How To Clean And Reseason A Cast Iron Pan (The Easy Way)

How to clean and reseason a cast iron pan the right way! This is a simple method of cleaning a rusty and abused pan the correct way and reseasoning it to be ready for use again!! I was given this Lodge cast iron fish pan that was rusty and abused. All of the seasoning and finish had been burnt off. It was in pretty bad shape, to say the least, but not something that couldn't be fixed. The first thing we did was to take a steel wire brush and brush all the rusty and chipped seasoning off of the pan the best we could. This is the very first step in how to strip and reseason a cast iron pan in this condition. Next, we took it to the sink and added some Dawn dishwashing liquid and water and washed all the loose rust and gunk from the pan. Can you wash cast iron with soap and water? Then, we dried the pan with a rag and we placed the pan upside down in a preheated gas grill for just a couple minutes to dry out any remaining moisture. Once dry, we removed the pan and began to add some Crisco and bacon grease to all of the edges and surfaces of the pan. Once seasoned we placed the pan in the preheated 350-400 degrees gas grill for approximately one hour. After one hour we removed the pan and let it cool. Once cool we added yet another thin coat of seasoning to the pan and placed it back into the grill for another hour. After the hour was up we removed the pan once again to let it cool. Once cooled we applied a third coat of seasoning to the pan and returned it to the gas grill for the final coat of seasoning. After the hour was up we removed the Lodge cast iron fish pan from the heat and let it cool completely. The seasoning process is good enough now to cook in. This is how to clean and reseason a cast iron pan that was very rusty and slightly abused from extreme heat and fire.