I’m back again, this time with a friend’s pan that he inherited from his grandmother. He entrusted this to me to remove the decades of use, to put it back into service after sitting on a shelf for years. This took four rounds of Easy Off in a plastic bag to remove the gunk, and then three rounds of seasoning with canola oil.
The before pics:
For cleaning, I used a spray can of Easy Off oven cleaner, specifically one with a yellow cap and specifically says that it contains lye (aka sodium hydroxide). I preheated the pan to 200 F (~90 C) in the oven for 20 minutes, and the withdrew it and immediately sprayed it with Easy Off. The pan then went into a plastic garbage bag, the bag set inside of a 5 gallon bucket for support, and the bag wrapped shut. This will keep the vapors circulating within the bag, exposing more deposits to its chemical effects.
After a day, I removed the pan from the bag and washed it down with generous water, to dilute the sodium hydroxide. The pan was then scrubbed down with a nylon brush to physically remove crusty material. To dry off the water, I put the pan into the oven again at 200 F for 20 minutes. The bag should also be washed with generous water before reusing it for standard trash service. Wear gloves.
Once I got the pan suitably stripped, I followed my original process, described here: https://sh.itjust.works/comment/15774888