a few minutes. Allow it to cool, repeat until the sides don't hold any oil, then switch to crisco solid shortening for a few rounds.

I love that everyone is showing up to give real advice to this post.
- It's the goal of the original picture, people can't help but give cast iron advice.
What does the avocado oil base do? I’ve never seasoned a cast iron pan from scratch before.
- You can use various different food oils, the important part is that it can leave a (food safe) polymerized coat that binds to the surface, protecting it from rusting as well as making it non-stick
- In addition to what the other person said, ~~olive~~ avocado oil has a high smoke point, meaning it has to get pretty darn hot before it creates smoke. It handles heat a lot better than other oils.

There's a lot of answers here, but I don't think anyone said the magic words. To reseason cast iron, you need an oil high in poly-unsaturated fatty acids. Those are the kind that can chain together, and form a good polymer coating.

The thing that trips me up most about this subject is that 140 years ago, pork fat was very good for seasoning cast iron. Today, it isn't, because the composition of the fat has changed significantly.

The best seasoning coats will be thin, not appear or feel oily, give the pan a dark color slightly more glossy than an eggshell, and resist mild detergents, metal spatulas, and heat high enough to sear a steak on. If you have a layer of loose stuff in the pan, that's just a layer of gunk, and is probably adding some weird flavors to anything you cook.

The thing that trips me up most about this subject is that 140 years ago, pork fat was very good for seasoning cast iron. Today, it isn't, because the composition of the fat has changed significantly.

That sounds very interesting! Is it because of the way pigs are raised now compared to back then? They eat way fewer babies now, I bet.
- I don't know what causes the difference, I just compared the first nutrition breakdown of rendered pork fat I could find to a recent USDA publication. I'm under the impression that we mostly grow different breeds of pork, on bigger farms, using a more consistent food blend, so pretty much everything has changed in that time.
- Don't know of the given info about the pans is correct. But animals nowadays are defintly way more "optimized" than they used to be. Both genetically and the stuff they eat.
To reseason cast iron, you need an oil high in poly-unsaturated fatty acids.

In other words: Linseed.

Though I wouldn't go so far as to say "need". Linseed works much better, builds a nicer patina very quickly, but pretty much any fat works. In practice mine is getting seasoned with olive oil because that's what I have standing around in the kitchen.

Proper technique is much more important in practice: First and foremost heat empty, then add oil and fry, then clean, ideally without degreasing (boiling water and a spatula do wonders), then (if necessary) add a drop of oil and try to rub it off with kitchen tissue, then put back on the stove to dry and maybe polymerise a little. Always have that thin layer of oil otherwise the pan is going to rust.

You can have a perfect patina, if you don't heat up the pan before putting stuff in there things are still going to stick. You can have practically no patina, if you bring up just a single thin layer of any fat up to its smoke point and after that add oil (so the thing isn't completely dry) things aren't going to stick.
- Be careful with linseed oil as it spontaneously combusts! My friend used it on something and left the rag in the garage, and it literally burnt their house down.
- Linseed has an awfully low smoke point though, wouldn't seasoning built with it burn off when trying to cook at higher temperatures?
What changed about pork fat?
- i would also like to know

I bet she was so grateful. It takes a ton of scrubbing.

Get out

The amount of disgusting freaks that don't know you need to wash this and reapply the seasoning with oil in the oven is insane to me.

Needs washed, but you can just heat the oil on the stove if you've seasoned the thing in the first place.
- I learned from a chef that an oven would work better due to the even heat applied all over but in a pinch or if you don't want to do all that, the stove top could be fine.
Dude, you're not supposed to scrape off the seasoning every time you wash the pan. I reapply a bit of oil maybe once or twice a year. I normally just wash it some soap and water after cooking.
- I don't use soap, I just use a bit of hot water with the kitchen faucet sprayer and I have a flat metal spatula to scrape off any stuck on bits... wipe with paper towel and that's it.

Hey everybody posting advice, go liven up this community!
https://lemmy.world/c/castiron
!castiron@lemmy.world

I only go to Reddit for two things: cast iron and pf2e. Slidey eggs never gets old

I only go to lemmy for two things. Tasty memes and to see people talk about Reddit.
- And Linux
- And I'm all out of bubblegum.
Slidey eggs are highly represented in both categories

He's dead

So how's the divorce going?

make me think of this guy that transformed his iron pan into a mirror

For instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id2GLt8Nd4s
- I think they meant the guy that seasoned his pan like 200(?) times before cooking in it on Reddit. That thing was SHINY when he was done
- I didn't go that crazy, but I did use an orbital sander on a cheap Lodge cast iron pan, and it's much more non-stick now.
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  
  https://www.piped.video/watch?v=id2GLt8Nd4s
  
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

Btw, copper sponge is really good for such things. Hard enough for cooked-in stuff but soft enough to not scratch.

I find the scrub daddy brushes to be the perfect fit for cleaning my cast iron as well.

You mean "ex-wife"...😵

I love my cast iron pan, but I really cannot get the perfect sheen that everyone else seems to get. The bottom of mine is non-stick now, and I season regularly, but the sides always seem to chip away eventually. Once the chipping starts, I have no idea how to stop other than to strip it entirely and start again.

I think you need to resurface it when that happens.

Now don't dry it off and keep it in the cupboard for a few days

But you gotta soak it then go on a vacation for a couple weeks first

War

I've got one that I need someone to do this to so I can start over. It's older than I am and was poorly taken care of for several years before I got it.

The cast iron I bought for myself is all in good condition. That one means a lot because of where it comes from but I don't have the patience to scrape all that shit off. I wish someone would do it for me so I could enjoy the pan my grandaddy cooked me bacon in.

Just put it in the oven on cleaning mode if you have a self cleaning oven
- My oven uses some weird "eco-friendly" self-cleaning process that involves pouring water into it and steaming the dirt off, which doesn't sound like it would be good for the pan. Got any alternatives? I found a Griswold at the thrift store a few years back and I'd like to be able to restore it without damaging it.
Drill with an abrasive scubbing pad on it will sort it out real quick.
- That really depends on the condition of the pan. I've had some where power tools were insufficient.
Wet/dry sandpaper is fast and will easily get you down to the fresh bare metal again. Then you simply re-season and start cooking that delicious bacon in it again. A rainy Saturday afternoon will easily get it done.
Follow guides on using the yellow lid can of oven cleaner in a trash bag. Works perfectly fine and reduces the scraping to almost nothing.

The best thing to season a cast iron pan with is blood.

Scrolled past this before reality set in after a few seconds