RE: How to: Season a cast iron Dutch Oven

[AustinBoston]

 
Note for humor-challenged (and others):  This post is meant to be funny.
 
 1) Get a Dutch Oven.  You can get them on the internet, in some Wal-Mart stores, and in Pigeon Forge, TN at the Lodge outlet store.  You may be able to get them in some little country in over in Europe that has a lot of dams and grows a lot of tulips, but the shipping is expensive.
 
 2) Wash the Dutch Oven in hot water.  We re not talking about big trouble here (at least not yet), but that wet stuff you use to wash dishes.  Except don t use soap.  If you do, the soap atoms may get confused with the iron atoms and you will end up with soapy-poor blood.
 
 3) Dry the Dutch Oven thoroughly.  Most people will do this with a towel, and I reccomend that you start out with a towel, but follow that up with heat.  The heat can be from an oven or a stove top burner (on low).  You could also use a hair dryer if you want.  If your Dutch Oven has hair, though, you need more help than I can give.
 
 4) Thoroughly cover the Dutch Oven with grease or oil.  Most use vegetable shortening or vegetable oil.  Among other things, your Dutch Oven will have vegetables in it, so vegetable oil and vegetable shortening are OK to use.  Don t use motor oil or axle grease unless your Dutch Oven has a motor or an axle.  If it does, ...um... please email me privately.
 
 5) Open all the windows and turn on all the fans you have.  If you don t know why, you have clearly never seasoned a Dutch Oven before.
 
 6) Put the Dutch Oven inside a regular oven and turn on the heat to 350ø.  This part will take about an hour and a half (not the tunring on part, the heating up part).  Don t try to rush this by using a higher temperature, or you will discover that you don t have enough fans.  If you get in hot water anyway, then you must have forgot step 3A, wait for a day when your spouse will not be home all day.
 
 7) Do not take the Dutch Oven out of the oven until it is cool.  In order for it to cool, you will need to turn the heat off.  After you turn the heat off, it can take up to two hours for the Dutch Oven to cool.  If you burn yourself trying to take the Dutch Oven out, then you didn t wait long enough for it to cool.
 
  Take the aluminum foil out of the oven and throw it away.  You know, the aluminum foil I told you about in step 4A, that you used to line the rack under the Dutch Oven?  No, YOU forgot to put it there, I didn t forget to tell you.  YOU are the one in hot water, not me.
 
 9) If there are thin spots in the seasoning, repeat this process.
 
 Austin

[tlhdoc]

 AustinBoston
Then what do you do? [8D]  You can t stop now, all I have is a black DO, I am trying to scrub all of the balck stuff off...[]

[Jo Ann]

 AustinBoston
aside from the humor...is this how to season a dutch oven???  if so...will post it in the cook book....haven t received mine yet...so i don t know...
 
 i have seasoned frying pans years ago....

[AustinBoston]

 Jo Ann

ORIGINAL:  Jo Ann
 aside from the humor...is this how to season a dutch oven???  if so...will post it in the cook book....haven t received mine yet...so i don t know...
 
 i have seasoned frying pans years ago....

 There are many ways to season cast iron cookware.  The " instructions"  I gave will work, but let s try a more complete approach.
 
 1) Remove any labels and wash the Dutch Oven in hot water.  Don t use soap because a) the iron (and later the seasoning) can absorb the soap and flavor some foods, and b) soap can remove some or all of the patena we are trying to create when seasoning the Dutch Oven.
 
 2) Dry the Dutch Oven thoroughly. Most people will do this with a towel, and I reccomend that you start out with a towel, but follow that up with heat. The heat can be from an oven or a stove top burner (on low).  Don t overdo the heat.  Just enough to drive all of the water out of the iron.  (The iron should be hot to the touch, not hot enough to cause a burn.)  Using a lot of heat on an empty Dutch Oven could cause it to warp or crack.
 
 3) Thoroughly cover the Dutch Oven with grease or oil, inside and out, including the cover. Most use vegetable shortening or vegetable oil.  Don t use bacon grease or other animal fat or used oil or shortening, because these may contain salt (which may cause rust) or food particles (which can go rancid).  We use Crisco, because we know it works well.
 
 4) You may want to open windows and use a fan for forced ventilation.  Some people experinece a bit of smoke while seasoning cast iron (although PJay and I have never had this problem...yet).
 
 5) Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil, or put foil directly on the lowest rack in your oven.  If you have done step three properly, there will be some shortening that will drain during the heating phase, and this foil will keep it off the bottom of the oven.
 
 6) Put the Dutch Oven inside a regular oven and turn on the heat to 350ø for about an hour and a half.  Position the oven so that any excess shortening will drain.  I have heard of people using temperatures as low as 200ø and as high as 450ø.  What I have found is that those recommending lower temperatures talk a lot about the seasoning possibly going rancid, and those recommending higher temps experience a lot of smoke.
 
 7) Do not take the Dutch Oven out of the oven until it is cool. After you turn the heat off, it can take up to two hours for the Dutch Oven to cool.  The seasoning process isn t complete, and sudden changes in temperature may cause warping or cracking.
 
  If there are thin or bare spots in the seasoning, repeat steps 3-7.
 
 This seasoning is really only a beginning, and will probably be brown, not black.  It takes repeated use to build that hard, shiny, black, non-stick surface that is the sign of a well-seasoned cast iron implement.
 
 After using your Dutch Oven, clean it with hot water only, NO SOAP.  Do not use anything that you would not use on a Silverstone or Teflon fry pan. (No metal spatulas, no steel wool, etc.)  These things can damage the patena (seasoning) of the Dutch Oven.  Always dry it thoroughly, using a little heat to drive any water out of the pores of the iron.  Then add a thin but thorough coat of shortening while it is still warm enough to melt it, and use a paper towel to wipe out any excess.  (The iron should look slightly shiny but not wet.)  Puddles of grease will go rancid.
 
 Store the oven either with the cover off completely or with it held open slightly by a piece of paper towel folded several times.  If the cover is on tight, condensation can accumulate which will cause the iron to rust.
 
 Austin

[mike4947]

 AustinBoston
Just an addition to Austin s seasoning routine. The pattena we all love of out CI cookware is actually a layer of burnt on oil//grease/whatever.  That s why 350 is a good temperature to start at. It s high enough to " burn"  whatever you use to season but still low enough to be under the smoke point of some of the things we use like Crisco.
 A few things I ve found out seasoning CI.
 If using oil for curing/seasoning avoid peanut and canola oil as they both have very high smoke points and won t season right unless you go well over 400 degrees.
 Don t remember if Autin recommend it but invert whatever your seaoning. I found it get s rid of puddles of grease that either get gummy and/or those spots just don t season.
 As I ve had a couple of smokers when seasoning, Someone here suggested using a gas grill to season. I tried it and really liked it. I could use a higher temperature and get a better coating and the smoke was outside.
 The coating can build up to the point it really needs reseasoning, I found a self cleaning over works wonder stripping the old seasoning off. For really extreme cases (like my aunt s MIL s 70 year old chicken skillet) it took 2 tries with some hand scraping in between to break off a 1/4 inch thick layer off the bottom that had started to break up.

[Jo Ann]

 AustinBoston
All i have is olive oil...is that ok?  
 
 going to bed now...got sent home from work with the bug