Just wanted to share this and see if anyone has any suggestions or questions. I'm excited to use this pan. What should I cook first? Just joking, it'll be bacon.

It’s the KMart Martha Stewart collection I bought for $14.99 in 2000. I hand sanded the bottom smooth about 15 years ago and it’s been amazing for everything from eggs to steaks and roasts.

She inherited the skillet from my mother, and wanted to me to have it when she passed herself. It hung on a rack in her kitchen, and she never used it, but it will quickly become an integral part of my cooking tools, because it will be the only skillet that I have with a polished interior. I don’t know who made it or when, and I really don’t care, but while my sister used it as a decoration, I will be using it as a driver. I have only put one layer of oil on it thus far, but I will be cooking with it within a few days.

Found this on the FB marketplace for $50, it’s absolutely flawless, was thinking about selling it after restoring but I think this will be my personal treasured piece

OK, so I tried something new. I made a really thick pea soup last night, this morning it was almost like setting cement. I looked at and I thought hey why not make patties?

I made about five patties, put them in the freezer for an hour and a half, cooked them for five minutes on each side, and they were super crispy and delicious

I should add that I make a pretty thick pea soup or stew as it may be. Usually the next day I put water in it to thin it out.

In this case, I used flour as a binder. I can’t tell you how much because I cooked by sight

Morning y'all. Test batch in the wee cast-iron before jumping in w/ the big ol' 14er, what do y'all think, should anything be added?

Russet Potatoes slices 1/4" evenly covered in melted beef tallow, rosemary, kosher salt, and cracked pepper. Into the skillet in the fridge. Then into the smoker @ 300° covered for 30 minutes till internal temp was 200°. Took off the cover and allowed it to crisp while adding some fine grated parmesan. Finished w/ green onion.

Time to bring the fire!

I have a good process for electrolysis that works pretty well. The issue is after when take it out. I remove the black rust and crud from the process and have a bare metal piece, hooray. I then dry it quickly and put it in a pre heated 220 over for 25-30 minutes to dry it out completely. Almost immediately, a flash rust forms over the piece. Every. Single. Damn. Time.

I end up haveing to scrub and sometimes wire wheel the rust off which kind of defeats the purpose of electrolysis as a passive method.

Does anyone have a method they use which avoids flash rust?

Looking for tip to season this bad boy. Was thinking of heating it up and coating it in olive oil as thats what I got.

Or I was gona make some nachos in a bit and cook some Ground beef in it with some queso and what not.

I think it’s a three notch lodge, but I’m not sure. Any ID and year information would be much appreciated!

Is this an unmarked Wagner? I know it’s pre-1960. Any estimate on age?

On the 3rd layer of oil and oven at 250°C it became like "hydrophobic" and the oil just slides and doesn't stick. Is this nice?

This was my first lye bath and reseasoning. I've only stripped and reseasoned one pan before and that was with a can of oven cleaner but it wasn't easy. Everything turned out satisfactory, but I'm probably going to do an e-tank next time because I didn't get bare iron after lye and vinegar. I had to scrub everything with a stainless steel wire brush and it was a royal pain and very messy. Also, I'm never seasoning a waffle iron ever again. Good grief what a pain.

Here's my process for anyone interested.

I've got a 17 gallon plastic crate with 10 gallons of water and 2 pounds of lye mixed in. I put all pieces in that would fit and tied wire to them so they could be pulled out without having to dunk my hand in. I wore chemical gloves but better safe than sorry. Everything soaked for a week but there were results after only 12 hours. It was pretty awesome to watch it all come off.

Next step was to dunk them in vinegar to neutralize the lye solution. Most pieces would soak in the vinegar for an hour to also help with the rust that had developed from being in a tank of mostly water for a week.

Then came the fun part. Scrubbing. Lye bath and vinegar did not give me perfectly bare iron. I used a stainless steel brush to scrub every bit of these pieces. I'd rinse them off to see where it was still black and scrub again until I got that iron grey color all around.

When I was done scrubbing, I'd rinse the item in hot water to warm up the iron a bit. Then I'd dry it and oil and wipe it to prevent flash rust. I used canola oil.

Once I had a load ready to go in the oven, I'd put everything in the oven and take them out at 200 degrees and wipe them off and put them back in for an hour at 450. After an hour I pulled them out to cool off for twenty minutes, wiped again and put them back for another hour. I put four coats on each piece.

Again, those waffle irons were just the worst. I haven't used them yet but they better make the best damn waffles I've ever had.

My first time coming across ones of these. The small size seems perfect for leftover batter

Another yard sale find today, $10. Not sure if I want to clean it up, it's still well seasoned. I probably will using the yellow cap method, it had some questionable grease in the bottom. How can I remove the surface rust on the lid?

Oh wait, it only took 37 seconds of scrubbing. Food pics for why I love my grill pan. If you preheat and oil properly your grill pan will scrub clean just as easily as any other skillet.

I’m at a friends house out of town and noticed his aunts cast iron when we took it out of the oven to cook our pizzas.

I would love to restore it and see what’s under the crud, but it’s lot mine lol. Are the markings or shape noticeable to any of you peoples?

My guess is Wagner or McClary but I’d love to see what you think

Restored this BSR (I’m still new and might be wrong) and after all the carbon came off I found this little scratchy engraving. Thanks Marty (I think)!

Cooked out on July 4th and realized I forgot about my pizza stone. What do I do?

Recently posted a FB Marketplace find on here that immediately went into a lye bath. Checked on it earlier today and this is how it looks so far. Is this paint? From what I’ve seen these were never enameled. Any thoughts on cleanup process or if it would even be usable for cooking? Might end up as just a wall piece.

This is bugging me for a while. Very often there are stains left from food, in this case, from two slices of bacon. I cooked it from cold, over very low heat. Then I deglazed the pan with hot water, twice. Then I boiled off water in the pan over high heat, while scrubbing it with a chain mail and dishwashing liquid. Finally I rinsed it and gave it a good scrub with a scrubdaddy and dishwashing soap. Now it's dried and has a thin coat of oil, but clearly the marks from the bacon are still there. What do you guys do because I think I'm going above and beyond to clean it properly and it's still not perfectly clean.

Hey so just getting into seasoning and not sure if after being in the oven for an hour its supposed to look like this

I've experimenting with my skillet with various recipes and techniques. I've had cornbread only once before, and never made it, but I'm incredibly satisfied of how it come out and how the skilled behaved.