Just some small stuff.
I get a B-12 shot this week, been a month since the last one AND I have to admit that for some reason this B-12 shot hit me like a ton of bricks. I cannot believe the energy I have had this time around. And being it is the tail end of the month and I still feel relatively good is just amazing. My case of the blues/depression/despondency is gone and has not come back. Just amazing. Am going to mention it to the nurse Thursday. Gonna ask her if they have been giving me placebo shots before.
Also.
We have had a 10.5 inch iron skillet sitting outside for a couple of years. The wife used to use it for cooking bacon on the grill but when I fell down and played dead she stopped using it. So just been laying around in the elements.
Well, let me tell you... I found a recipe to rejuvenate the cast iron online and used it and it worked perfectly. Basic ingredients were/are oven cleaner, water, white vinegar. So if you run across a cast iron skillet rejuvenator damn sure give it a try. Just be careful handling the skillet I looked away and ended up burning my thumb. Had a small inkling on hell thats for sure.
As a matter of fact here it is:
All that is needed for the reconditioning
process are a few inexpensive, readily available items:
Heavy-duty Oven Cleaner (I used Easy-Off)*
Gloves
Garbage Bags
White Distilled Vinegar
Steel Wool (#0000) or a scratch pad
Since some commenters have
had some concerns about the oven cleaner, I wanted to give a little more
information about the chemicals.
Oven
cleaner contains lye, which IS a caustic agent, typically sodium hydroxide or
potassium hydroxide. The lye residue is washed off of the skillet, neutralized
with an acid soak (vinegar), then washed again and coated with seasoning.
Lye is
used in many everyday items such as soap; it also shows up in food preparation,
from olive curing, to lutefisk (eww), to making authentic pretzels. It's also
used for biodiesel!
Lye is very hygroscopic, meaning it
will pull moisture out of the air. This is why, when being used on grimy cast
iron, the aerosol foam ends up becoming a brown liquid. It's dissolving when it
contacts the air, which results in VERY little if any of the lye being absorbed
into the metal.
Even groups such as the Griswold & Cast Iron Cookware
Association RECOMMEND the oven cleaner method for reconditioning cast iron.
Some people advise using high heat or
a self-cleaning oven cycle (which uses high heat) to clean cast iron. I shy
away from this method mainly because the majority of my cast iron collection is
antique. High heat CAN and WILL warp or even crack fragile cast iron. Plus, my
oven doesn't have a self-cleaning cycle. I also can't simply throw my cast iron
in a fire, being that I live in the suburbs, and setting yard fires is strongly
frowned upon here!
NOTE: This method is for 'plain' cast iron ONLY. It is NOT
for enameled cast iron such as Le Creuset. Do NOT try this with enameled cast
iron.
Coat the cast iron piece (top and bottom)
with the oven cleaner, making sure to wear gloves. Oven cleaner is basically
aerosolized lye foam and is very caustic. It WILL burn your skin. Place the
coated piece in a garbage bag and seal tightly to prevent the oven cleaner from
drying out.
This is where patience comes in. You will
need to wait several days for the oven cleaner to loosen and remove the old
seasoning. I usually check after 2 days, then wipe off the cleaner and apply a
fresh coat and check again after 3 days.
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Griswold
skillet after a 2-day soak in oven cleaner.
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For especially grimy pieces, letting the
pieces soak for about a week is usually sufficient. Once the old seasoning has
been removed, the skillet will be restored to it's original cast. The iron will
be a silvery-gray color. There may still be surface rust present, which has to
be removed before the skillet can be seasoned.
Remove the lye and old seasoning by wiping
off the grime with a paper towel and then washing the skillet with hot water.
Next, the lye needs to be neutralized,
and any surface rust will need to be softened to make it easier to remove. Soak
the cleaned skillet in a 2:1 solution of hot water and white distilled vinegar
for 30-60 minutes. This should soften any surface rust enough that it can be
easily scrubbed away with steel wool. Wash the skillet with soap and hot water
and dry it thoroughly.
At this point, the skillet has been cleaned
down to the bare metal and must be seasoned immediately to prevent rusting.
To season, place the cleaned, dry skillet
upside-down in a 250-degree oven for 15 minutes. Increase the temperature to
500 degrees and let the skillet heat up for 45 minutes. At this point, the
skillet will be EXTREMELY hot, so be careful removing it from the oven. Turn
off the oven.
Season the skillet with a coating of lard. (I don't but they did ) I
render my own lard for cooking and baking, but use inexpensive store bought lard
for seasoning. Some people also use shortening (Crisco) or olive oil. Rub the
lard all over the entire skillet with paper towels; the hot skillet will absorb
the oil and begin to turn brown.
(THIS IS WHERE I BURNT MY THUMB. I had a pot holder wrapped around the skillet handle, I turned my attention to getting some Criscoe out of the can and the pot holder opened slightly so that when I went to clamp down on the handle my thumb hit the 500 degree cast iron.)
The oil will likely smoke as well; this is
normal. Using clean paper towels, rub off the excess oil so that the skillet
just appears wet. With seasoning, like painting, your aim should be for
multiple thin layers rather than a single thick layer.
Return the
oiled skillet to the oven (upside-down to prevent pooling) and let the skillet
cool while the oven cools. Wipe any excess oil off every 10-15 minutes to
prevent any pooling or buildup. Every 30 minutes or so, repeat seasoning with a
fresh application of lard or oil, remembering to wipe off the excess oil. After
one hour, open the oven door slightly to help cool the oven faster. At this point, the skillet should be
completely reconditioned, seasoned and ready.
Here is my pan all cleaned up and ready to use. I, seriously, cannot tell you in how bad a shape it was in. Really terrible caked crap and rust.
