Did I just mess up?

S

SpurgeonH

Active member
I am on the fourth round of seasoning of a Lodge # 6. Did everything the same as always. I put the oil on it and put it back in on 425 deg for 15 min. (Upside down) When I took it out, the seasoning on the bottom of the skillet (the cooking surface) has that marbled look. I'm sure I wiped all of the excess oil off (as usual) before I put it in. What do I do now? Start over?

I tried putting a little more oil in to smooth it out. I guess I thought it melt it all back together. Nope. Then I took a brand new #000 steel wool pad and rubbed it around. It seemed to help some, but I was scared to push too hard. It is now back in the oven at 500 to finish the cycle.

Am I going to have to strip this thing clean and start over? Any ideas on what went wrong? My only guess is that I didn't wipe it as clean as I thought I did when I put it back in after putting oil on it.

And finally, how many skillets do I have to do before I stop making rookie mistakes?
 
First, I have never and will never do a fourth round of manual seasoning on any pan. I do one, bake it, then maybe another wipe down with the same oil to give the dullness a sheen, and that's it. Time to start cooking with it. And just deal with it until it starts performing properly, which doesn't take all that long. Six rounds of just baking on oil is never going to be the same or as good as six times cooking with it.

If you're not using a terry cotton towel to wipe off excess oil, that could be the problem. Oil saturated paper towel will not leave as thin a layer of oil as the absorbent cotton will.

If you want to start over, it only takes about 10 minutes in lye to strip off one to six rounds of manual seasoning.
 
Check it over after this round and see what it looks like. Maybe post a picture to see. I did a griddle a couple months back in a already hot kitchen so I cheated a little and did it on the stove top. I already had it stripped and wanted to just get two coats of light seasoning just to have something on it.

Well on the second coat I had someone come to the door and I thought I turned the burner off. After 25 minutes I realized I left the burner on and did get the oil wipe all off. Anyway I had three big splotches on the cooking surface. I let it cool and then ran it under hot water and dish soap with a SS pad on those spots. It helped some and then 000 steel wool and cooking oil for a while then wash again and then whip it down and been cooking with It. It's better than it was and if it doesn't look and perform like I want it to later ill do it over.
 
Thanks, Doug. It's cooling in the oven now. I'll cook some bacon with it in the morning and see what happens. I'm doing two skillets at once. The jacked up #8 and this one. I used the same terry cloth towel on both. This one was the second one to get wiped down. It might have been that the excess from the first one got smeared into this one. I'm pretty sure I'll have to start over. We'll see.
 
And thank you, too, Steven. I had read about folks doing six coats. I've never done that many and wanted to see if it made a difference. Oh well. Live and learn.
 
Six rounds of manual seasoning makes a pan look well-seasoned. Doesn't mean it is well-seasoned.
 
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