Cast Iron Skillet... HELP!!!?

Question

We carmelized onions in our cast iron skillet last weekend, but the sugar made this HORRENDOUS crust, and it is all stuck to the bottom and will NOT come off. Any recommendations are welcome because cast iron is expensive, and we don't want to ruin it. Thanks.

Answer 1

The same thing just happened to me.
I soaked mines in hot sudsy water for about 45 minutes to an hour and then I use a brillo pad and it came right off.. I reseasoned my pan and now it's fine.
Make sure after cleaning you reseason the pan

Answer 2

There are several methods for cleaning seasoned bare cast iron cookware:

Scrub the inside of a warmed pan with a tablespoon of a coarse salt, such as kosher salt, add a small amount of olive oil, and rub with a small piece of an old cotton cloth. Rinse with cold water.
Scrub the pan with boiling or near-boiling water and a stiff nylon or fiber brush.
Use veggie wash (milder than soap) and a stiff nylon or fiber brush.
Boil a solution of cornstarch or rice starch and water in the pan, tilting the pan to make sure the boiling liquid touches all the way up the sides. Then pour out the resulting grease-water-starch solution, and peel off whatever dries onto the sides of the pan. Rinse the pan in hot water.
In all cases, the cookware should be dried thoroughly after washing, and oiled lightly if not already very well seasoned.

For deep cleaning (before re-seasoning), some cast iron collectors also advocate removing baked-on grease by soaking cast iron in a lye solution, or heating the pan in a self-cleaning oven or campfire. Both of these methods have inherent drawbacks, however. Lye can cause serious injury (including blindness) if handled improperly, and extremely uneven heating of a cast iron pan may warp or crack the pan due to severe differences in thermal growth. A safer solution is to place the iron cookware into a large pot of boiling water, adding a cup or two of baking soda, and boil for ten minutes. To remove rust, some collectors advocate soaking the pan in a 1:1 solution of vinegar and water, soaking the pan in Coca Cola, or even sandblasting or wire-stripping the pan.

Answer 3

You can try boiling it out .
Scrub it well.
Then be sure to re-season it after wards so you get that good no stick surface back.
To re-season it:
New Pans
Heat the oven to 250o - 300o
Coat the pan with lard or bacon grease. Don't use a liquid vegetable oil because it will leave a sticky surface and the pan will not be properly seasoned.
Put the pan in the oven. In 15 minutes, remove the pan & pour out any excess grease. Place the pan back in the oven and bake for 2 hours.
Repeating this process several times is recommended as it will help create a stronger "seasoning" bond.



Pans needing Re-Seasoning
If the pan was not seasoned properly or a portion of the seasoning wore off and food sticks to the surface or there is rust, then it should be properly cleaned and re-seasoned.

Remove any food residue by cleaning the pan thoroughly with hot water and a scouring pad. I understand that heating the pan first to a temperature that is still safe to touch helps open the pores of the metal and makes it easier to clean.
Dry the pan immediately with dish towel or paper towel.
Season the pan as outlined above.

Remember, hot skillet, cold oil, no stick.

Answer 4

My aunt told me about these two ways:
(1) The best thing to do is to burn the skillet. If you have a fireplace (or furnace), let the coals die down and then place the skillet in the coals. It may flame up--but that's okay. Let it burn off the grease and the food. (be sure to move the skillet around in the fire so it doesn't crack). If you don't have a poker or tool to get it out, wait until the fire dies down and the coals are cool to remove it. Then wash all the ashes off and re-season the pan .

(2) If you don't have a fire, the second way to do it would be to get a pan bigger than your skillet and boil the skillet in the pan on the stove. This doesn't work as well--it might get the food off but it won't clean the skillet (black specks) entirely. Either way you do it, you'll have to re-season the skillet .

Keith Moumblow, of Brigadoon Bed & Breakfast in Scottsboro, Alabama shares these tips for cleaning cast-iron cookware:
"When my skillet needs it, I stick it in the self-cleaning oven when that needs to be cleaned, too. You get two birds with one stone this way; hovever, I try to never let my skillets get really, really dirty.

After seasoning the skillet the first time, and after using the skillet, I use coarse salt such as Kosher salt, and scrub it around in the skillet with a paper towel. Dump the salt and rinse the skillet in cold water. Wipe dry with a paper towel (if you still get a brown stain on the paper towel, dump more salt in and repeat the process), and then wipe a thin film of olive oil in the pan. Stick the pan in a plastic bag until ready to be used."

Hope that helps some folks out there with cast-iron cleaning problems!

Answer 5

Unless you have a skillet you found at a yard sale or inherited, "seasoning" it probably won't do much. Old cast iron had a very much less "perfect" surface that that cast today, so the tiny cracks in it would readily suck up oils that you heated in it, which then formed a wonderful non-stick surface after cooling. You need never scrub such a pan, they will just wipe clean with a hot soapy cloth. If you HAVE an old pan that some idiot has scrubbed the seasoning off of, just smear the surface of the whole pan with olive oil, and bake the pan in a hot oven for 15-20 minutes. Allow it to cool, and repeat the process.

Answer 6

I cook in my cast iron skillet every day, and I never, ever, ever, clean it with dishwashing detergent or any kind of soap. I put it on the range burner, and heat it up over medium heat. While it is heating, I put in some kosher salt, [depends on how dirty it is]. I estimate it is about a heaping tablespoon. Allow the salt to burn or scorch a little and then scrape the bottom of the inside of the skillet with a metal spatula. It will come clean. Allow the skillet to cool and dump out the salt and other crud. Wipe clean with some vegetable oil on a paper towel. This way, you won't lose the seasoning. This is the way I clean my iron skillet every time I use it.

Answer 7

What I would do is to fill the skillet about halfway with water, set it on the stove and bring it to a boil. Allow it to simmer for an hour, keeping an eye on it so it does not boil dry. After the hour's up, then I'd pour off the boiling water and, under running hot water (wear rubber kitchen gloves so you don't burn your hands), scrub off the remaining crust with a steel wool pad. It will take lots of elbow grease, as I'm sure you realize. Once clean, you'll have to dry it thoroughly and re-season it. Pop it in the oven and bake it at 250 degrees for 15 minutes, then wipe it with your Crisco (I prefer that brand; other brands will do) and put it back in the oven to bake at 350 degrees for an hour. Then shut off the oven and let the item cool inside the closed oven to room temperature, remove it and wipe it inside and out with a clean dry dishtowel and store it. Don't wipe it with paper towels 'cause those tend to form tiny shreds of paper that stick to the skillet. They can absorb water from the air and start the skillet rusting. You'll need to toss the dishtowel in the laundry after using it like that - but it simply works better to do it like that.
Next time you go to carmelize onions or anything else in your iron skillet, be sure not to walk away. You have to stay there and stir it frequently until done, then transfer it to a separate oven-proof plate and keep it warm until you've done the rest of your cooking.

Answer 8

Ehhh....a decade ago, I inherited an ancient cast iron skillet which was 'crud covered' to put it mildly. After assorted and different attempts to clean the thing, I got irritated and took out my propane torch and literally incinerated the accumulated crud. It worked !

You will want to do this outdoors, since it causes considerable smoke. As well, this process will literally take the skillet back to 'new condition', so you will have to go through the process of oiling it and 'seasoning it' in the oven for several hours.

The skillet I got was over eighty years old, and it turned out like new. Cast iron can take this type of heat without damage.

Answer 9

No one I know has ever ruined a plain cast iron pan. I have cleaned the things by putting them in a fire and burning the crust off. Almost any combination of heating and soaking will work with plain cast iron. Enameled cast iron is a different animal. The only way to safely clean enamel is to soak the pan in hot water until the crud is soft enough to scrub off with a plastic scrubber. You should never us metal scrubbers on enamel. Almost any soap is safe to use on either plain cast iron or enameled cast iron.

Answer 10

Hi A carmy of one,

Squirt some dish soap into fry pan & add alittle water put back on stove high heat this will bubble all the crust off be sure to keep an eye on it, then wash fry pan dry of course & re-season ( in other words use some grease & wipe of Kosher salt) this should do the trick. My daughter always burns food no matter what kinda pan it is im & this trick has always worked. Good luck & have a good day. :0)

Answer 11

Let it soak in water. If that doesn't soften the crust heat the water by putting the skillet on an eye of the stove. Even a wire brush on a drill will help. Pops