How to clean an aged Cast Iron Frying Pan?

Question

My boyfriend has some cast iron frying pans that have been sitting around for a long time! They have rust on them and I want to know a proper way to clean them. They get that funny smell to them when just cleaned with dish soap and water and the rusty stuff won't come off!

I want to get them in working condition so I can have some GOOD food cooked in them!

Nothing beats some Fried Chicken cooked in a Cast Iron Skillet!

Answer 1

Get them warm and give them a good scrubbing with steel wool and oil. Wash off the residue with soap and hot water, then reheat and coat with fresh oil.  

Answer 2

use a brillo type pad and scour the c**p out of it, let it dry and get a spray oil or vegetable oil and and coat it really good put it in the oven at 300 until all the access is gone, let it cool and repeat on the inside only and it should be well seasoned and ready to rock the winner winner chicken dinner.

Answer 3

get a new one and hand clean it (no washing machine) and dry it off by a towel and somtimes u can stick it in the oven for a minute or to 200 degrees

Answer 4

I would wash the pans with a mild soap and water and rinse them well.  After drying them, in order to stop the rusting, they will need to be re-seasoned.  Using a paper towel, coat the interior of your skillet with vegetable oil.  Then bake uncovered at 250 deg. in the oven for about 2 hours.  Make sure you let them cool before removing them from oven or using them.

Answer 5

Don't worry about the rust so much, it will not kill you.. But here is what you do.  

Best done on a gas grill. First clean the pan.  Then put the pan on the grill and fire it up on high.  After  the pan becomes hot remove it from the heat ( don't burn yourself) and rub it down with some vegetable oil or lard or if you have it BACON GREASE. This is called seasoning the pan.  It will provide a black rust resistant coating on the pan and provide it with a stick resistant surface.  Natures teflon.  After wards, everytime you finish cooking and wash the pan just wipe it down real good.  

I have a shallow pan that was my great grandmothers.  Got like a 100 years of bacon grease coating on it but will cook biscuits better than any other pan I have.  

In a hundred years or so if the grease coating gets too thick, just do the grill method again,  it will burn off so you can re-apply it.  

Answer 6

If there is a lot of cooked-on grease, you can put the skillets upside down on a shelf in your self-cleaning oven the next time you clean it.  The skillets will come out grease-free but rusted.  Take out the steel wool & scrub it all off.  Wash well in hot soapy water & rinse.  Now (and anytime you boil liquids in that skillet ie.make gravy for that chicken) you have to re-season the skillet by adding a small film of fat/oil to the pan & heating it on LOW heat for about 15 min.  (The first pancake you cook may stick just a bit but you're generally off to cooking some of the best tasting food around.)

Answer 7

You shouldn't wash cast iron with soap,Fill the pan up with water and boil it on the stove for thirty minutes,then get a potato and cut it in half cut side down scrub the pan that should get the rust off