Hi. I read the article sent to me on Initial Seasoning. I just want to verify. Is only the 1st seasoning done this way, applying the oil on a 350 deg pan? All the research I've seen and read says to heat the pan to 200 deg for 10 or so minutes, then apply the seasoning oil, wipe it off, then place it back in the oven and increase it to 300 for 15 minutes, remove and wipe again, then back in the oven at 400 for an hour. I'm just a little confused about the info in this Initial Seasoning section. Thanks.
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1st seasoning at 350 degrees?
- Thread starter AlfredoJ
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- initial seasoni seasoning
If you ask 12 different people about oil, timing and temps for manual seasoning, you'll likely get 12 different answers. What's described in the seasoning article Is how I did it when I wrote it, and was derived from what I had seen and read over a period of time how others did it, in addition to my own experimentation. There's no one single correct way, and don't believe anyone who tells you there is. The Initial Seasoning section describes a method by which a novice can expect to be successful, and which they can feel free to modify as they learn more about the process.
The important concepts to understand are:
The cleaned pan needs to be dried, moderate oven heat will accomplish this.
The oil layer needs to be extremely thin, aggressively wiping off excess oil will accomplish this.
The baking temperature should not exceed the smoke point of the oil used.
The baking time needs to be long enough that the oil feels dry not tacky after it's cooled.
Other considerations:
The process can be repeated multiple times if desired, but is not a requirement.
Some will deliberately exceed the oil smoke point for specific purposes, but it is not required to polymerize the oil.
There is no need to use exotic oils or special products for this purpose. If you won't use them when you cook with the pan there's no reason to use them here.
The important concepts to understand are:
The cleaned pan needs to be dried, moderate oven heat will accomplish this.
The oil layer needs to be extremely thin, aggressively wiping off excess oil will accomplish this.
The baking temperature should not exceed the smoke point of the oil used.
The baking time needs to be long enough that the oil feels dry not tacky after it's cooled.
Other considerations:
The process can be repeated multiple times if desired, but is not a requirement.
Some will deliberately exceed the oil smoke point for specific purposes, but it is not required to polymerize the oil.
There is no need to use exotic oils or special products for this purpose. If you won't use them when you cook with the pan there's no reason to use them here.
What I don't understand is... does the cast iron and oven have to cool back down to room temperature between each layer of seasoning that you apply ?
I haven't been letting it cool between seasoning layers because it just takes far too much time and uses lots of electricity (my oven is electric). With my method, it takes a full day to season my ittems. Letting it cool down between seasons would take a lot tlonger. An oven full of cast iron items takes a long time to cool down and a long time to heat up again.
I haven't been letting it cool between seasoning layers because it just takes far too much time and uses lots of electricity (my oven is electric). With my method, it takes a full day to season my ittems. Letting it cool down between seasons would take a lot tlonger. An oven full of cast iron items takes a long time to cool down and a long time to heat up again.
If you're certain you've baked it long enough to assure it's not still sticky, but that can really only be assessed once the pan is cool. Letting the pan cool with the oven off and door closed might also be viewed an energy savings, as you said it takes a long time to cool, and that residual heat is free. You might find you can cut back on the "oven on" time and let the cooling period in the closed oven finish the job. Another idea is to slide a pan in on the bottom rack while you're baking something else like potatoes, a roast, etc.
As Doug said every body has their own theory or process on seasoning. It is a process and does take all day. I don't think letting the pans cool down is necessary other than them being too hot to touch. The ovens I have are all electric and i just season with Cisco. I just toss them in there upside down set to 200 degrees once I hear it beep they're hot enough to melt the grease warm enough to too handle using a rag. Once i start wiping with crisco i raise the temp to 450 and cook for 1 hour. Once the hours up i turn it off let them cool for about 2 hours till they're warm enough to handle with bare hands then repeat the process 2 more times.
Once you turn off the oven it takes about 1 hour to let the pans get to around 210 deg F. At that point, you should be able to reseason and set the temp to 300. After around 15 minutes you can take the pan out and wipe it again, then put back in the oven and set your final temp (400 or 450).