Carbon Steel (pan) maintenance

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rickbern

rickbern

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In another thread we got a little sidetracked talking about carbon steel pans, I thought I'd start a maintenance thread. Sorry, nothing sexy here like jnats, just squeeze bottles and salt.

There was mention of the Cook's Illustrated initial seasoning procedure with potato skins, here's the link:

https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/9588-how-to-season-a-carbon-steel-pan

I don't season my pans this way, see post #59 of this thread for my method.

Anyway, the rule of carbon steel (or cast iron, exactly the same rituals) is to deal with it right away. I empty the skillet and rinse it immediately, then dry it on the flame. Oil it (see below). If it needs a little more attention I come back to it the next morning, but I want to get it stable right away.

The Toolkit

I use two squeeze bottles one with water, one with canola oil. Paper towels and salt

IMG_4862.jpg


After I use a pan and dry it on the flame, I may decide to squeeze some water in and scrub it a little with a paper towel. If I do or if I don't, I then squeeze a few DROPS of oil into the hot pan and wipe it around with a paper towel. Just so it barely glistens

The Facial

If the pan needs help, I give it a "facial" by putting in a bit more oil and a bunch of salt. The salt rubs away any scaling on the pan and gets the surface smooth again. I scrub this salt in thoroughly with paper towels. Usually, I do two doses of salt
IMG_4861.jpg


The Beauty Queen

Here's the finished product, pretty damn smooth.

IMG_4863.jpg


Hope this helps, love to hear about other people's processes.

Now I gotta go clean the salt off my stove.
 
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I’m building up the seasoning on my new pan. Fried off some mushrooms but didn’t wipe and dry straight away and was surprised the next morning when I took off the seasoning where the mushroom juice had been.
Process is normally very similar, wash with hot water, dry on stove, wipe of oil, up to smoke then cool and put away.
 
I bought a DeBuyer crepe pan a while back, haven't been too happy with the seasoning. I don't use soap or metal tools, and haven't done anything heavily acidic. I mostly use it for crepes, pancakes, and eggs over easy or scrambled. I use the heavier Lodge cast iron fry pan for things like high-heat searing steak or fish.

Crepes and pancakes work fine without sticking, but eggs tend to stick. I get much better release cooking eggs on a well-seasoned Lodge cast iron griddle.

To be fair to the pan, part of my problem with the eggs may be heat control. On our Aga stove, there is only the "boiling plate" and the "simmering plate" running at fixed temperatures for stove top cooking. The boiling plate works fine for pancakes with the carbon pan and a good amount of oil/butter. The simmering plate is always my go-to for eggs, and works fine with a Lodge cast iron griddle, but the eggs stick with the carbon pan. It might be that the cast iron moderates the heat a bit before it gets to the eggs, while the transfer is more immediate with the carbon pan. Not anything I can do about that (this stove isn't going anywhere), but I'll keep trying to see if I can get a seasoned surface slick enough to keep the eggs from sticking.
 
I've got a pretty pourous steel pan last year and after some manual sanding it became smoother, but i realized the irregularities in its surface are deeper than i imagined. Anyone tried using an orbital sander or a car polisher sander to smooth things out?
 
DeBuyer crepe pans ...Are thin, light single-purpose use pans and don't have the corrext amount of thermal mass for eggs or pancakes. For eggs & pancakes, recommend that 10in lodge griddle which is maye $12 at ACE hardware store. If you want a thicker crepe pan with more thermal mass there are other options, including a cast griddle pan from Matfer, and also a thick ALU+ nonstick crepe pan from Matfer that is pretty good...

https://www.matferbourgeatusa.com/cast-iron-crepe-pan-2
https://www.matferbourgeatusa.com/crepe-pan-3

I'm sure Matfer and/or Maviel have fundamentally similar pans with slight variations if those brands interest, as well as a partial sidewall specialst pans for eggs. ...Keep in mind that people who do alot of omolette have "set aside" pans that never see other uses, avoiding acids and scratches from metal utensils, etc...keeping the seasoning perfect.
 
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I use flaxseed oil for seasoning, but to be honest, seasoning is not so important . It can be removed easily when you put acidic stuff like red wine. Washing with soap is also not a problem as well. The temperature of the pan is the key.
 
A note on French Steel vs Cast Iron pans

Cast steel has a different microstructure from forged steel and usually has some porosity to it
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So its critical to not blindly follow online tutorials for CAST iron pans (loge, etc) when seanoning FORGED steel pans (DeBuyer etc). Anything cast has a porous microstructure. When you put oil+heat on it, it will polymerize in a different way than a non-porus structure. Here's larrin's article quotaion in context, cast iron is also obviously different that steel in ints chemical makeup as well...

Cast vs Forged Steel

Doing a general search online for the benefits of forging will likely bring up references to cast vs forged parts. In that context they will make claims about increased strength or toughness from using forged parts. However, even in that context some claims are misleading. In one article I found they were making comparisons between “forged steel” and “cast iron.” Cast iron is not the same as cast steel, “cast iron” refers to a specific type of iron which has a very high carbon content (greater than 2%) and usually high silicon additions. Comparing forged steel to cast iron is not the same as comparing forged vs cast steel.
....
Cast steel has a different microstructure from forged steel and usually has some porosity to it. The cast structure which is made up of dendrites, columnar grains, eutectic, etc. is eliminated by forging
Click to expand...
 
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HRC_64 said:
...Keep in mind that people who do alot of omolette have "set aside" pans that never see other uses, avoiding acids and scratches from metal utensils, etc...keeping the seasoning perfect.
Click to expand...

Yeah I have dedicated steel pans for omelette as I heard this and to pretend like a pro.
However everytime I check at open kitchens and (decent) hotels, they use non-stick psns... Sad
 
Non-porous surface of steel pan needs a unique approach to seasoning.

DO: Prep before initial seasoning
- do acid etch to clean (use potato skin methods, etc...be sure to rinse)
- do scour with green scotchbrite to smooth surface (jis #600 grit equivalent)

DO: Lots of thin coats seasoning
- do ONLY thin coats of oil (ie, wipe with paper towel)
- 1 TSP of water between coats (to avoid buildup of impurities)

DON'T
- don't use thick coats of oil
- don't bake in the oven

When Shopping
- DO BUY - Carbone Plus (uncoated) DeBuyer pans >https://www.debuyer.com/en/products/carbone-plus
- AVOID - beewswax-coated pans (like Mineral B)...wax tends to gunk up and is hard to remove
 
I do have a smaller pan, like 24 cm that’s got a beautiful black finish that I only use for omelettes. The one I facetiously called the beauty queen (30 cm) is my most used, most loved pan. I put anything in there and then I just take care of it afterwards. I also have a 34 that looks pretty good, depends how much you baby it how consistent the finish is.

I make a fair number of Spanish tortillas in that pan I showed, it’s the perfect size for six eggs and a kg of potatoes and I’ve never had them stick.
 
I have refinished a few rusty and crusty cast iron pans. and also smoothed the surface.

I use a orbital sander. right now i have the smallest blue bosch 125mm. start with 80 grit then 240 or similar. done. as good as new. (having a small orbital sander is very handy for very many reasons)

then i simply put some oil in the pan and put it on 4-5 or so for a few minutes. wipe the oil off. done.
 
Marcelo Amaral said:
I've got a pretty pourous steel pan last year and after some manual sanding it became smoother, but i realized the irregularities in its surface are deeper than i imagined. Anyone tried using an orbital sander or a car polisher sander to smooth things out?
Click to expand...

YES! takes 10 minutes.
 
Marcelo Amaral said:
Nice to know it works. Thank you!
Click to expand...
I think inferno may be talking cast iron. I think if you want to start from scratch on a carbon steel you could just put it upside down in your oven on a self cleaning cycle and you’ll have a bare pan again. I may do this to the beauty queen one day.

I know hrc talked about using a green scrubby, I never did that. Sounds interesting.
 
I guess the sander option will work on steel too.

I noticed some steel pans have painted handles. its not bare steel. wouldn't that melt in the oven? all paints are plastics i mean.
 
HRC_64 said:
DON'T
- don't use thick coats of oil

- AVOID - beewswax-coated pans (like Mineral B)...wax tends to gunk up and is hard to remove
Click to expand...

Too much oil when seasoning might be part of my problem, being more used to seasoning cast iron. My pan is a Mineral B, but after two seasoning attempts and a scrub-down I doubt there's any wax left. I'm going for another attempt with removal of gunk to bare (or almost bare) metal and very little oil, just a matte appearance for the oil and not glossy.
 
rickbern said:
I think inferno may be talking cast iron. I think if you want to start from scratch on a carbon steel you could just put it upside down in your oven on a self cleaning cycle and you’ll have a bare pan again. I may do this to the beauty queen one day.

I know hrc talked about using a green scrubby, I never did that. Sounds interesting.
Click to expand...


My problem is not simply start from scratch, but take off surface low spots (as small as pitting would be) my cheap steel carbon frying pan has. I have already tried manual sanding, but i realized it would take a great deal of time to truly smooth things out.
 
Marcelo Amaral said:
My problem is not simply start from scratch, but take off surface low spots (as small as pitting would be) my cheap steel carbon frying pan has. I have already tried manual sanding, but i realized it would take a great deal of time to truly smooth things out.
Click to expand...

this one is good
 
The handles on the mineral b have some sort of coating on it. It will discolor if you put it an oven. As far as seasoning it, the best I found is to just keep using it. I use soap and green scrubbies all the time on my pans and the seasoning never comes off unless I apply real pressure. No need to baby these pan. The same with cast irons. Best pan for the eggs is the debuyer omelette pan.
 
inferno said:
this one is good
Click to expand...

I used an orbital sander on my Lodge cast iron pans a few years ago. Doing the 10'' was a bit of a pain, since the pan had high sides and it was hard to get the sandpaper to fully contact the bottom of the pan without the body of the sander hitting the side of the pan.

Anyway, something to think about if you're buying a sander expressly for this purpose. :)
 
ian said:
I used an orbital sander on my Lodge cast iron pans a few years ago. Doing the 10'' was a bit of a pain, since the pan had high sides and it was hard to get the sandpaper to fully contact the bottom of the pan without the body of the sander hitting the side of the pan.

Anyway, something to think about if you're buying a sander expressly for this purpose. :)
Click to expand...

Do you have a suggestion for something better? I appreciate the help!
 
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