Has anyone used oven cleaner on the outside of your cast iron? Do you think it would hurt a skillet or pan if oven cleaner was used on it?

This is an interesting question. First thought that comes to mind, knowing it is porous.. Would I want to eat of anything that has soaked up that cleaner?
Will be watching for suggestions. I have never cleaned mine.

Why are you wanting to clean a cast iron skillet on the outside?
I remember getting in tons of trouble when I was a teenager for trying to thoroughly scrub my mom's cast iron skillet. It had taken me a long time to get it 'clean' and then I found out I'd messed it up and we had to spend forever getting it 'seasoned' again so stuff wouldn't stick when we cooked.
So I'm not about to do more than minimal cleaning to a cast iron skillet(or cornbread stick pan)now!

My husband says NO that the chemicals will seep into the actual cast iron and get into the food and will poison you.
You can use Sand to clean the outside.

All my Mom ever did was if the Pan was built up on the outside was to put 'It' in a fire to burn it off! then she would have to 'cure/treat' the pan again. 8-) You can do this in your oven at a very high temp say 450 to 500 to burn it off.

Totally agree!!

Good to know!!

You can take a wire brush to the outside of the pan :D:D:D

Thanks everyone for the info. I thought the oven cleaner might be a bit much. My mother always put hers in the fire outside too, but that was in Kentucky. We are virtually banned from having any fire outside here. The oven and wire brush sounds like they would work. Sand sounds like a lot of work and I am too lazy to try that.

FROM KENTUCKY...we put ours in a bon fire here too

If you're wanting to clean the outside, I'd use some baking soda, mixed in a paste, and scrub away. And I wouldn't go at the inside, so as not to affect the "seasoning" that's there.

I'm a cast iron collector!!

Oven cleaner will NOT hurt your cast iron, and will not seep into the iron as it's not pourous as folks think it is. (if it was, it wouldn't hold fluids!!)

You can put it in a self cleaning oven on the clean cycle, as long as it cools completely before you open the door...but be prepared, it's gonna stink like you can't believe!

Sand is ok to scrub with, but sandblasting is out of the question! It's almost impossible to quickly get a good seasoning on a skillet or cast iron pot after it's been blasted!!

Wire brushes will scratch the iron. If it's realitively "new" iron, (modern Lodge, or one of the Chinese mades) then no real biggie. If it's a Griswold, WagnerWare, or other vintage or antique, don't do it.

I actually have a lye bath that I keep set up and soak my cast iron cooking pots, pans, etc. in. They can stay in that bath up to a year without harm, believe it or not...I've actually forgotten I had a pan in the bath for a few months!! Took it out and it was clean as a whistle! :)

That being said, take your skillet outside, spray it with a liberal coating of OLD fashioned oven cleaner (NOT the "no odor" kind) wrap it up in a black plastic trash bag and leave it on the porch in the sun for several days, to a week. Bring it in, and make sure you're wearing gloves, wash the pan in hot soapy dishwater. (It's the only time you should EVER use soap to clean your cast iron, btw.) If you still have burnt on gunk, spray it again and put it back in the bag for a few more days. Once the pan is clean, rinse the soap off in COLD water (helps to prevent flash rust) and pop it in a 250 degree oven for about 20-30 minutes. Take it out of the oven (it's gonna be hot, protect yourself) and spray it with Pam cooking spray, inside and out. Using paper towels or an old t-shirt, wipe that pan/pot down until it looks like you've wiped every bit of oil off. (You didn't, and I know it's hard, but trust me on this one) Pop it back in the oven with the temp turned up to 350, and let it "bake" for an hour.
It's now seasoned...but you may still have some sticking. Heat the pan up for about a minute, pour some oil in the pan, and scarifice some taters...slice them and cook them in the oil until they're nearly burned. Dump that one and do it again. Pour the oil out, wipe the pan, and you should be able to cook in it! :) It might take awhile for eggs not to stick, but you'll have a good pan that you can use and enjoy for a long time!

Nuther note: Cast iron pans should NEVER EVER be put in a fire to clean them, no matter what our moms/grandmoms did. It changes the pan, and can cause it to warp, crack, and I've heard stories of them actually "exploding"!!! It's not safe for you or the pan!!

Charlee - thanks for all the cast iron tips.
Most of my cast iron pans have been yard sale finds, and I have used the oven cleaner trick on the outside of the pan only - seemed to work just fine.
Don't you just love cooking in a well-seasoned cast iron pan?
We no longer have Teflon in our home - leaching chemicals are not good for us, and I do not even miss the non-stick surface when cooking in my good ol' cast iron.

Interesting stuff. I just picked up a horrid cast iron pig head cheese mold for a few bucks at a thrift store that turned out to be worth a small fortune.

this is correct.

Throw it in a fire, dont put any chemicals or soap on my cast iron. I bought one a few years ago used but nice sized it was in horrible condition. Rubbed it down with oil and fired it a few times before I could use it. Some people want to take a SOS pads to them thats a bad idea too. oil and fire is all you need.

I've got cast iron skillets that were handed down to me from my mom and I'm still using them 36 yrs later. I would NOT put any chemical at all on my skillet. Cast iron IS pourous, that's how it gets seasoned. It absorbs the oils and makes it wonderful to cook in. Please don't use oven cleaner.

Do not use anything on your cast iron that has cleaning fluids it will soak in to the pores & you will be eating it in your food!!! I cook in them all the time. If you burn it off in the oven it will strip all the seasoned area off you will have a skillet that sticks. Ugh

the key word is "outside' of pan!NEVER clean the inside,but a crust will build up on the outside that can make it cook unevenly
oven cleaner on the outside will not hurt the inside !!
dar

I said it once before, and will say it again. Chemicals do NOT soak into the metal of cast iron!! It is NOT porous, the will NOT hurt you!! The outer surface of cast iron is rough, and THAT is what holds the seasoning. (That's also the reason it's harder to season the old smooth Griswolds than it is the newer Lodge) If cast iron was porous, it would puff up like a sponge when you used anything fluid in it...or leak if you used it for a slow cook. Neither happens. And sorry...the sides of the inside of the pan sometimes need to be "decrusted" too.
Oven cleaner is lye. In that state, if you ingest the lye, yes, it will hurt you. After you've washed the lye off, it's gone. *IF* there is any residue left, it's neutralized by the fat used for reseasoning.

Would never ingest something from a pan soaked in lye? Lye is often used in food products. Ever eaten hominy? Olives? Pretzels? Google how they're made...

I would suggest going to a website for the Wagner and Griswold Society (WAGS). Tell them Charlee sent ya! ;) The guys there are experts in cast iron cookware, and wouldn't steer you wrong. They'll also give you the lowdown on "fire cleaning" or "campfireing". ;) :)

>>If cast iron was porous, it would puff up like a sponge when you used anything fluid in it...or leak if you used it for a slow cook.

There are different degrees of porosity. Wood is very porous yet holds water. Concrete, ceramic, clay, and some plastics - all porous yet all hold water quite well. ALL are porous to the extent that they will hold residue. Use garlic in a wood bowl and you'll smell it forever, yet it will hold water without leakage for many many years.

One of the reasons that cast iron skillets have to be "seasoned" is that the metals are porous to an extent - it's more of a "pock marked" (albiet small) than it is truely porours (like wood) - but these pock marks hold residue - in the case of skillets the residue is the oils that were used to season it.

While I doubt that using a harsh cleaner on the outside would "soak through" the skillet (because it's not *that* porous), I still wouldn't do it as there is no guarantee that when your rinsing the stuff off it wont drip onto a part of the skillet that may touch food and once the residue is there - it will be hard to come off.

Not only that, but I don't know if I would want that chemical residue on the outside of the pan the next time I put the pan on a flame - no idea of oven cleaner is flamable or combustable.

Oven cleaner is lye. It's not flamable or combustable. WAGS has an article written by a leading scientist about whether or not cast iron is porous, and lends his expertise and knowledge to the subject. I choose to believe him.

As for the cleaning of the cooking surface. I would not, for me, half clean a pan. If I'm going to clean it, I'm going to strip it completely and start over. I'm going to use lye to do it...and I'm going to wash it well afterward before I season it. If by chance and it's a slim one, there is any lye left on the surface, the fat in the oil I use to season it is going to neutralize it. (That's how soaps are made...read somewhere that if it doesn't have lye, it's NOT soap) Don't know that ingesting soap has ever killed or hurt anyone...

Cast iron is easy to reseason once it's stripped. Why do a halfway job?

Interesting discussion. Lots of things to consider and I appreciate them all. I will check out the website WAGS too. Thanks, I knew this was the place to come.

I have made laundry soap - & yes, the 'recipe' uses lye; hasn't killed us yet.
Good point re: doing whole vs halfway job on cleaning - will remember that next time I need to reseason a pan.

Thanks everyone for interesting discussion.

I’ll have to disagree with not using soap on cast iron skillets. My wife and I have a whole fleet of them and have been washing ours in dish soap, rinsing with plain water and setting them in the drainer to drip-dry for the past 36 years. Most of them were handed down to us from relatives that did the same thing for years before us. If they’re seasoned properly, mild dish soap won’t hurt them. If one starts rusting, it didn’t get seasoned well, and it needs to be done again.

We cook almost exclusively with cast iron skillets. We use a ChoreBoy metal scrubber to scour them inside and out when needed too.

I’ve never understood greasing them after use. It seems like greasy pans can get rancid, and/or attract every bug in the country.

CD in Oklahoma