Any pathogens would be cooked anyway.
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
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But more likely to ingest benzopyrene which can be carcinogenic
Honestly, depending on the specifics here, not the worst. If they're using an oil that will polymerize, then as they oil/heat/cool cycle it, the seasoning will further develop over time, as long as they're somewhat scraping off remnants of their cooking as they finish, leaving it as clean as it can be without actually washing it, and then heat cycling it to sanitize any bacteria that might be there, I don't really see a problem with it....
It's not exactly up to modern hygienic standards, or social standards.... And I'm pretty sure if any restaurant or food joint did the same they would get shut down by the health inspector before long.... But you do you buddy.
For anyone not in the know, the thing with cast iron and cleaning is no longer a problem. Clean your cast iron. When cast iron was just about the only cookware, soaps included lye. Lye will erode the non-stick "seasoning" on cast iron. Modern soaps do not contain lye, so go ham.
Cleaning, however, introduces water.... And water causes iron to rust, so it is generally advisable to clean your cast iron cookware, then immediately heat it up past the boiling point for water, to vaporize any liquid water and carry it off the surface of the iron. Once past that temperature, let the cookware cool, then treat it with a thin layer of oil. This will protect the surface from atmospheric moisture and allow the cookware to work over much longer periods of time without needing to be "re-seasoned" (which is removing the layers of polymerized oil on the cast iron, and then re-applying it using a slow method of oiling, then heating the cookware, allowing it to cool, oiling then heating again)...
Don't be afraid of cast iron, it needs a little more attention than other cookware, but it's a joy to actually cook with.
Not sure about the soap thing. It definitely strips more of the "seasoning" than just water in my experience. And it's my understanding modern dish soap contains some synthetics, and cast iron is very porous (I use the cheap kind, I think the kind for camping, lol), so I avoid soap. I just use very warm water and sometimes mechanical means (stainless steel scrubbers) to clean my cast iron. Tbf, just cooking very fat/oil heavy stuff restores much of the seasoning whenever it's lost.
Clean it, don't clean it, oil it, salt it, water it, "season it", season it by not cleaning it so your french toast gets all that good hamburger flavor from the night before...
I've read so many different ways to treat cast iron that at this point I'm convinced that it's all just superstition.
Leave it outside for 2 years, use acid and scrubbing to get the rust off, reseason. Good as new!
Yup, just go with stainless steel. I wouldn't recommend teflon coated pans anymore, because it's literally poison.
It's not about teflon, but the chemicals used to attach this (or any other) extremely non-sticky plastic to a pan.
Imagine the kind of chemistry needed to make a thing that a cooked egg slides off on it's own stick to a metal surface in high temperatures.
Teflon is otherwise inert and shouldn't have health implications on it's own (that we know of).
Obviously I'll still avoid ingesting any more plastic myself, as much as I can help it. Not suggesting anyone chews on PTFE tubes.
As long as you're not cleaning with lye, soap is generally fine. But if you're going to be a bit lax on cleaning, the only real downside in my opinion is potentially introducing flavors you didn't intend.
I think for the most part, you do you. If it looks visually fine, it's probably good enough.
I'm just going to keep cleaning mine with three drops of goat's blood, drying it with a linen towel, then storing it in a humidity-controlled cabinet with the handle pointing north, just like my guidance counselor taught me.
At first you're gonna boil them. And after tha t you're gonna mash them, then you can choose to stick it in a stew.
Po-tae-toes
It is, I literally just cook in mine, don't baby it, scrape the hell out of it with a heavy stainless steel spatula and use a paper towel to get out anything. If stuck bits of food, they get scrapped, then water and soap. Then just oil the pan and rack it again. None of that silly shit. Just use the damn thing.
Exactly. Just soak it in bacon grease, let the cats lick it dry overnight, then bury it in loamy soil under an orange tree during the full moon. So easy. I'm not sure why anyone doesn't use cast iron.
Don't let water touch it or it will bring you 7 years of bad luck
If a black cat crosses its path food will stick to it for the next seven years.
Darn. I was hoping they'd reproduce when you get them wet. Time to try feeding it after midnight.
I wash mine with soap and hot water, then dry and rub a bit of cooking oil on it (high smoke point oil, not olive oil).
I’ve built up a pretty substantial amount of seasoning on mine though. One of the ways to recognize that is that when you’re rinsing it out after washing the water should just bead right off, not wet the surface. Any areas where the water wets the surface could use some touch up seasoning. A well seasoned pan should be nice and hydrophobic.
NO. NO MORE INSTRUCTIONS.
I’m scraping it with a boar bristle brush, drying it with a traditional Japanese paper fan, then storing it in a nearby cave just like my uncle taught me!
I think you’ll have the best experience if you learn what seasoning actually is and what it isn’t. Seasoning is polymerized cooking oil that’s bonded to the surface of the metal. It’s hydrophobic which protects the metal from rust. It does not actually give nonstick properties (those are due to cooking oil and proper temperature control).
Seasoning is not burnt food, it’s not black, it’s not dry, nor does it leave marks on your finger when you rub it (only do this with a cold pan). A well seasoned pan should feel smooth and glossy and hard, not dry or powdery or gummy or sticky or greasy. When seasoned properly it does not need anything else applied, though most people apply a thin layer of oil as an extra precaution and because the oil improves the glossy appearance.
One thing to be aware of is that overheating your pan will burn the seasoning, carbonizing it and turning it black. A burned seasoning is vulnerable to flaking off and adding charred flavours to food, as well as exposing the pan to potential rust. Lastly, exposing the pan to acids (such as white vinegar or simmering tomato sauce) will strip away the seasoning (and ruin your sauce).
As a hydromomie, i always die a little inside, when i read the word hydrophobic.
TIL it's even worse when actually typing it out.
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I've always just been taught to use boiling/hot water and scrub it, dry it immediately after, and then put some oil on it so it doesn't get dry. Never had any issues.
NO. NO MORE INSTRUCTIONS.
I'm washing it with Himalayan salt, hanging it to dry in the sunshine, then storing it under my bed in a wicker box just like my great grandmother taught me!
Just leave it on the stove on maximum heat for one hour after each use, then chip off the carbonized chunks of asphalt that you've just created. 100% sterilized, no washing required, and smells just like your big bad diesel pickup exhaust.
You forgot the first step of turning off your smoke alarm, and also leaving the room unless your a pack a day smoker with lungs of steel
Eh, just turn up your stereo and open a window. You'll get used to the smoke.
Afer work, I once made dinner for my housemates. After the meal, one of the housemates was like: "if you cooked, you gotta wash the dishes!" ok, so I washed the dishes. After the dishes, the housemate was like: "If you used the cast-iron pan, you have to 'season' it with oil!" and I was like: wtf I worked all day, I cooked, I did the dishes, now I have to cook again just to make the pan happy?!? So I never used a cast-iron pan again.
“if you cooked, you gotta wash the dishes!”
I'm sorry, what? That's how you ensure that nobody ever cooks for you again. If you cooked for you and your housemates, everyone else who ate your food has to wash the dishes, excluding whoever bought the food. What fucking backwards culture did this guy grow up in?
Yeah, I wouldn't have minded if we'd all washed the dishes together. iirc I never cooked for them again; I brought take-out once for a special occasion, but I told them to eat out of the containers bc I wasn't doing their dishes.
Yeah I was confused by that as well, that's some entitled shit.
In my world, that housemate would quickly become a houselessmate.
Weird that he's still your mate though. And not just somebody that you used to know.
I would cut these people off so fast if they said that to me, don't try to please everyone so much
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For those who don't know, you can wash cast iron with modern detergents, and as long as you dry it properly you won't have any problems.
It used to be that dish detergents contained lye that would strip the seasoning off of cast iron cookware.
Yep, which is why of you ever want to strip and re-season cast iron, you use a lye bath with some electrolysis magic. Do that once and you'll see why back in the lye soap days, you ~~want~~ weren't supposed to wash them.
PSA be careful buying lye. It has other uses than soap making, including stripping of carcasses to the bone, and then turning the bone into soap. If you order enough you might get a visit from your friendly government agent.
lye (sodium hydroxide) has all sorts of uses and for cleaning your pan you don't need it dry. Just buy a cleaning agent containing it.
It is one of the most used chemical products and i strongly doubt that anyone having normal uses for it will ever get a government visit.
The first rule of ~~fight club~~ project mayhem is…
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99% of all the old "don't wash cast iron!" shit you hear is antiquated information from back in the day when they used lye for soap.
There is absolutely no reason today to not wash your cast iron today. That doesnt mean you always have to, though. Often just wiping it out with a damp rag is more than enough, and if you have a lot of really stuck on shit.. You can scrub it with a slurry made up of salt, water, and soap (Make sure you use little water so the salt doesnt dissolve into the water and disappear). The salt will provide some abrasive scrubbing without damaging the cure.
outside of that, again, if you choose to, you can absolutely wash it. Warm water and soap, dry it off, put it on a hot burner for a bit to dry off any remaining water.. and if you are using it again tomorrow, you're done. If you're not gonna use it for a while, then a very very light coat of oil would be wise until you use it next time.
and just in case anyone wants a good way to cure.. I cover my cast iron in a thin layer of lard, and put it on a rocket hot grill, and leave it until it stops smoking. then i take it off, let it sit until i can handle it again.. put another coat of lard on, and repeat. a couple coats should give you a great starting base to build your cure up from.. and its not something you have to do often unless you really abuse your cast iron.
Unless you live in a humid area, a microscopic amount of water isn't going to harm anything before it dries. Clean it with soap then use a dry towel to dry it and leave it on the stove, it'll be fine.
I had a roommate that did this. Except their reason for not cleaning it was that they thought all that stuff leftover was what is called seasoning. AND they wanted the cast iron seasoning to flavor their dishes.
I tried to gently explain the misconceptions, but they believed their grandma instead of me.
Which is apparently why burritos from old-school eateries taste so good: they don’t wash the griddle, and the secret sauce is the essence of the entrails of generations of pigs and chickens
That least touches an open flame.
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If you use regular dish soap (i.e. dawn), you most certainly can (and should) wash it. However, the trick is that you absolutely must dry it, put a light coat of oil, and then bake it to keep it from rusting. I preheat the oven to 450°F and then turn off the oven, and let the pan sit until it’s cool enough to the touch to put away.
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