I saw my dad do this many years ago to clean iron that was too crusted to scrub. We accumulated a bunch of skillets, Dutch ovens and pots over the years and decided it was time to do something with them. A good bed of coals does most of the work, so this is a job to do during the day when you can let the fire burn down a bit. Put in some iron, open the draft, and ignore it for an hour or two. We like to scrub the pots with stainless chain mail and dish soap, then Susan rubs them with lard and seasons them in a warm oven.
I found a 16" skillet that was rusty and full of assorted rusty nails in a barn about 30 years ago. I threw it in a fire box on a 4" bed of coals and built the fire back up and kept it going for about six hours. The next morning I pulled it out and rinsed it off then gave it a good coating of lard and stuck it in the oven at 400 degrees for about an hour flipping it over every 15 minutes. I did have a sheet cake pan to catch any drippings. After letting it cool I did the heating with lard process 4 more times. That seasoned it well and I used it for about 20 years until I donated it to the boy scout troop.
ReplyDeleteGood job on that rescue!!!
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