**Pre-REVIEW** Cast Iron Skillet Cleaning?

I have a small collection of cast iron cookware. My mother grew up in a home where cast iron skillets, pots, and kettles were all that was used. When I was young, I don't remember ever seeing Mama cook in any other kind of skillet. My sister and I picked up the habit. When I was young and had anemia, Mama would cook liver for me in her cast-iron skillet. That liver was nasty (though I love liver now), but between it and the cast iron, the anemia didn't stand a chance! By the way, there is now more public knowledge and some legit attention given to this idea. You younguns can go ask your grandmamas.

Here is where I posted about some of my expanding set of cast iron pieces - including a teapot that I use daily.

Anyway.

With all this cast iron that I want to last for years and years, I have been looking for easier ways to clean it. IA lot of the time, I can just take the pan off the stove, wipe out any excess oil and I am good to go. Sometimes, though, I have to do a good clean. I have always followed one of Mama's examples when cleaning the skillets. I use some cooking oil and Kosher salt (or margarita salt or any other coarse salt). These are my steps:

•  I will use a sponge to work the oil and salt around for getting any sticky crud out of the pan.
• Rinse out the pan with really hot water - even some boiling water if I must..
•  I almost NEVER use any kind of soap (and if I ever do, I have to re-season the pan). 
• Put the rinsed pan on a low burner for a couple of minutes to dry out the pores.
• Wipe the pan with some lard or other oil. I prefer lard because it's really cheap and I don't use it for anything else.
• 
  

That's it. If you do this and keep up the care of your pans, eventually, they start to really smooth out and become almost non-stick. (If you want other methods, you can also use baking soda and a wet rag to clean the skillet or by rubbing a half a potato over the salt for a scrub (there's something about the makeup of the potato...???) 

The one really old skillet I have is almost as smooth as glass. That's from years of regular use, cleaning and seasoning. I am working toward that point with the skillets I got a couple of years ago and the newest Dutch Oven. I have an online friend who used a sanding head on his drill to smooth out his wife's pans. Smart, huh? By the way, you can do the sanding by hand if you're up for it, I guess. Sanding. Hm. Who knew? And I don't know why the heck manufacturers don't do all this smoothing before they sell the skillets. Pre-seasoned? No way.

Like I said, I am looking for easier ways to clean my cast ironware. The newer pans take some work to get them clean and I don't always feel like scrubbing with oil and salt for long enough. While I don't believe in buying special seasoning oils and treatments, (waste of money, in my opinion), when I heard about using chain mail for cleaning these pans, I flipped my wig. I mean chain mail? What?

These are arejust a few examples of the many random ones that popped up on Amazon when I did a search:

That one on the bottom there seems quite popular but it's pricier than the others for some reason. I don't have any idea if the more expensive ones are any better, but I have noticed from reviews and other bloggers that you should look for a chain that is welded. Apparently, a welded chain is more gentle on the pan. Cast iron is pretty tough though, so... I also have read articles s that suggest having a silicone insert is helpful for gripping while cleaning with the chain. Also, the silicone might help in the actual cleaning process. I decided that, if my grandma and my mom had known about it, they would have tried chainmail, so I will give it a shot. I'm still not spending money on any of those special seasoning oils and treatments - or the 11-ounce, $13 bottle of special "scrub" (aka really pricey salt) that I happened to see online. I'm not trying to impress anyone.

Of course, when I decide on one of the scrubbers, I will have to go or the lower-priced model, but I will try to find one with a silicone insert. There are some random videos showing people using chain mail to clean.It looks "oddly satisfying" as fellow Redditors might say.

The other item that could be useful when cleaning your cast iron stuff is agood  scaper. I looked around at some of these and like the idea but want to try the chain first.

(I have to say that while I do love a Lodge skillet, every last one of their accessories is ridiculously pricey!)

 By the way, I will be adding some of these items to the next post I am doing on Un-Christmas Gifts. I think it's a great idea to get people things they need throughout the year instead of trying to buy impressive items for Christmas, birthdays, etcetera. I hope that doing the Anytime Gift lists will encourage people to be thoughtful all year long.

Anyway, that's it and I will, of course, be going a review on whatever chain scrubber I get for the skillets.

Peace

--Free

My sister loved this song and since it would have been her birthday today, I wanted to share it.

Also since it's the season of what we assume to be the birth of the Lord, I think that we need to hear and think about this now more than ever. Let's all try to be great again and then the country will really come together. No matter what you thought of Michael Jackson, he got this so right. Cha-mon, people.