I used to pour it into a glass jar. But these days I’m just using a paper towel or 3 after it dries and chuckin it in the bin.
I used to pour it into a glass jar. But these days I’m just using a paper towel or 3 after it dries and chuckin it in the bin.
I use an iron skillet for most things, it gets cleaned then takes up real estate on a stove burner until the next day.
Most of the time it’s just enough oil to sear things. Salmon. The white meat chicken with a bacon iron on top. Each needs some oil for Maillard rxn on the hot iron and non-stick, in addition to flavor and moistness.
It’s liquid at room temp. It’s minimal. When the pan is cool enough, a dollop of dawn, a light abrasive without a lot of pressure (it’s a tactile thing, cast iron people know) and the soap slurry goes right down the drain. I’ve owned for 25 yrs, no issues.
(Because someone is about to start text screaming: If it’s a new cure or a cure done in 1-2 layers or a weaker fat, any abrasive or cleaning will likely kill it. I use lard for my cures while lightly washing with hot soapy water in between. 5 layers/rounds of cure. Then oil it after each use for the first month post new cure. Then, it’s solid, just wash and dry, and you can use a light abrasive. We have a 12, a 10, three 8s, and three 5s in circulation.)
Now, if I make Pho, I’m not skimming the beef tallow/oil off into the sink. I wait for the broth to cool, crack the disc of solid lard off the top, and drop it in the trash.
Popcorn pan, sink. Salmon in the pan, sink. Dark meat chicken in the pan, cool and scrape those solids into the trash.
It’s about amount and what it does at room temp.
I respect that you were brave enough to admit on the internet to using a little soap now and again with your cast iron. It took me about a year after I rehabbed mom’s pans to work up the courage to gently swipe a little soap on them now and again. They still get dried in the oven and moisturized with avocado oil. Mah bebes.
I do not baby cast iron at all. I use plenty of dish soap and scrub it. But then again, I’ve also to completely refinished cast iron before. You learn to appreciate how durable seasoning can be when you actually try and remove it. My main skillet I’ve in the past taken it down to bare metal with an angle grinder, then built the seasoning back up from nothing.
My first exposure to cast iron was through boy scouts with cast iron griddles and Dutch ovens cooking on an open fire.
They got left out in the rain, blasted with heat hot enough to melt lesser metals*, had all manner of acidic foods cooked in them, got scrubbed clean with steel wool and dish soap, spent most of their lives when they weren’t in use in a garage with no climate control where the humidity often got pretty gross, and generally got used, abused, and neglected. Never had any issues with the seasoning, rust, etc. I think one time after a camping trip by the beach where they sat out getting lightly twisted with salt spray all weekend, they picked up a bit of rust, so someone’s dad got them sandblasted at his job, and after a trip or to through the oven for reseasoning they went right back in service, and that was the only special treatment they ever got.
So it was really weird to me when I got older and got some pans of my own to see people talking about babying their cast iron like they do. I’m a little more careful with my pans than I was with the ones we had in scouts, but not by much. And when I take them camping I’m not above throwing them into the fire to burn off any really stubborn, burnt-on crud.
And at the end of the day, there’s not much that you can realistically do to a cast iron pan that you can’t fix with some sandpaper and elbow grease and a quick reseasoning.
*At one point, we somehow ended up with an aluminum griddle in one of our cook kits. It was a pretty much indistinguishable from our iron ones except that it weighed less, it was a pretty solid griddle. On one camping trip it was left on the fire after breakfast, and I don’t know exactly how it came to pass because it was another patrol, but they somehow got the fire up hot en
I’ve tried olive oil. Idk what it is, maybe user error, but those cures seem to be very delicate. Like the olives are all primadonna about touching such a base metal like iron.
I don’t use lard with cooking. My beef these days is limited to pho and a bi-yearly burger, but my rationale was, what did grandma use? Why was she soaping hers up in the sink with impunity?
Lard. And layers.
I respect the baby it approach too, and vegans, if that is your way.
Whatever works, it’s in.