More information can be found in the “Cleaning & Maintenance” section.

A: I wouldn’t, except for small, tough-to-clean spots. Sometimes you’ll find small areas that have cooked-on residue, and it makes sense to use something like steel wool. If you do, do it with as little pressure as possible to remove that specific residue. Try the other recommended methods first, though.

More information can be found in the “Cleaning & Maintenance” section.

A: All of them.

Every cook has their preferred kind of heating element, but the good news is that every type of stove works with cast iron. It may take some time to learn how your particular stove works with your particular cast iron pan/s, but they all work just fine.

The only finicky thing is that glass-top stoves–electric or induction–require a skillet that sits perfectly flat on flat surfaces. With induction, you will also want to be sure to heat your pan slowly, as induction has the ability to heat a pan very fast, which is not necessarily ideal for cast iron.

A: Yes, but it may not always be the best idea. Foods with high acidity, like lemon, tomato, pineapple, and certain wines, can speed up the breakdown of your seasoning. If a pan is seasoned well, and has been cooked in, oiled, used for awhile, and maintained properly, there should be very little problem with cooking acidic foods for short periods of time. Speaking for myself, I tend to use an enameled dutch oven or a stainless steel pot when cooking acidic foods that need to simmer for long periods of time, like sauces, soups, or stews made with tomato, lemon, lime, or wine.

If you cook something acidic in cast iron, be sure to wash, dry, and oil your pan after you cook.

A: I am not a doctor, nor am I a scientist. Some doctors recommend that folks with iron deficiency anemia cook in cast iron to increase their iron intake. While I am sure this advice cannot hurt, I’m not convinced it helps, either. The purpose of seasoning is to keep moisture from making contact with the raw iron, and it works. It seems, at least to me, that if moisture cannot get onto the iron from the environment or food, then the iron cannot get out from under the polymerized oil (seasoning) and into the food.

A: No.

Most modern cast iron is quite clunky and heavy. Older pans, however, can be surprisingly light, smooth, and easy to use.

There are some modern companies which make lighter cast iron cookware, but they do tend to be on the expensive side.

If you’re looking for a lighter cast iron skillet, find a local cast iron restorer, and I would bet they would be happy to sell you a lighter vintage piece.

A: Seasoning is, very simply, a thin layer of polymerized oil which protects the raw iron from rust. The only real purpose of seasoning is to protect the iron from moisture in food and the air.
If you have an old aluminum cookie sheet that is black from years of baking residue, that black coat is essentially the same thing as seasoning.

No seasoning will prevent all moisture from getting through, so it is important to dry your pan after washing it, and oil it on a regular basis with a high-heat oil.

Seasoning is not just oil. I advise people to oil their pans after cleaning them, but that is just another level of protection. If a pan is seasoned properly, it doesn’t need that extra step.

Seasoning has nothing to do with rendering a skillet “non-stick”. Proper heat management (i.e. slow preheating) is the only way to make cast iron cookware “non-stick”.

A: Please visit my restoration guide.

A: Yes. Just make sure you are cooking over the fire and not IN the fire. The only real issue with cooking over a campfire is that you’ll have very little temperature control. If the fire is extremely hot, you risk damaging your seasoning, or even the cast iron piece itself. That said, plenty of people cook in cast iron over campfires, and have great results. There are plenty of videos on YouTube of folks doing this, so you might want to do a little research on the subject before you take your cast iron on your next camping trip. You also might want to have a cheap, modern skillet in your kitchen arsenal that is dedicated to campfire cooking, instead of using the one passed down from grandma.

A: Kinda. Experienced welders can make a cracked cast iron skillet usable again. That said, the process is, as I understand it, difficult, and will likely cost a good amount.

A cracked pan, repaired or not, will never look the same, and will have lost any collectors’ value it might have once had.

Please note that it is dangerous to cook in a cracked skillet. The integrity of the metal had been compromised, and that skillet could fail at any time. If you are frying, the crack could open up and dump oil onto your stove, causing a kitchen fire. If the skillet fails while you’re holding it, you could end up with a burned and broken foot. Many people use skillets with small cracks exclusively for baking. I am more risk-averse, and would advise taking a cracked piece out of the kitchen rotation entirely, and either recycle it, or turn it into a spatula, depending on the nature of the crack.

A: You can, but it’s a terrible idea.

If the skillet belongs to you, you can do whatever you want with it. That’s how property works.

The best advice I can give is that you should buy a skillet which came out of the factory with a smooth surface, and use that. Using a grinder, wire wheel, sandpaper, media blaster, self-cleaning oven, or fire to clean or in any way alter cast iron is destructive, and completely antithetical to everything I believe in as a preservationist and restorer of cast iron.

A: Use what you like. However, if you use metal utensils, you run a higher risk of scratching the cooking surface of your pan, or scraping through your seasoning layers. It comes down to personal preference. I only use wood or silicone-based utensils, but plenty of people use metal ones.

If you use metal utensils, you might just want to avoid scraping your pan with them.

A: Yes and yes. Make sure you preheat your pan low and slow, just like you should on a conventional stove. One of the selling points of induction is that it can heat a pan very quickly. This is not good for cast iron. Cast iron does not heat evenly, so it should be heated slowly in order to get evenly hot. If you heat cast iron on induction too quickly, the pan could crack. This will not be a problem if you make sure to heat your pan slowly.

It will help if you use a smooth-bottom pan, rather than one with a heat ring. A pan with a heat ring will work on induction, but a smooth-bottom pan will work better.

A: No, but yeah, but really no. Also, yeah, it can happen.

Cast iron is often the preferred vessel for folks who melt lead for fishing gear and for making bullets. They usually use cornstick pans or cornbread skillets, but other pieces are used as well. Lead residue is usually visible to the naked eye, but not always. The best rule is “When in doubt, test.”

3M makes a lead test swab that can be found in any hardware store. There are other brands, but I have been told the others are notoriously unreliable and give false positives regularly.

If a piece tests positive (test several times with a trusted test kit), the best thing to do is to drill a few holes through it, so that it cannot be cooked in ever again.

A: Sure! It has the potential to be a very effective home defense tool. I would recommend something modern and medium-sized. I would hate to destroy a perfectly good vintage skillet on a robber’s noggin. I would recommend a skillet no larger than #6-#8 for this purpose, as you will want to wield it quickly.

It should be noted that cast iron pans are NOT good armor against firearms. They are easily penetrated and/or shattered by bullets of even modest caliber.

A: Probably! If you live locally (Portland, Oregon area) and want your cast iron cookware restored, click here!

A: Yes! Depending on what you have and the price you’re asking, I’d be happy to consider buying your cast iron! If you have items for sale, click here!

A: Contact me and I can show you some options.

A: There is no one right answer to this. That said, the top rule is that the BUYER DETERMINES VALUE.

The top things that determine value are brand, condition, rarity, demand, and location.

If I have a skillet that I think is worth $100, but no one is willing to pay more than $50 for it, the pan is worth $50 at most. The pan may be worth $100 a year from now, but that is not for me to know. I have seen plenty of people who, knowingly or unknowingly, try to overcharge for cast iron. Speaking only for myself, I do a good amount of pricing research on pieces I list for sale, and I always try to be fair and reasonable to the buyer.

The most common annoyance I have when purchasing cast iron is that sellers often like to try and sell unrestored pieces for restored prices. An unrestored skillet is worth far less than a properly restored one. A buyer must take into account the time, materials, and expertise that goes into the proper restoration of cast iron. It follows that a buyer should take into account their own time, material costs, and expertise when considering the purchase of unrestored cast iron.

The most common tool used for determining a fair price is to look up the same piece on Ebay, and click on the “sold” tab. People try to sell things for unreasonably high prices, but if you use the “sold” tab, you can get a realistic view of what equivalent pieces actually sold for. There is also a Facebook group called “How Much is My Cast Iron Worth?”