a friend of mine has a daughter who's
anemic as she's just a little girl and
she's been struggling with getting
enough iron and so her mom was hunting
down some cast iron to cook on because
the addition a little bit of iron in the
cooking that you get from a cast iron
pan is actually a good iron supplement
so the daughters on some other
supplements and she's doing better but I
was able to nail down a couple of pans
from an antique shop that I'm going to
give to them but before I do that I want
to clean these suckers up and I figured
I'd show you how I clean up in season
cast iron so you can do that yourself if
you come across some pans if you get a
properly seasoned cast iron pan I'll
show you here this is my pan rack here I
just took a piece of metal with holes in
it and I don't exactly know what they
call that it's an it's an L bracket with
holes in it I got from the hardware
store and bought some of those little s
hooks and they hang our pans up but
these pans these things are so slick you
see weed oldham down every time we use
them they are so slick you can fry an
egg on there and it just basically
floats on the surface comes off like you
would not believe and that is what a
good happy cast-iron pan should look
like not all dry like these guys and
this one has some rust on it it's got
some rust on the back so we're going to
clean all this up and make it look
beautiful and I'm going to show you how
all you really need is your pan and some
steel wool if you have coarse or steel
wool that's really good you just scrape
whatever chunk is in here out with a
steel wool I'm starting with dill wool
that's a little fine because I can't
find my coarse stuff but get a nice
slick surface and take the junk off it
put some steel wool first
and after you do this with a steel wolf
I'm gonna wash it real good with some
soap and water and get it all ready for
the curing
all right now we just have to wash them
she's gonna hit the junk out of here
I have this steel scrubber - we'll get
anything that that steel wool didn't the
trusty Palmolive on here now once you
see these things you really don't need
to clean it with soap or almost never
but I'm doing it for this one because I
found these I don't know what was in
them or where they've been and all that
kind of stuff we're gonna go a deep
clean and then we're gonna receipt and
once your brief season and that grease
smoke in there you want have to do this
anymore it's pretty much just wipe them
down and besides every time you heat a
pan up it sterilizes it anyways right if
you're cooking on it you don't really
have to worry that some oil or something
that was on there before has gone bad
not not a big deal you're not gonna get
sick off it now they're nice and clean
we've got to dry them off and then we're
going to set them up for the next stage
okay now you can see these things
already look pretty good I mean about
ready to fry some bacon in them but we
can make them a lot better they're still
dry they need to soak in they really
need a little bit of seasoning so here I
have some oil this isn't melted lard
with a little bit of cooking oil mixed
into it I would use just lard but I was
really short on it all we got to do is
take this oil coat these things real
good so they drink it all in
any part you miss is not going to cure
so you want to really make sure that you
don't have any skips just keep rubbing
it all in this is after you've dragged
your pants thoroughly to because you
don't want water on them you want it to
be all oily crazy oily I want to make
sure I get oil down into all the letter
indentations on the back of this thing
too so I'm just gonna pour it on don't
be afraid to make a mess it's fine to
make a mess it's fun this is gonna be so
great when it's done you're gonna like
it there you go it got these beautiful
oily pants totally totally totally
coated in oil now I got to clean my
hands up and we'll do the next bit of it
okay now you take your pans
put them on the rack in your oven down
like this and I've got a pan underneath
them to catch the drips that's kind of
important because you're gonna end up by
the smoky mess when you do this anyways
but that'll keep your oven from maybe
bursting into flames or something fun
like that 500 degrees right now I've got
a fan going and been cooking for an hour
so there's still a little smoke coming
off
the entire house smells amazing when you
season cast iron should be about done
right now
looking pretty good nice and black as
you see up at the pan underneath there
so the leeks are not a problem the oil
gets down on it there is oil down on
there now that black goo that's been
baked on okay here they are after one
hour roughly at 500 degrees they're
beautiful they're slick they're still
pretty warm from the oven look at how
pretty that looks
it's amazing these guys are ready for
some cooking so you know rust anymore
now if you don't like the way the finish
comes out it's always a little bit
patchy like that you can always coat
them up and bake them again for another
hour if you feel like having your house
smell like amazing burning smoke but
this is good enough
once you've brine on those a couple of
times they're going to be totally
amazing and that is really nice and
soaked in there and you pretty much have
yourself a set of brand new cast iron