I am honestly worried about my next words.

I have a cast iron skillet. And the thing just came enameled. The instructions from the manufacturer said it had to be carefully washed with mild soap previous to the first use, then milk had to be boiled in it, followed by cooking oil, to then be drained, allowed to cool and cleaned with a non felt cloth.

Well, I dropped it the moment I took out of the box. The enamel chipped and peeled in a couple of places immediatly. It gets banged around. It looks used. It cooks nearly anything I put in it.

But it still sticks.

dish soap can’t melt steel pans

Internet lies about cast irons, Seasoning doesn’t mean flavoring it. It means maturing in this context.

Burn the fucking absolute shitting piss out of it until everything is grey/white ash. Throw it in some water or wipe it with a towel, can add some salt in the towel rub if you wanna scrub some crap off. Once it is less hot, put some oil on that has a high smoke point olive oil or vegetable oil is fine someone is gonna scream about a specific oil, it doesn’t matter.

It’s now ready to go, if you think you’ve ever fucked it up cook the absolute pissing shitting fuck out of it, repeat the cooling and oiling steps. That’s literally it.

Yes you can wash it with soap and water, if you wanna be extra nice dry it by heating it on the stove and maybe apply a little oil to a spot that you feel might look dry/rusty.

Speed run the seasoning by deep frying in it. Deglaze fond rather than scrub it off. Don’t worry about what the internet says too much; they’re pretty hard to fuck up in an unrepairable way.

You can wash it with soap so long as it’s a surfactant soap and not an old timey lye based soap. Like modern dish soaps are perfectly safe. Just don’t like, soak it in water for a long time, water will seep between the layers of seasoning if left to it’s own devices and start rusting the metal.

If crud does stick to it, splash some water in when it’s hot, the high heat will make the water better as dissolving and the steaming will help break stuff off, this works great with most pots and pans TBH.

Avoid cooking anything super acidic in it, like a tomato sauce. The acid will dissolve the iron, arguably a good thing if you’re anemic but it will make the food a little metallic tasting. Will also strip seasoning but that’s not a huge deal since you can easily replace it. Acid in the pan isn’t a big deal, it’s just when you leave it to sit there for a while where it will start to soak up iron.

here’s a picture of a shitty lodge cast iron pan I wash with soap every time I use it.

the whole soap thing is simply not that deep

Most people have already covered rust, water, etc. So my advice is to buy a nice grip or glove for the handle to ease manipulating it while cooking. The good heat distribution results in the handle ending up very hot.

I agree with all the posters here that one does not need to baby a hunk of metal. Just keep it dry and clean.

That having been said …I believe in the Cast Iron Spirits. Do not anger them. Two years ago I had my 25+ years old Lodge in the oven making a pizza, and when I went to take it out of the oven, the handle broke cleanly, perfectly off, spilling my pizza on the floor and my arm, giving me a nasty burn.

So um, yeah; don’t make the spirits angry. Maybe sacrifice a drumstick to them once in a while or something.

Here’s an advanced tip. Go buy some sandpaper. You want to start at something like 200 grit and go up to 1000 if you can find it.

See, modern (and some old) cast iron is low quality and far too rough. But if you sand it super smooth and then reseason it, it will be the best pan you’ve ever used.

High quality cast iron is already finished like this, but companies like Lodge ignore this step.