Cookin' With Coal

ddahlgren wrote:I first tried Crisco with mediocre results and later found out it had been changed from the original then and now using olive oil as local markets had no flaxseed but will keep my eyes open for a small bottle. I did learn that heating the pan hot enough you can not handle without a mit before coating with oil opens the pores of the iron and using as thin a coat as possible is enough. Also put in the oven upside down with a cookie sheet below so any excess drips away. I used the same temp and times with both the Crisco and olive oil then shut off oven and let it cool on it's own so a 3 to 4 hour per coat for 2 to 3 coats. I have found the more I use it the better it gets.

Dave, your cholesterol numbers must not be high. Someone I knew who has high cholesterol, and takes flaxseed oil to help lower it, told me this.

In liquid form, flaxseed oil is expensive and not easy to find.

However, in the vitamin section of drug stores, or Wal-Mart, they sell flaxseed oil capsules. Break a few capsules open and use that oil to coat the pan. You don't need to put on a lot each time.

Paul

Sunny Boy wrote:

ddahlgren wrote:I first tried Crisco with mediocre results and later found out it had been changed from the original then and now using olive oil as local markets had no flaxseed but will keep my eyes open for a small bottle. I did learn that heating the pan hot enough you can not handle without a mit before coating with oil opens the pores of the iron and using as thin a coat as possible is enough. Also put in the oven upside down with a cookie sheet below so any excess drips away. I used the same temp and times with both the Crisco and olive oil then shut off oven and let it cool on it's own so a 3 to 4 hour per coat for 2 to 3 coats. I have found the more I use it the better it gets.

Dave, your cholesterol numbers must not be high. Someone I knew who has high cholesterol, and takes flaxseed oil to help lower it, told me this.

In liquid form, flaxseed oil is expensive and not easy to find.

However, in the vitamin section of drug stores, or Wal-Mart, they sell flaxseed oil capsules. Break a few capsules open and use that oil to coat the pan. You don't need to put on a lot each time.

Paul

You are correct about the oil being expensive. I think I paid $25.00 for a 16 oz bottle in the organic section of the supermarket. I have since found other sources online for $18.99 but then you have to pay shipping. The oil in the pill form sounds like a cheaper way to go if you only have to do a couple of pans.

Randy

You are sort of right as my LDL very good and 10 points below what is average and triglycerides low about 10 below very good but HDL is 76. They wanted to put me on meds because the total number 15 points too high. Called my daughter the RD and feeds entire hospitals she has been to 2 medical schools and interned at Beth Israel in Boston and consulted with Boston General and yale New Haven on many occasions. She said no way don't do it. Told the doctor my daughter said no to the meds. He sort of paused then said your daughter. I let him know she had multiple degrees and the consulting has done and ok was the answer.

As promised, a follow up on the skillet seasoned with flax seed oil. LOVE IT! I cooked sausage peppers and onions last night for dinner, even used metal spatula. Tonight, fried potatoes, onions, habanero peppers, carrots and then topped with grilled chicken cooked over cherry hard wood coals. Again, used a metal spatula to see just how the seasoning held up. I did see some small scratches in the seasoning but it held up very well. This is by far the best oil I have used for seasoning. Just use good ventilation while seasoning the pan because it does smoke and stink. I like this even better than the old version of Crisco that was my old stand by. Tomorrow, I will be using the skillet again for browning beef in preparation for canning it. This is what completely removed the three layers of olive oil seasoning on the pan last week. I did not use anything acidic, used olive oil to brown the beef. When all the beef was browned, I threw in some onions and some water to deglaze the pan and used that brown sauce to cover the beef before pressure canning. The entire bottom of the pan was back to bare iron. Will update again after tomorrow's canning excursion.

Randy

My grandmother had a bunch of wooden cooking utensils there may be a clue there.

Even Wikipedia weighs in on seasoning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasoning_(cookware)

" ................. Once the pan has been heated, dried, and thinly layered with oil or fat, it is placed in an oven, grill, or other heating enclosure for the oil to be polymerized onto the metal's surface. The process of polymerization is dependent on the oil, temperature of the enclosure, and the duration. The precise details of the seasoning process differ from one source to another, and there is much controversy regarding the correct oil to use. There is also no clear consensus with the correct temperature and duration. Lodge Manufacturing uses a proprietary soybean blend in their base coats as stated on their website. Others use lard, or animal fats. Some advocate the use of food-grade flaxseed oil (a drying oil).[8] Likewise, the recommended temperature for seasoning varies to high temperatures above 260 °C (500 °F), while some recommend a lower temperature below 150 °C (302 °F). Some say that a temperature around the smoke point of the oil or fat should be targeted since this will allow vaporization of impurities from the oil, and polymerization and carbonization to occur. And, there is also no clear determination of the correct duration of heat to use. Anywhere from half an hour to an hour is often recommended. ................................ "

I did some tests, last winter, using an IR gun to see what the pan's surface temps were when different commonly used oils/fats started to smoke. One of the lowest smoke temp ones was bacon fat. No wonder the house gets so smoky when we used to fry it !!

Close not much higher than bacon was extra virgin, light olive oil, which when it smoked and burned, left a very bad taste in food. Higher up the temp scale was the latest version of Crisco. One of the highest was vegetable oil.

I didn't have flaxseed oil at the time, to try. But now that I do, just to see how it compares temp-wise, I will be comparing it to vegetable oil when I get the range fired up. May pick up some peanut oil, because I hear that's one of the better choices to use

Paul

Sunny Boy wrote:Even Wikipedia weighs in on seasoning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasoning_(cookware)

" ................. Once the pan has been heated, dried, and thinly layered with oil or fat, it is placed in an oven, grill, or other heating enclosure for the oil to be polymerized onto the metal's surface. The process of polymerization is dependent on the oil, temperature of the enclosure, and the duration. The precise details of the seasoning process differ from one source to another, and there is much controversy regarding the correct oil to use. There is also no clear consensus with the correct temperature and duration. Lodge Manufacturing uses a proprietary soybean blend in their base coats as stated on their website. Others use lard, or animal fats. Some advocate the use of food-grade flaxseed oil (a drying oil).[8] Likewise, the recommended temperature for seasoning varies to high temperatures above 260 °C (500 °F), while some recommend a lower temperature below 150 °C (302 °F). Some say that a temperature around the smoke point of the oil or fat should be targeted since this will allow vaporization of impurities from the oil, and polymerization and carbonization to occur. And, there is also no clear determination of the correct duration of heat to use. Anywhere from half an hour to an hour is often recommended. ................................ "

I did some tests, last winter, using an IR gun to see what the pan's surface temps were when different commonly used oils/fats started to smoke. One of the lowest smoke temp ones was bacon fat. No wonder the house gets so smoky when we used to fry it !!

Close not much higher than bacon was extra virgin, light olive oil, which when it smoked and burned, left a very bad taste in food. Higher up the temp scale was the latest version of Crisco. One of the highest was vegetable oil.

I didn't have flaxseed oil at the time, to try. But now that I do, just to see how it compares temp-wise, I will be comparing it to vegetable oil when I get the range fired up. May pick up some peanut oil, because I hear that's one of the better choices to use

Paul

I certainly don't know the answer to any of this either, but the one things that no one has ever talked about is the actual microstructure of grey cast iron - which is the base material these cast iron pots and pans are made from. I've watched these discussions for years with all the backs and forths of "you have to do it this way or that way". But no one ever talked about the actual material itself and how it's structure may come to play in the seasoning of the piece. Grey cast iron has tons of graphite in its microstructure. So I always thought that besides the surface layer everyone talks about, it seems the oil has to penetrate into the underlying graphite and then during cooking seep back out giving a lubrication to what you are cooking. Whenever I have seasoned pans, I've always noticed that during the process some areas seem to get "dry", almost like the oil on the surface is being pulled into these graphite channels. I've often thought about what it would take to figure it out but since it would entail sectioning up pans and looking at the microstructure and using some fairly sophisticated analytical techniques (i.e. spend a lot of money) I never had the where-with-all to actually see if that is happening... Below I attach an image of the microstructure that I'm talking about.

Well, it was cool enough today that we decided to get some canning done early, so the range being ready, I fired it up.

Plus, I wanted to see how well the insulation helped that I installed inside the rear heat shield.
I posted about that installation project back on the bottom of page 95.

Since our peach tree didn't bear fruit this year, we picked up a case at the local supermarket. They bring them up from somewhere in Pennsylvania and everyone raves about how good they are. I prefer them as jelly, so we made a couple of batches.

Up until now, the oven would only get to about 450 F pushing the stove really hot. That's measured with the remote sensor probe laying in the bottom on the far side from the firebox. Someday I'll mount it about half way up to get a better reading.

With the insulation added to the heat shield box on the back of the oven, the wall behind the oven, an outside wall of the house was cooler by about 20 degrees and the oven easily made it to 475 F. More haet in the oven and less getting to the outside of the house. And that 475 was not pushing the stove hard. It was only running with a normal cooking stack temp of 165, mano of .04, and that's with an outdoor temp of 76 F. The insulation was well worth adding. In fact, I'm going to also insulate the top and bottom of the heat shield.

So, back to canning. Two batches of peach jelly, some pickled beets, two batches of pickled zucchini, and a couple of bags of blanched pole beans for the freezer.

While that was going on we also cooked dinner. I baked a ham and Swiss casserole, while Melissa boiled corn on the cob and more pole beans fresh from the garden. With the oven able to run so much hotter, I now have to learn shorter baking times to prevent burning food. Or get used to eating carbon cooked by carbon !

The old stove did a lot of cooking/baking and all on a day when it was 76 degrees outside - where so many think that a coal stove won't work. We know better, don't we ?

Enjoy,

Paul

I already had my dinner... Now I'm hungry again

I am surprised that the stove worked that well for you with it this warm outside! Although, you have a chimney that reaches half way to heaven. LOL

I canned the beef today and browned all of it down in the skillet. The skillets looked almost as good as they did when I started, a little less shiny but the seasoning looked good. I really think the flax seed it the best oil that I have tried so far. I am happy.

Randy

Yeah, a tall chimney helps. I've had no problem running the range when it got up to 80 outside. But, in oven mode, even with the water reservoir off, it gets too hot in the kitchen. As soon as we were done cooking, I dampered it down to a crawl and let it burn out over night.

Just glad to see that insulating the heat shield on the back of the oven made such a difference. Now, I don't have to push the range hotter to get the oven hot enough for crispy pizza crusts. And it's also a sign that less heat is going to that outside wall to heat the neighborhood.

Glad to hear the flaxseed oil is working well. I was going to get started re-seasoning one of my cast iron pans, but the ham & Swiss casserole won out for best use of the oven time !

In September, we'll be into full-time stove weather here. Then there'll be time to redo the pan.

Was that pan you just re-did, the Lodge pan that the factory finish came off ? Just wondering how the Flaxseed oil compares to Lodge's soybean oil factory preseasoned pans ?

Paul

Sunny Boy wrote:Yeah, a tall chimney helps. I've had no problem running the range when it got up to 80 outside. But, in oven mode, even with the water reservoir off, it gets too hot in the kitchen. As soon as we were done cooking, I dampered it down to a crawl and let it burn out over night.

Just glad to see that insulating the heat shield on the back of the oven made such a difference. Now, I don't have to push the range hotter to get the oven hot enough for crispy pizza crusts. And it's also a sign that less heat is going to that outside wall to heat the neighborhood.

Glad to hear the flaxseed oil is working well. I was going to get started re-seasoning one of my cast iron pans, but the ham & Swiss casserole won out for best use of the oven time !

In September, we'll be into full-time stove weather here. Then there'll be time to redo the pan.

Was that pan you just re-did, the Lodge pan that the factory finish came off ? Just wondering how the Flaxseed oil compares to Lodge's soybean oil factory preseasoned pans ?

Paul

Glad to hear the insulation worked out for you. With coal, it can sometimes become a challenge to get the oven hot enough for some things.

I have used the flax seed oil on two different pans now. One was the Lodges the other one was from Paula Dean (made in China) The Lodges was a new pan last Fall, but when I stripped those 10 pans this Spring, I stripped that one too because I do not like their pre-seasoning. The seasoning from the PD pan was already starting to peel off so I stripped that one too. In my opinion, the flaxseed oil is much better than the original seasoning. I had pans that after about 4 years of use, the original seasoning starts to flake off. I cannot take photos of them because I stripped all of them now, or I could show you what I mean. It turns the pans really black too, where the olive oil and Crisco did not darken the pans that much in that short a time period. Another reason, I wanted to strip these two pans was because I wanted to sand the interior to a smoother surface. I was thinking this was why the other oils did not stick as well to the smooth surface. The Flax seed oil stuck to it with no problems at all.

Randy

Good choice decision on the ham & Swiss casserole!

Just as a side note - the use of linseed oil mixed with beeswax is a formula for turning wrought iron black and helping it not rust. Used by blacksmiths a hundred years ago and before... Maybe you want to take a small chunk of beeswax, melt it into your flaxseed oil and apply that to your cookware. I wonder if that would improve that particular treatment... Beeswax is edible....

dj

I think it's more about oils turning into layer of carbon to fill in and smooth the surface than about corrosion protection. While it may seen non-stick at lower temps, I wonder how well beeswax would work as a non-stick layer at high temps ?

As you mention, It's long been used in metal work - and especially hundreds of years in furniture finishes - still is for the restoration purists. If it was good for non-stick cooking I can't help but think we'd have heard more about it ????

Here's more about the science that is happening when seasoning cast iron pans.

http://www.scienceofcooking.com/cast_iron_cooking.htm

Paul

Sunny Boy wrote:I think it's more about oils turning into layer of carbon to fill in and smooth the surface than about corrosion protection. While it may seen non-stick at lower temps, I wonder how well beeswax would work as a non-stick layer at high temps ?

As you mention, It's long been used in metal work - and especially hundreds of years in furniture finishes - still is for the restoration purists. If it was good for non-stick cooking I can't help but think we'd have heard more about it ????

Here's more about the science that is happening when seasoning cast iron pans.

http://www.scienceofcooking.com/cast_iron_cooking.htm

Paul

Like I said before, I've been following these kinds of discussions on how to season cast iron for a long time. None of them address the question I mentioned above. Neither have they addressed the observation of how the cast iron seems to absorb oil when being seasoned. It seems to me that the cast iron can absorb oil. The only "scientific" answer to that appears to me lies in the fact that there are millions of small "canals" where the oil can penetrate - the graphite structure of the grey iron itself.

I would not be at all surprised that nobody has ever tried mixing beeswax into their flaxseed oil. Why would they?

dj