I hate cast iron so I am in favour of this.

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Carbon steel > cast iron. Lighter, basically the same heat properties, and you don't get peer pressured into unnecessarily babying a lump of solid metal.

Seriously no reason to dote on either of them so much. Only real care you need to take is that they can rust, so don't leave them wet. And don't needlessly scrub them with chain mail or angle grinders, or you might need to take a few minutes fixing them with cooking oil and the oven.

Maeve

A bit of olive oil in a mister doesn't add enough calories to matter.

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I put mine in the clothes dryer with a load of sheets. Is that wrong?

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The look of that pan somebody needs Go ahead and strip it back down to bare and restart seasoning.

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It feels super greasy and filthy, and everything you cook sticks to it. Give me stainless steel any day.

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I end up reseasoning mine every couple of years, inevitably somebody leaves it in the sink for a bit trying to soak off some burnt on stuff. It's really no big deal.

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Also throw in the metal spatulas you scrape out your expensive non-stick pan with.

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For your clothes dryer most definitely. Probably not great for the sheets either.

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Depends on how much you like buying dryers.

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Yeah, soap doesn't hurt a fucking thing, If I just cooked with a seed oil or bacon or something I'd be inclined just to let it burn off, But if I cooked noodles or pasta or garlic or anything fragrant on there, I'd soap and scrub the piss out of it. I just make sure to throw it back on the fire and get it past 212 if it's been wet.

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Well that’s just crazy. I wash mine with soap and water after cooking… but then I give it a quick flame dry and re-season on the stove top, which I can definitely admit is more maintenance than most people want to deal with.

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I just reseasoned my 12” Lodge today! A lot of nasty smells coming out as I took off layers and layers of old seasoning with barkeeper’s friend. But now it has a non sticky, glassy smooth new sunflower oil seasoning. Very slick!

Does anyone know how to avoid having bacon foul up the seasoning? Seems like it always reacts chemically and incorporates proteins into the seasoning which make it nasty and dry and flaky rather than smooth and glassy.

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That's just a dirty pan. Actual cast iron seasoning isn't sticky or dirty because it has no impurities from the food, it's actually polymerized with the cast iron and it should look make the pan look black and glassy. I wash mine with Dawn soap and hand dry it, and it makes Teflon look like a joke. I can heat it without any butter or oil, drop in a glob of egg yolk, and it'll slide like it's skating on Astroglide. You're having a skill issue and you need to get good.

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You have problems with cast iron sticking but you like stainless steel? Stainless steel is probably the most non stick material you can use. I can't stand the stuff.

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That's just an abuse of olive oil. Olive oil is a finishing oil when you want the flavor. Use a neutral oil like avocado.

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I wash mine with Dawn soap and hand dry it,

Yeah, I think the big hangup for a lot of people is that detergents used to contain lye which would react with the steel. No longer the case. Folks will seriously refuse to clean their pans which is gross AF.

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Unseasonably mad

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Also don't temp shock them, they can warp

hypnotoad

Lol I'm not religious about it or anything, but it's porous unlike other cooking materials, so yeah, I don't put soap on it

Canopyflyer

Cooking has been a hobby of mine for decades now. I have gone through a lot of phases in cooking, especially early on.

I have used cast iron, carbon steel, stainless steel, and a dubious flirtation with all aluminum.

16 years on now and this is what I reach for 100% of the time:

Skillet/sautee: cladded stainless. Both standard side and high sided.

Dutch Oven: Enameled cast iron.

Pots Pans: Cladded stainless steel. For smaller 1qt to 2qt I like All Clads D5 for its heat retention. Larger than that I like the D3 for its lighter weight

Grill Pan: cast iron. Hate the excessive weight though

Non-stick: Ceramic coated aluminum. What ever Americas Test Kitchen recommends that year. I consider these disposable items. I stopped using TEFLON a long time ago.

I used cast iron skillets for several years. I found them to be finicky. Heat retention was stupidly high and that's not always a good thing. Excessively heavy and god forbid you attempt any sort of tomato based sauce or anything acidic for that matter. Circumstances forced me to use stainless steel and I just found it matches my needs in a kitchen much better than cast iron. It gets used, it gets cleaned and I put it away. No having to have the vaginal juices of a thousand virgins on hand to make sure it doesn't destroy the next egg I try to cook.

I consider cast iron skillets like safety razors. They had their day, but continue on because of a dedicated set of die hard users. Nothing wrong with that, just not my thing.

The above goes for carbon steel as well, although it usually isn't nearly as heavy.