Did I Destroy My Pans?

B

BSell

New member
I got some bad advice, and used the self clean cycle to clean my pans. Ive got this blotchy brown/red thing going on with them that I'm having a helluva time getting rid of. The photos of my skillet show it immediately after stripping and cleaning. I added a light coat of oil to stave off rust. This is before seasoning.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/xBcAKVyo1tkugr9A8
 
Are you able to season the skillet? If the seasoning doesn't take, then you may have damage in it. It may or may not have come from the self cleaning oven though.

If it seasons fine, don't worry to much about it and just keep cooking with it.
 
Im trying to season it now. If whatever it was was rust, I was never able to fully clean it off. Are there any symptoms aside from whether it takes seasoning? I did notice that when i applied the oil it didnt seem to fully coat the pan when it was hot... It sort of pooled or made streaks. Maybe just overly paranoid on my part, but it seems off.
 
It doesn’t look like fire damage to me. I’ve had pans that came out of the lye bath with uneven shades of color that in my opinion could have been caused by several different things. It could have gotten surface rust on it just in spots and someone cleaned it off and reseasoned it. The original finish of the pan isn’t going to match the spots that had the rust and were cleaned. But once you season the pan and start using it. The darker cooked on seasoning will eventually even out the different shades and you won’t be able to see any splotches. I ruined my Moms 3-notch Lodge #10 with a grinder when I started collecting cast iron. You could see bare metal and grinder marks all over it. But I seasoned it and used it and after about 6 months to a year it turned black and covered the grinder marks. The only place you can still see them is on top of the handle if you look real close. I gifted it to my sister because it was Moms and she loves it.
 
If that was your first coat of seasoning, just give it 2 more coats. I let mine cool down then heavy coat them and let it sit in the oven at 150 for about 15 minutes. Pull the warm pan out with gloves and wipe it as dry as I can get it. Put it back in on warm for about 10 more minuets and turn up the heat to 350 for at least an hour. Repeat at 450 and again at 550... your done. Use it and it will only get better. Hope that helps.
 
A SCO cycle won't get hot enough to do what's called fire damage. The concern with it is mostly about potentially warping or cracking older, thinner vintage (and very valuable) pans. More like erring on the side of caution. To me, it looks like it just didn't get hot enough to reduce all the previous seasoning to ash. I'd consider oven cleaner in a bag for a few days to see if they can be evened out, color-wise.
 
Thanks all for taking the time to respond. I'll update you with some photos when I get through more seasoning.
 
So, out of curiosity I checked with LG about the temp of the SCO. They claim it hits 900 degrees. I have several pans that went through that cycle. Many of them came away with the same reddish color.

I decided to throw all of them into a lye bath, and then scrub each one down with a metal scrubber, and finally use a vinegar solution. The following is a picture of the bottom of another #9 pan where I have a reddish hue that I simply cant seem to get rid of.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/PH18pVmo5HXLeHHb7
 
Back when I was a newbie and didn't know better I did some pans in the SCO too. Luckily they came through it okay; they weren't the most delicate pieces so perhaps that helped avoid heat warping. My SCO goes to 800 degrees.

But at the time I asked what was the temperature where fire damage occurs. The answer I received was somewhere between 1000 and 2000 degrees but it wasn't as if you hit a fixed temp and bam, fire damage; it was a process that begins once you go somewhere over the 1000 degree range.

But I would like to qualify that the person who provided that answer was known to occasionally speak with false authority. Between arguing in favor of bad advice and other undesirable behavior, he was eventually shown the door. Whether this reply was good info or just him trying to sound like he knew what he was talking about, I don't know. It'd be nice if someone else could verify one way or the other.

But regardless, one of the first answers this thread received is the key to finding out whether this is really heat damage or not; heat damage will not take seasoning.

Or so I'm told...
 
I'm still not seeing what I would consider classic fire damage. In addition to areas of the metal becoming a dusty rosy red, there are also areas of whitish and bluish caste. The metal becomes scaly as well. Fire damage occurs past the temperature at which the iron glows red, like a hot electric oven heating element or a electric coil burner.
 
I know it's sometimes hard to judge by pictures but in my opinion the first skillet appears to have some heat damage due to the scaly finish on the cooking surface and the bluish color around the handle area. If so I believe it was previous damage not caused by your oven. The second skillet just looks like it needs additional cleaning.
I've never been a big fan of vinegar baths for cleaning cast iron as that can cause damage as well if not careful. I was at an auction this past week that had a bunch of iron and some if it appeared to have had vinegar used on it. Just so happens the seller was there and while talking to him he confirmed my suspicions.
 
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