Here is what I was working with. I had planned to season the pan when I got it for Christmas like four years ago but I never got around to it and the rust just got worse over time. We were cleaning out our kitchen cupboards when we came across my rusted cast iron skillet and my husband wanted to throw it away. I knew we shouldn’t do that although I had the same thought when I looked at it too. I knew I needed to clean it and season it but I wasn’t 100% sure it was going to come out looking brand new on the other side.
I found this awesome website that answered all my questions and told me how to take care of my amazing cast iron skillet. I know that you need to treat your cast iron a little differently than your other pans and it just made me avoid it all together. If you take care of your cast iron skillet it can last forever – even if you miss-treat it for a couple of years like I did!
Here is what you will need if your cast iron was in the same conditions as mine:
SUPPLIES
A Rusted Cast Iron Skillet
Steel Wool (I used some similar to these)
Dish Soap (I recently started to make the switch to greener home products, I like this one so far!)
Water
Half Sheet Baking Pan (I have some similar to these)
Vegetable Oil
The first step you are going to do is kind of go against what you are told not to do in the cast iron skillet community. That is to use a steel wool covered in dish soap and scrub aggressively. I would rinse with water to see my progression. I scrubbed about 5 times taking breaks in between because my hand and arm hurt from all the manual labor. Each scrubbing session was about 5 minutes long. I started in the morning and it was rust free by the early afternoon. The photo below was after two 5 minute sessions of scrubbing. It was starting to look better but needed more scrubbing.
Now for the second step. After all the rust was gone. It was ready to be seasoned. Which basically you are coating your iron skillet in oil (a high burning oil) and baking it until the oil bonds to the skillet. Basically protecting it from rust and allowing a smooth surface for you to cook on.
I dried it one more time from the last cleaning. Then I covered the whole thing in vegetable oil. I used a paper towel and just spread it all over including the bottom and the handle. I turned it upside down on a half sheet and baked for an hour at 350°. The house smelled kind of weird – like burning oil after the hour was up. I let it cool on the sheet pan for a while and then when it was cool enough to handle I turned it over to see if it worked. It was such a night and day difference. I am so impressed that I was able to take the before pan and make it look brand new!
Here are some steps on how to clean your cast iron skillet from the same website. It tells you exactly how to take care of it to avoid rust and keep up the seasoning of the pan.
Let me know if you had a cast iron skillet as bad as mine and if you were able to clean it too!
