You slather lard on it and bake for an hour or 2 @ 350 . You can't actually ever fuck up cast iron .
Sure you can, leave it with me before I knew what seasoning was. I had that fucker shiny like new iron when I got through, used a bunch of my uncles steel wool pads and even got the handle. My good deed was thorough indeed and wrong I found out loudly later. His venison pan I was informed with much emotion.
Don't slather. Thin coat.
But yeah, unless you drop it and shatter it, you can't fuck it up so bad it can't be recovered. Even when it seems like a solid piece of rust, there's still plenty of iron under that rust. Evaporust it, electrolysis de-rust it, sandblast it, or just sand away the rust, and it's ready to reseason.
Also, instead of smoking up your kitchen, do it on your propane grill or a propane cajun burner outside.
I was a chef for a while - nice place - healthcode meant we had to run 6" diameter cast irons we used through the dish machine everytime they went to a table. We would coat them in lard , let them sit overnight and then keep them warm in a broiler until they were needed . You could fry an egg in any one of them . Dish pit wasnt scrubbing them with wool but do with that what you want .
Yeah, soap doesn't seem to be the problem. Washing with soap doesn't hurt the cure. Scrubbing with an abrasive does. Kenji Alt-Lopez did some experiments confirming it.
(post is archived)