I left my cast iron pot on the gas stove, on high flame, and then forgot about it for 3 hours. It was empty and I was drying it before I oiled it to store it. After I discovered it and let it cool, I oiled it with a paper towel and all this rusty stuff came off and continues to come off. Is my pan ruined? What should I do?
How to fix a cast iron pot that was heated empty for hours
cast-ironequipment
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Best Answer
Your pan is NOT ruined.YAY! What has happened is that you have burned off most of the seasoning. Any other kind of pan would be ruined, but your cast iron pan only needs to be stripped and reseasoned. If you have a self-cleaning oven cycle, that is a great way to completely strip the pan. You can also throw it into a hot fire (like a fireplace, wood stove, or campfire if you've got one) and just leave it until the fire is out and you can touch the pan. For any of these methods, the pan should be up-side-down.
Another thing you can use to get to the bare metal is oven cleaner, in a hot oven or not, depending upon the product. Again, the pan should be up-side-down.
Complete the mission with steel wool and dish soap, an SOS pad would be great for this.
Now it is naked, and needs to be seasoned. Unfortunately, it will stick like hell until you've got a good solid season. Season it a few times and cook only greasy food in it for a while. It'll come back eventually.
You may get answers that say you don't need to strip the seasoning you've got left. I would disagree with that, seasoning over badly damaged seasoning never gets as strong and smooth. Start from scratch.
Look here for seasoning advice: What's the best way to season a cast iron skillet?
I have recently become a flaxseed convert, so my preferred method is this one, from Sheryl's Blog, which I first saw thanks to Neil G's answer to the above Seasoned Advice question. The whole article is worth reading, but here are her instructions for seasoning from scratch. I just did this to one the cast iron pans I inherited from my grandmother. The result was fabulous.