How to Restore and Season Cast Iron

Hi Guys, today I’ll show you how to Restore my most used Cast Iron Pan. As you can see, it’s in really bad shape. If you watch my AnitaCooks channel, you know that I use a lot of my cast iron pans regularly. Now, I should’ve done this a long time ago but it’s just one of those things you never get to until you can’t take it anymore when black flakes end up in your food. This pan has passed the stage of scrubbing with salt, hot water and a brush. So I’m using a drill and a wire brush. Use whichever drill you’re comfortable with. This is lightweight, cordless and I’ll put a link to this drill and wire brush in the description section below.
LINK to Milwaukee Drill: https://amzn.to/2U1wVu3
LINK to Dewalt Drill: https://amzn.to/3yKxreY
LINK to Wire Brush: https://amzn.to/3xDK0ru
LINK to Gloves: https://amzn.to/3Alw9rm
LINK to Goggles: https://amzn.to/3xsRo8J

First thing, put the drill in reverse mode, press the trigger to open the chuck up. Forward Mode. Put the wire brush in, not all the way in, hold the chuck and press the trigger. It’s in there. This is very sharp, definitely use gloves, I’ll link them below as well. With this brush, you can’t clean with the front, you clean with the sides. Also, wear goggles because stuff will fly all over the place. Wear a long sleeve shirt and pants because my hands and pants were covered in it. So that’s me exhausted already. It helps if you put the pan on a work table and not bent over on the lawn like I’m doing. I wasn’t going to pull the table out of my garage because I thought this would be really quick. It’s not quick,if your pan looks this bad, it’ll take you an hour, two or more. You can see how much has come off. Doing the inner edge is a little tricky. It’s using the speed of the machine, not so much the pressure you exert. I did about 30% of the work and the rest was my helper with bigger and stronger hands. It was a little much for me. The battery will definitely need to be changed if you’re using a cordless. This one has a light on the side that tells you how much battery life is left. Clean the brush off on a rock once in a while. So we took a break, washed off the pan and finished the next day. We used up 2 batteries and switched to another drill which is a little heavier but still manageable. Your pan might not have 2 handles like this one. It took a lot of time to really get in there and clean both handles. And we changed one more battery. So 4 batteries in total for this pan. But the result is awesome. It looks like a different pan. Now it’s not absolutely perfect, there are some spots that we or he could go over but this is good enough. If your pan has a handle like this with a groove, you could get a smaller wire brush to get in there. See the difference between a seasoned cast iron pan and this one. I have to clean the edges of that pan too. If you neglect it, it builds up and takes much longer to clean. We have to season this pan before using because if you use it now, whatever you cook will stick to it badly. To season, put a tablespoon of oil on the pan and rub it all over. Wipe off any excess and put it upside down in your oven. The oven should be at 450 degrees Fahrenheit/232 celsius. Leave it in the oven for 1 hour, turn off the oven and let it cool down in the oven. I seasoned it once and tried to make dosa on it and a little bit stuck in the middle. So I seasoned it again. Because you’ve stripped the pan, it needs to be seasoned a few times. The pan will become non stick again after you use it a few times. There’s my beautiful black pan, almost back to being non stick. I made dosa after dosa without any sticking. It’s best to use medium heat or lower when cooking, especially right after stripping it. I hope this video was useful, if it was give it a thumbs up. The links to the two drills and wire brush are below the video in the description section. Subscribe and I’ll see you next time. Thanks for watching :)