Reseason Your Cast Iron Skillet

I admit it, in the past I've neglected the well being of my cast iron skillet. It was always good to me but sadly I had not returned the favor.

While my skillet came from the factory nicely seasoned and ready to use, a year of inattention has taken it's toll. Gone was the once smooth cooking surface so I went to my usual reference library, Google.

This instructable shows how to strip down a pan and build it back up into something invaluable to your kitchen.

OK, so your parts list will be small for this Instructable:

• One sick cast iron vessel
• One box of scouring/steel wool pads
• One comically over sized block of LARD
• (Optional but recommended) BACON

I started off by scrubbing all the old gunk off my pan under running water. Since the instructions I found online suggested that you should season both the inside and outside of the skillet I scrubbed both surfaces clean with steel wool.

Once clean I thoroughly dried the pan and continued to Step 2 "Largmageddon"

I unwrapped my lard block (aka porky crayon) and gave the entire pan a nice coat. As I mentioned in the previous step the instructions I found online suggested you also lightly season the outside of the pan. So both sides got a nice coat of fragrant lard. This was a pretty simple step but clearly the most fun part.

I placed a foil wrapped half sheet pan on the bottom of my oven and placed the skilled upside-down in the rack above. Baking the skillet upside-down reduces the amount of fat that pools on and around the pan. I set the over to 275^oF and left it bake for about 2 hours.

At the end of the baking and cool down period I tossed the pan back on a burner, heated it up a bit and wiped any remaining lard deposits out of the inside.

After the final wipe-down the pan was nice and slick and ready for cooking copious amounts of bacon, which (while not pictured) I assure you occurred.