I needed to season a piece and decided to give this some love too. It has been used on a griller over hot coals, and the back of it looked like it didn’t like taking that radiative heat head on.

So I’m on my 4th layer if seasoning it with avocado oil. 450 degrees, 2h, then let it cool overnight with the oven. The back is looking much better, but the cooking surface just began flaking (see picture). I’ve brushed it with a plastic bristle brush. Pretty sure the light spots are the metal underneath.

What went wrong? And how to fix this, do I just keep on seasoning?

  • acockworkorange@mander.xyzOPEnglish
    4·
    il y a 1 mois

    Oh crap.

    Each layer has to be really, really thin. Everything I’ve read says so thin you can hardly tell it’s there. America’s Test Kitchen says it should even look almost dry.

    Good here. I’ve been very diligent about having only a thin layer of oil. I’d spread it with my fingers and buff it gently with a paper tower until the texture is visible with only an increased sheen.

    Peak temp for the oil, and how fast it gets there also make a difference. If it heats too quickly to peak, it will form bonds more quickly, which are weaker. And each oil has a different peak temp. I would take a slower approach to heating with avocado because it polymerizes more slowly than say flax or grape seed.

    One final thought - in my experience, any temp above 425 runs the risk of breaking the polymerization - I’ve done it many times. So better to slowly heat the pan (I like to do 30 min at 300, 350, then an hour at 400), giving the oil the time it needs to polymerize properly.

    That’s what I think I went wrong. I was following a guide to bake the pan at 500 F, which I thought was too much and dropped to 450. It didn’t say anything about heat up, so I pre-heated the oven to 450 while I was oiling the pieces, so they went in with a hot oven.

    Now, to fix this… How bad would it be if I just added another 6 layers of (properly cured) seasoning instead of trying to remove what’s there first? And if that’s a no-no, how do I even remove the layers it’s got? Dish-washing machine?

    • [object Object]@lemmy.caEnglish
      4·
      il y a 1 mois

      500+F destroyed my seasoning once, so I’m wary of that temp range.

      It was probably closer to 550 though

    • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafeEnglish
      3·
      il y a 1 mois

      In my experience 500 is for burning seasoning off. This is where I disagree with ATK - they say go to your ovem’s max temp. I tried that and it just burns off the seasoning. I now target about 425 and just give it the time it needs.

      Flax is too hard, so it flakes too easily for me. It’s beautiful, but seasoning needs a little give, which is why I think avocado and grape seed work well. My flax seasoned pans don’t go in the oven anymore. Someday I’ll redo them with grape seed oil.

      Best approach is to start over. But if these are truly tiny spots, and the area around them is strong, you may be able to get away with more layers.

      Try scrubbing those areas with stainless steel wool (it’s pretty coarse stuff). If more flakes off then you know the problem is bigger than these little spots. Unfortunately I always find the problem is bigger than it appears. 😕 As I said, I’m dealing with this same issue on 3 pans right now. They’ll be getting grapeseed instead of flax.

      • acockworkorange@mander.xyzOPEnglish
        1·
        il y a 1 mois

        This is a centerpiece for a grill, so I don’t expect it to last long. When the time comes for a renewal, I’ll try scraping it bare first.

    • [deleted]@piefed.worldEnglish
      2·
      il y a 1 mois

      From the pic it looks like you lost a few speckles, is it just that or did you have any big chunks come out?

      If you just lost some little bits here and there you can either give it one or two seasoning runs or just let it fix itself through usage if you use it regularly. When you cook with it and get done, clean it well with dish soap, then towel dry and put it back on an medium heat to dry. Once it gets warm add a small amount of oil and use a lint free cloth to wipe it all around and wipe it really well so it looks kinda wet/dry. Let it get hot until it just barely starts to smoke then remove from the heat and wipe it really well with the cloth to remove the oil that kind of ‘sweated’ after it got hot. Just let it cool and use it again the next time you cook. Do this for as many uses as you want until it seems to have a solid seasoning again.

      I use paper towels instead of a lint free cloth and it works fine, but lint free is the right way to do it. This approach basically adds a semi polymerized layer that will finish itself over time as you use it and as long as you wipe out all of the excess after applying and then again after heating each layer will be very thin.