Used to wash my cast iron pan with soap until a chef friend stopped me

For years I scrubbed my Lodge skillet with dish soap after every use. I thought that's what you did to keep things clean. Then my buddy Mike who works at a barbecue joint in Austin saw me doing it and laughed. He said soap strips the seasoning and I was basically starting over each time. Now I just use hot water and a stiff brush, then dry it on the stove with a little oil. After three months of this, eggs slide right off and nothing sticks. Anyone else get bad advice about cast iron maintenance?

3 comments

3 Comments

wadem892mo ago

Man, I feel you on this one.

brian3282mo ago

The whole thing just snowballs, right? One small problem turns into another, and before you know it you're dealing with a whole chain of stuff you didn't plan for. It's like the universe has a way of piling on when you're already overwhelmed. You gotta just pick one thing and fix it, then move to the next. Otherwise you'll go crazy trying to solve everything at once.

river3201mo ago

But @brian328, have you ever noticed how sometimes the "small" problem isn't really the start of it? Like you're fixing the leaky faucet but the real issue is the pipe is old and rotting somewhere else. That whole "pick one thing" approach works great for surface stuff, but if you don't figure out what's actually causing the chain reaction you're just patching holes in a sinking ship. Sometimes you gotta step back and look at the whole picture before you touch anything, even though it feels like doing nothing. Other times you're right though, you just gotta start swinging and hope you hit the right thing first.