Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Hi,

Sheryl Canter has an interesting article on seasoning with flaxseed oil on her blog. (This came to me in the current issue of Cook's. That's one reason for a mag subscription.) Link to Sheryl Canter on Seasoning Cast Iron

The process is quite simple but takes lots of time. You need food grade flaxseed oil which is available at natural food store. Your pans also should be totally stripped of seasoning (oven cleaner or self-cleaning cycle) and dried at 200 degrees for an hour before starting.

This is the Cook's Illustrated version of the process:

For years we’ve seasoned cast-iron cookware in the test kitchen by placing it over medium heat and wiping out the pan with coats of vegetable oil until its surface turns dark and shiny. When a pan starts to look patchy, we simply repeat the process. But when we heard about a new method that creates a slick surface so indestructible that touch-ups are almost never necessary, we were intrigued. Developed by blogger Sheryl Canter, the approach calls for treating the pan with multiple coats of flaxseed oil between hour-long stints in the oven.

We carried out Canter’s approach on new, unseasoned cast-iron skillets and compared them with pans treated with vegetable oil—and the results amazed us. The flaxseed oil so effectively bonded to the skillets, forming a sheer, stick-resistant veneer, that even a run through our commercial dishwasher with a squirt of degreaser left them totally unscathed. But the vegetable oil-treated skillets showed rusty spots and patchiness when they emerged from the dishwasher, requiring reseasoning before use.
Why did the new treatment work so well? Flaxseed oil is the food-grade equivalent of linseed oil, used by artists to give their paintings a hard, polished finish, and it boasts six times the amount of omega-3 fatty acids as vegetable oil. Over prolonged exposure to high heat, these fatty acids combine to form a strong, solid matrix that polymerizes to the pan’s surface.

Although lengthy, seasoning with flaxseed oil is a mainly hands-off undertaking. We highly recommend the treatment:

1. Warm an unseasoned pan (either new or stripped of seasoning*) for 15 minutes in a 200-degree oven to open its pores.
2. Remove the pan from the oven. Place 1 tablespoon flaxseed oil in the pan and, using tongs, rub the oil into the surface with paper towels. With fresh paper towels, thoroughly wipe out the pan to remove excess oil.
3. Place the oiled pan upside down in a cold oven, then set the oven to its maximum baking temperature. Once the oven reaches its maximum temperature, heat the pan for one hour. Turn off the oven; cool the pan in the oven for at least two hours.
4. Repeat the process five more times, or until the pan develops a dark, semi-matte surface.

*To strip a cast-iron pan of seasoning, spray it with oven cleaner, wait 30 minutes, wash with soapy water, and thoroughly wipe with paper towels.

I do not cook in cast iron frequently but use French carbon steel pans almost every day. I am anxious to try this technique.

Tim

As an aside, a little while back I got my first french carbon steel pan -- a crepe pan -- and have been very impressed. I may well have to get a couple more.

Uh-oh I see a project looming on my horizon.

Tim, you couldn't have posted this at a better time!! My prince took my cast iron grill pan and ran it through the dishwasher. No explanation.... Thanks for the info. Now I have to find the oil.

Paul -- French carbon steel pans - I love 'em! I'm looking for a carbon steel sheet pan. Have you seen any?
Fitzie

It seems shocking that CI would be running any cast iron pan through the dishwasher, no matter how it is seasoned. That just seems like a big no-no.

Tim,

You season carbon steel? I don't. Unless you count making 20 batches of crepes seasoning, which I suppose it is.

I'd love to hear from someone on this board trying the flaxseed method. My 14" skillet could use better seasoning. The 12" has around 25 years of seasoning-by-use, so I don't think any reseasoning is going to beat that.

I once burnt a 40 year (at least) seasoning off a nice old CI pan. It's come back a bit but nowhere like it used to be. I could give it some thought. Looks like our local natural food store sells flaxseed oil.

Fuzzy,

They get really non-stick when they are black. The problem is that the surface never develops the durability of seasoned cast iron. I suspect this relates to the lower porosity of the steel.

I'm groing to try the flaxseed oil process and should have results in a few weeks.

Tim

Tim,

I guess I just don't see the point in seasoning them, at all. But all I have are crepe pans, and the crepes don't stick, so it hasn't been a concern.