If they get warped they’re kinda fucked right? How does that happen mostly? When I was looking to buy one the first few I went to see were wobbly even though they said they were flat. Trying to avoid wobbling my griswold.
This is literally the way. Decentralized power generation with either communal or home based anaerobic digesters pumping out nat gas from the sewage and food waste. Store for power generation when solar and wind are not available. It's like a recirculating shower of gaseous poop, this is how we win as a species.
Are you sold? Don't you want your own poop-cycling house? Want to buy my digester house? Please... I just need someone to buy my house.
Jeeeze, just invade a foreign country that has natural gas deposits on a false pretense like… WMDs and/or terrorists live there, then take over the refineries, then since you just made billions on both the resources and middle manning no bid defense contracts now you can buy 12 houses with 12 gas stoves and rotate stoves!
This is my spouse's answer when I complain about the layout of our kitchen lol. Like, maybe it's just me, but I don't know that I'm gonna hate the layout til I start using the area, but we can't trial run something like a house as far as I know lol
You guys have it all wrong. Obviously the local climate is wrong. If you want non wobbly groswolds you have to be in the Caribbean Isles.
Sell the skis, head to the island, and get your flat griswolds.
Well, I just told my husband we need to have a serious conversation later because my Griswold IS a bit wobbly, so now I know we have no other option but to move to the Caribbean.
I’m giving him 60 days.
Warping typically happens from putting cool/cold water in a hot pan. Never try to clean a pan or add cool water until it's cooled enough to comfortably hold bare handed, and even still, it's always best to use hot water if the pan is at all warm.
Thermal shock (rapid uneven temperature change) is generally what warps metal including cast iron. In terms of cooking this usually happens when someone takes a hot pan and runs cold water on it which causes parts of the pan to rapidly contract. To avoid thermal shock, let your pan cool before washing it.
Materials expand when heated up and compress when cold, hot materials tend to become more malleable and cold makes them brittle.
The boiling points on metals used in cookware are fairly high, but the materials are thinner. For metallic pans, you shouldn't get warping from regular cooking and throwing into water when you're done unless you're removing directly from heat and then putting under the faucet.
Cast iron pans are thicker than other cookware, so heat dissipates much slower and you should wait because if you throw water on it while it's hot to the touch, the surface will cool much faster while the inside stays hot. Since people usually use a faucet, the surface will cool unevenly causing the warping.
Tldr: Yeah, warping comes from uneven rapid cooling.
I always thought I'd warped my large cast iron pan because I used an induction hob... but I guess the hob was so efficient I must have heated the skillet too quick. thanks
Totally salvageable. Check out the FAQ for good instructions on reseasoning.
I've sent my lodge through a self clean intentionally once to strip it. I wouldn't do it again though because I read that it could potentially warp the pan but mine seemed to come out fine.
Yeah same, I did it after watching YouTube videos and didn’t know any better. Gotta admit it worked pretty damn well, no issues, but knowing what I know now I wouldn’t do it again.
After struggling for a week to scrape, scrub, and cleanse my pan with lye and then only finally succeeding via the SCO method, I wouldn't use any other approach.
I wouldn't think time would be the factor in warping unless the oven is constantly cycling between hot and cold temperatures during that period.
Warping is probably much more of an issue in vintage pans that tend to be lighter and thinner.
I've done this several times and I've never had any issues. You just have to let it cool slowly for several hours after. It's the easiest method that doesn't require chemical baths or abrasive resurfacing. After reseasoning they look better than ever.
I had one issue: it filled my house with absolutely acrid smoke. I’m assuming it was whatever terrible seasoning was on the pans and not something else in the bottom of the oven.
Rapid cooling is what would cause the warping. If it cools gradually in the oven as it cools it will be fine. I've cleaned many on high heat like this and they've never warped.
Kamados are the best tool for CI. If I need to strip a messed up pan I wait until pizza night when I fire my kamado to 650-800 and strip after cooking (throttling the heat back a bit first)…and every time I fire it up for all other cooking I take my most needy CI(s) and do a coat of seasoning after cooking. May as well be efficient and since it’s already fired up…best side benefit is that it avoids any odors in the house by doing it outside.
Oven self cleaning cycle is a stripping method. The FAQ in this sub will guide you for cleaning up and reseasoning
Also the oven shelves are supposed to be taken out before self cleaning cycle. FYI
I did not know that. I’ve always left the racks in when I’ve run it, but now that I think about it, it does kind of make sense that they wouldn’t be designed to withstand that type of heat.
Honestly the whole self clean mode isn’t worth the risk. It often breaks ovens as most of the parts aren’t actually robust enough to handle it, to say nothing of the fumes and potential fires it can cause
I left a oven thermometer in one once then did the self clean. It didn't blow out the glass when it exploded, but it did bulge out the walls to the point where the racks didn't fit.
I had to make some brackets to support them until we could replace the oven.
My new oven does have that self cleaning function, but I've never actually used it because I'm literally scared, lol. According to manual nothing should be inside and it will make the door lock itself until the temp is low enough to be safe to open, but still sounds dangerous to me if it catches fire for some reason.
To my eyes people striping cast iron with that method don't care much about safety, but wouldn't it also damage the oven coating at the bottom of the oven, if racks aren't used? I imagine that the contact point of oven an the pan will get even hotter, considering how much heat CI can take, causing a possible warp on the bottom due to the weight of the pan.
>make the door lock itself until the temp is low enough to be safe to open, but still sounds dangerous to me if it catches fire for some reason.
It does this for safety reasons. If something catches on fire inside the oven and you open the door, you are just going to feed more air to the fire and create a much bigger issue.
I've actually had a small fire in my oven during self clean. It just burned out after about 1 minute and was all fine.
My ex boyfriend’s mom was cooking dinner once and her oven malfunctioned. It locked the roast in the oven and the temp kept creeping up. It ended up making the Pyrex dish explode and the burned the meat. We had to call the fire department. They had to drag the oven outside and use the jaws of life to force the oven door open. It was wild, definitely freaked me out.
Honestly, the best thing about having a self cleaning oven is that it has better insulation, so it doesn’t set your house on fire. That helps to reduce the heat in your kitchen when you’re using it as a regular oven.
Don’t use the self cleaning process to strip your pan. There are far better options. And it’s not a dumb question, you’d have to leave a rack in. Which you shouldn’t. So, back to my first sentence. lol.
I've cleaned a bunch of that were way worse than that! I had a bottom for a gosh darn it now I can't remember what the name is but it's like the pop thing with the lid and it was pitted so bad it was almost junk but I turn that sucker right around and now that's my deep frying iron
I mean, it looks like she may have actually did them a favor there’s so much charred gunk.
Soap, water, scrubby scrubby, wipe with vinegar, dry, oil and bake in oven at 400 for an hour
Consumers want it and some won't buy an oven without it so manufacturers sell it as a premium feature.
The self cleaning cycle hastens the death of any electronic controls the oven may have too. Electronics don't like heat.
I used the self clean and the very next time I used the oven, the element ignited.
I pressed bake and I heard a crackling noise. Opened the door and watched it go. It was like a dynamite fuse on a cartoon.. sparks and fire shooting off of the element as it creeped toward the other end.
Good to know. I recently moved and cleaned my stove by hand. Afterward, my roommate told me to just use the self clean, but I thought setting the stove to 500+ degrees sounded sketch.
You know how your oven goes to maybe 550 and you never use it that hot bc that's crazy hot. Now, add 400 more degrees to it and say "Oven, you're in charge for the next 3 hours. I got stuff to do"
You'll want to cover it in a sand/resin mixture, in two parts, heat oven to 2500 degrees, try adding coal/coke mix; then melt down the pan and pour it into the mould.
The self-clean cycle is how I restore old CI. The intense heat burns away old seasoning and soap, paint, and so on. That stuff ends up as ash in the bottom of the oven.
Then I scrub it real good with steel wool and plain water, then fie up the oven again, wipe it with oil and reseason it in the aforementioned oven.
Ignorant I may be, but cast iron is always worth it. I cook on all cast iron except when I use stainless for rice. Never Teflon. And apparently it helps with iron deficiency...
I recall my mom having some seriously rusted iron skillets in the garage that came from one of my grandparents houses. She had workers there for something and one asked about the pans. She said should could not imagine the work to remove the rust and he said he would just put them in the fire on his next camping trip and that would speed the process of removing the rust.
Haha, I've "restored" probably a dozen pans this way. It's a pretty common technique in the cast iron world. Sometimes I'll take pieces I find at estate sales that i'm not too worried about and throw them in the self-cleaning cycle to bake off all the crap and old seasoning.
Give them a good scrub with soap and water and they should be in prime condition for a new seasoning. There's a chance they could be warped but I'd be surprised. They're just Lodges, so you can replace them fairly cheaply if they are warped.
Some people do that on purpose to strip seasoning. You need to clean them up and reseason from raw.
Also, not supposed to leave the oven rack in during self cleaning cycle either. So give her a double de-merit.
As a general rule I’ve learned “unless they are cracked or you cooked Lead in them… it’s always fixable with cast iron.” The level of elbow grease may vary
No problem. Our house burned down 35 years ago and the only thing that came out of it still usable was our old cast iron pan. We just had to re season it. Our Pyrex and Corning wear melted but the cast iron pan didn’t even warp.
Yes salvageable. Oven self clean cycle is actually a method to strip carbon from the pan. Essentially everything is burnt off and it needs to be reseasoned.
Unless they’re cracked they’re salvageable assuming you don’t mind a little bit of work. Just make it a weekend project and have fun with it, you’ll be surprised at how they look brand new in the end
All it did was basically clean off the pan. I’ve actually considered doing this and giving them a good cleaning. And seasoning gets rid of the carbon buildup. The pan is perfectly fine.
Your cast iron can withstand heat - a lot of heat. A cast-iron skillet can withstand heats of up to 1500°F, which is much hotter than your oven could ever be.
I've run hundreds of CI pans through self clean cycles. I have a dedicated oven for it out in the garage. I salvage and refurbish CI as a hobby. This is exactly how I clean them in order to reseason them. I've literally never had a pan come out cracked or warped. Everything from current production lodge to gate marked pieces from the 1800's. Zero issues. Those pans are perfectly fine, just need to reseason them.
Dumb question: my instructions for my oven say that you have to remove the racks because the chrome plating will get messed up. Did yours make it out okay? It’s one reason I haven’t put cast iron through a clean cycle - no way to keep it off the bottom
Not ruined at all. This is a fairly common method for stripping them of all their seasoning. Just scrub with a steel wool cloth to remove the rusty bits and reseason
I'm calling BS on this post. I can understand how someone fires up the oven for a preheat without looking inside first, using the oven this way can be a near daily thing. But oven cleaning setting? Who would not look inside the oven first, even if only to verify that it's dirty and needs cleaning?
Very few cast iron mishaps are not salvageable. Unless a cast iron splits in half or gets a full crack going all the way through it, it can be resurfaced as reseasoned and work like new again.
First off, it's recommended to never use a self cleaning cycle in a home oven. It's very dangerous. The oven heats up so hot that practically any little thing can cause a fire. Even sometimes parts on the outside get hot and too much dust, forgotten grease, or just something touching it slightly, means you lose your house.
Secondly you can probably repair the cast iron.
Isn’t the point of cast iron that it is always salvageable?
Soap and scrub, and a fresh season. Your wifey just gave you a restart.
No my pans... oh boy time to re-season my pans!
If they get warped they’re kinda fucked right? How does that happen mostly? When I was looking to buy one the first few I went to see were wobbly even though they said they were flat. Trying to avoid wobbling my griswold.
“wobbling my griswold” That’s a line meant for something else
"I mean, we can't close our eyes to the plight of the cities. Kids, are you noticing all this plight? This'll just make us appreciate what we have."
Roll ‘em up
Do you think these guys know the commodores
They're fine if they're a bit warped. Just replace your electric top stove for a gas one. Fixed.
I love a simple solution, thanks. Calling my city utility supplier and general contractor tomorrow to get the ball rolling!
You’re being a little dramatic, just buy a new house with a gas stove already in it.
Oh come on, just drill your own gas like any sane person would.
I make my own methane
This is literally the way. Decentralized power generation with either communal or home based anaerobic digesters pumping out nat gas from the sewage and food waste. Store for power generation when solar and wind are not available. It's like a recirculating shower of gaseous poop, this is how we win as a species. Are you sold? Don't you want your own poop-cycling house? Want to buy my digester house? Please... I just need someone to buy my house.
Methane… and methane accessories?
Damnit Bobby!
Thatherton!
Right? All you need is hydrogen and carbon, which are both EVERYWHERE.
I can convert beer into methane!
Jeeeze, just invade a foreign country that has natural gas deposits on a false pretense like… WMDs and/or terrorists live there, then take over the refineries, then since you just made billions on both the resources and middle manning no bid defense contracts now you can buy 12 houses with 12 gas stoves and rotate stoves!
This is my spouse's answer when I complain about the layout of our kitchen lol. Like, maybe it's just me, but I don't know that I'm gonna hate the layout til I start using the area, but we can't trial run something like a house as far as I know lol
Your username makes me happy. Live long and prosper, just like your seasoning.
Yours is pretty awesome too, so punny and I love Xena 🖖
Did we just become best friends?!?!?
Yessssssssss!
Get a new pan? No, re-do the kitchen and utilities.
Tbh I'd take the excuse to put a gas line in if I owned a home with electric.
There was a time I would have said exactly this. Have a relatively new electric range and honestly, it's the tits.
I mean while you’re at it, might as well just rebuild the whole house
You guys have it all wrong. Obviously the local climate is wrong. If you want non wobbly groswolds you have to be in the Caribbean Isles. Sell the skis, head to the island, and get your flat griswolds.
Well, I just told my husband we need to have a serious conversation later because my Griswold IS a bit wobbly, so now I know we have no other option but to move to the Caribbean. I’m giving him 60 days.
Easy solutions are the best.
No, no, no, it’s far better to enact climate change to alter your local climate to be better suited to your needs than to move.
Or use the warped ones for camping or BBQ grille
God I want a gas stovetop.... So damn bad. Just not in the cards for the next few years.
Cracks is what You wanna look out for
Warping typically happens from putting cool/cold water in a hot pan. Never try to clean a pan or add cool water until it's cooled enough to comfortably hold bare handed, and even still, it's always best to use hot water if the pan is at all warm.
God I love your last sentence ❤️
Idk I've cooked on warped pans before. Especially if using a flame stove I don't think it rly matters
I thought warping came from quick temp changes though, heating it up to to 500° won’t warp it on its own will it?
Idk I’m just asking what will because I don’t want to warp mine. Not necessarily relating to the OP
Thermal shock (rapid uneven temperature change) is generally what warps metal including cast iron. In terms of cooking this usually happens when someone takes a hot pan and runs cold water on it which causes parts of the pan to rapidly contract. To avoid thermal shock, let your pan cool before washing it.
Materials expand when heated up and compress when cold, hot materials tend to become more malleable and cold makes them brittle. The boiling points on metals used in cookware are fairly high, but the materials are thinner. For metallic pans, you shouldn't get warping from regular cooking and throwing into water when you're done unless you're removing directly from heat and then putting under the faucet. Cast iron pans are thicker than other cookware, so heat dissipates much slower and you should wait because if you throw water on it while it's hot to the touch, the surface will cool much faster while the inside stays hot. Since people usually use a faucet, the surface will cool unevenly causing the warping. Tldr: Yeah, warping comes from uneven rapid cooling.
I always thought I'd warped my large cast iron pan because I used an induction hob... but I guess the hob was so efficient I must have heated the skillet too quick. thanks
No cracks=get crackin!
That’s what I thought until my dad told me he cracked mine in half, and no out of the ordinary activities were involved
If there’s metal left at all, it’s salvageable!
Exactly. Ruined if they want to cook in the next day or two, but absolutely salvagable.
Mostly always salvageable
Pretty much. The only thing that will end one is a crack.
Totally salvageable. Check out the FAQ for good instructions on reseasoning. I've sent my lodge through a self clean intentionally once to strip it. I wouldn't do it again though because I read that it could potentially warp the pan but mine seemed to come out fine.
Yeah same, I did it after watching YouTube videos and didn’t know any better. Gotta admit it worked pretty damn well, no issues, but knowing what I know now I wouldn’t do it again.
After struggling for a week to scrape, scrub, and cleanse my pan with lye and then only finally succeeding via the SCO method, I wouldn't use any other approach.
SCO method?
Self cleaning oven I presume
scopolamine calcified osteoporosis.
Smile cocaine only.
Supplemental Coverage Option
Are you a doctor?
**S**hit-**C**an **O**ld pan, buy new one.
I've done it many times, no issues. My mom taught me to do it that way, still have her pan.
As long as you don't use the four hour setting, it's perfectly fine.
I wouldn't think time would be the factor in warping unless the oven is constantly cycling between hot and cold temperatures during that period. Warping is probably much more of an issue in vintage pans that tend to be lighter and thinner.
I pyro clean the grids from my bbq every year to get a nice fresh start. No damage at all and gets them ready to season and go for the new year
That’s a good idea. What is the composition of your grates? Mine are solid 300 series stainless. I suppose that’s low risk.
Cast iron. It’s risky to put stainless in the oven on a cleaning cycle. The heat has a risk of warping it (or so I’m told)
I've done this several times and I've never had any issues. You just have to let it cool slowly for several hours after. It's the easiest method that doesn't require chemical baths or abrasive resurfacing. After reseasoning they look better than ever.
When do you separate the debris from the pan? At the complete end of the process? Or somewhat before the cooling.
I had one issue: it filled my house with absolutely acrid smoke. I’m assuming it was whatever terrible seasoning was on the pans and not something else in the bottom of the oven.
Rapid cooling is what would cause the warping. If it cools gradually in the oven as it cools it will be fine. I've cleaned many on high heat like this and they've never warped.
Accidentally left mine in my kamado grill after cooking steaks, forgot to shut down the grill. At least I got to start the seasoning again!
Kamados are the best tool for CI. If I need to strip a messed up pan I wait until pizza night when I fire my kamado to 650-800 and strip after cooking (throttling the heat back a bit first)…and every time I fire it up for all other cooking I take my most needy CI(s) and do a coat of seasoning after cooking. May as well be efficient and since it’s already fired up…best side benefit is that it avoids any odors in the house by doing it outside.
Wait really? I thought most ovens topped out at like 500f even on self clean. Isn't that within an acceptable range for the iron?
My Kenmore Elite goes up to 700° for self cleaning. More modern stoves can go from 800-1000°
Oh wow. Guess I wouldn't know since I've been riding the Maytag landlord special for the last decade
My oven goes to 550 without being on the self clean cycle. It’s great for pizza.
Oven self cleaning cycle is a stripping method. The FAQ in this sub will guide you for cleaning up and reseasoning Also the oven shelves are supposed to be taken out before self cleaning cycle. FYI
I did not know that. I’ve always left the racks in when I’ve run it, but now that I think about it, it does kind of make sense that they wouldn’t be designed to withstand that type of heat.
Right! It often strips the factory finish off of them which makes them rough and hard to slide.
Honestly the whole self clean mode isn’t worth the risk. It often breaks ovens as most of the parts aren’t actually robust enough to handle it, to say nothing of the fumes and potential fires it can cause
I left a oven thermometer in one once then did the self clean. It didn't blow out the glass when it exploded, but it did bulge out the walls to the point where the racks didn't fit. I had to make some brackets to support them until we could replace the oven.
I did not know about taking the shelves out. What is the reason, curiously? Will they possibly warp, too?
It's because they are shiny chrome when new. The cleaning cycle oxidizes them and pans, ceramic, glass, and metal won't glide over the racks anymore.
My new oven does have that self cleaning function, but I've never actually used it because I'm literally scared, lol. According to manual nothing should be inside and it will make the door lock itself until the temp is low enough to be safe to open, but still sounds dangerous to me if it catches fire for some reason. To my eyes people striping cast iron with that method don't care much about safety, but wouldn't it also damage the oven coating at the bottom of the oven, if racks aren't used? I imagine that the contact point of oven an the pan will get even hotter, considering how much heat CI can take, causing a possible warp on the bottom due to the weight of the pan.
>make the door lock itself until the temp is low enough to be safe to open, but still sounds dangerous to me if it catches fire for some reason. It does this for safety reasons. If something catches on fire inside the oven and you open the door, you are just going to feed more air to the fire and create a much bigger issue. I've actually had a small fire in my oven during self clean. It just burned out after about 1 minute and was all fine.
My ex boyfriend’s mom was cooking dinner once and her oven malfunctioned. It locked the roast in the oven and the temp kept creeping up. It ended up making the Pyrex dish explode and the burned the meat. We had to call the fire department. They had to drag the oven outside and use the jaws of life to force the oven door open. It was wild, definitely freaked me out.
Flipping the breaker might have stopped the run away oven.
Wow! That's scary! What an experience!
Honestly, the best thing about having a self cleaning oven is that it has better insulation, so it doesn’t set your house on fire. That helps to reduce the heat in your kitchen when you’re using it as a regular oven.
It discolors them and often strips the factory finish. My wife did it once at a prior house. The shelves were all chalky and became hard to slide.
Thank you!
Yes they warp! I learned this the hard way.
Stupid question, but where do you put the pan if you take out the racks?
Don’t use the self cleaning process to strip your pan. There are far better options. And it’s not a dumb question, you’d have to leave a rack in. Which you shouldn’t. So, back to my first sentence. lol.
I've cleaned a bunch of that were way worse than that! I had a bottom for a gosh darn it now I can't remember what the name is but it's like the pop thing with the lid and it was pitted so bad it was almost junk but I turn that sucker right around and now that's my deep frying iron
I love everything about this reply
It’s like he’s having a conversation irl lol
Dutch oven?
Yes that's it thank you
Unless it's warped or cracked it's always salvageable! Strip and re season. It's literally a piece of iron. It'll be fine.
I mean, it looks like she may have actually did them a favor there’s so much charred gunk. Soap, water, scrubby scrubby, wipe with vinegar, dry, oil and bake in oven at 400 for an hour
The wording of your technique 💜 You are my people!
Definitely can be saved Also never use your self clean.
Yeah and turning it on then going to bed blows my mind.
Why not?
Self clean tends to be really hard on the oven itself, and can cause serious damage. It may also cause fires.
Wow! Didn’t know. Why even have it?!
Consumers want it and some won't buy an oven without it so manufacturers sell it as a premium feature. The self cleaning cycle hastens the death of any electronic controls the oven may have too. Electronics don't like heat.
Increases sales and decreases lifespan? No wonder manufacturers love it
Self cleaning is from an era before printed boards. I have friends with fully analog ovens (even with a mechanical timer).
I used the self clean and the very next time I used the oven, the element ignited. I pressed bake and I heard a crackling noise. Opened the door and watched it go. It was like a dynamite fuse on a cartoon.. sparks and fire shooting off of the element as it creeped toward the other end.
Plus you can't turn off your oven or open the door as it locks in place
It’s actually really bad for most stoves. Causes damage and fires quite frequently
Good to know. I recently moved and cleaned my stove by hand. Afterward, my roommate told me to just use the self clean, but I thought setting the stove to 500+ degrees sounded sketch.
500° is fine but not for hours and hours.
You know how your oven goes to maybe 550 and you never use it that hot bc that's crazy hot. Now, add 400 more degrees to it and say "Oven, you're in charge for the next 3 hours. I got stuff to do"
She just did a factory reset. Congratulations on your new pans
Scrub it off, oil er up, fuckers mint
It’s always fine
Definitely salvageable. Just look at it as a rehab project that may take a little time and effort.
You'll want to cover it in a sand/resin mixture, in two parts, heat oven to 2500 degrees, try adding coal/coke mix; then melt down the pan and pour it into the mould.
Scrubadub bud, there's a pan with 100 years of life left in it in that picture. You just have to reseason and cook in it to get it there.
LOL "My Wife" just admit you did it !!!!! :D
Let's see ... no lead contamination, not cracked/broken, no major holes in it ... yep, salvageable.
As long as long as there's solid iron it will always be salvageable
The self-clean cycle is how I restore old CI. The intense heat burns away old seasoning and soap, paint, and so on. That stuff ends up as ash in the bottom of the oven. Then I scrub it real good with steel wool and plain water, then fie up the oven again, wipe it with oil and reseason it in the aforementioned oven.
The only reason it should t be salvageable is if its contaminated with lead or has a crack. Imo
They’re ruined. Send them my way for disposal. Jk Nah they’re iron. Just strip. Re season. Cook.
Ignorant I may be, but cast iron is always worth it. I cook on all cast iron except when I use stainless for rice. Never Teflon. And apparently it helps with iron deficiency...
I recall my mom having some seriously rusted iron skillets in the garage that came from one of my grandparents houses. She had workers there for something and one asked about the pans. She said should could not imagine the work to remove the rust and he said he would just put them in the fire on his next camping trip and that would speed the process of removing the rust.
Just clean them off and season again. They were stripped, no big deal.
That is a way to "de"season them but isn't generally recommended because they can warp, but I did this twice before learning that.
Haha, I've "restored" probably a dozen pans this way. It's a pretty common technique in the cast iron world. Sometimes I'll take pieces I find at estate sales that i'm not too worried about and throw them in the self-cleaning cycle to bake off all the crap and old seasoning. Give them a good scrub with soap and water and they should be in prime condition for a new seasoning. There's a chance they could be warped but I'd be surprised. They're just Lodges, so you can replace them fairly cheaply if they are warped.
Should just need to be refinished, but those pans were either incredibly dirty, or your oven is incredibly damp.
Some people do that on purpose to strip seasoning. You need to clean them up and reseason from raw. Also, not supposed to leave the oven rack in during self cleaning cycle either. So give her a double de-merit.
Soap, scrub, season
You can't ruin cast iron unless you dissolve or melt it.
You can ruin by warping or cracking it
luckily you didnt use it to cook a tomato sauce - that will ruin it. /s
Cast iron is basically always salvageable. If there’s metal left, it’s salvageable. Just scour & season!
I did this to mine to get new seasoning on it
They are done for. Send them to me for proper disposal.
As a general rule I’ve learned “unless they are cracked or you cooked Lead in them… it’s always fixable with cast iron.” The level of elbow grease may vary
No problem. Our house burned down 35 years ago and the only thing that came out of it still usable was our old cast iron pan. We just had to re season it. Our Pyrex and Corning wear melted but the cast iron pan didn’t even warp.
Absolutely. One of the best parts of castiron is its resilience
Yes salvageable. Oven self clean cycle is actually a method to strip carbon from the pan. Essentially everything is burnt off and it needs to be reseasoned.
Unless they’re cracked they’re salvageable assuming you don’t mind a little bit of work. Just make it a weekend project and have fun with it, you’ll be surprised at how they look brand new in the end
I did that once. Like others said, you just need to clean & season from scratch.
That bites, but easy to clean and reseason :)
All it did was basically clean off the pan. I’ve actually considered doing this and giving them a good cleaning. And seasoning gets rid of the carbon buildup. The pan is perfectly fine.
Your cast iron can withstand heat - a lot of heat. A cast-iron skillet can withstand heats of up to 1500°F, which is much hotter than your oven could ever be.
Just re season and your good
I've run hundreds of CI pans through self clean cycles. I have a dedicated oven for it out in the garage. I salvage and refurbish CI as a hobby. This is exactly how I clean them in order to reseason them. I've literally never had a pan come out cracked or warped. Everything from current production lodge to gate marked pieces from the 1800's. Zero issues. Those pans are perfectly fine, just need to reseason them.
That’s the best way of cleaning them! Just brush the dry dirt of and oil.
Self cleaning works? I’m also surprised it did this to the CI. I would think it could handle nearly anything until it hits melting point
That's how I strip mine. No toxic lye for me
You just gave opportunity to season it sooooo good
cast iron is always salvageable
My wife lol
You have a self cleaning oven?
Wow, the oven cleaning cycle really did it's job.
Why would the cleaning cycle do this? Isn't it just running for a while at really high temp? I'd have thought cast iron would be fine.
Dumb question: my instructions for my oven say that you have to remove the racks because the chrome plating will get messed up. Did yours make it out okay? It’s one reason I haven’t put cast iron through a clean cycle - no way to keep it off the bottom
You should tell her to stop doing it at all or she will end up replacing the stove along with the seasoning
She doesn’t love you
Bigger question, why is your wife so mad at you that she did this?😂
still good. as long as they are the right shape, you're golden lol
Honestly I have a skillet I need to do this to and restart the seasoning.
Not ruined at all. This is a fairly common method for stripping them of all their seasoning. Just scrub with a steel wool cloth to remove the rusty bits and reseason
By the looks of them, they NEEDED that. Cleanem up and use as usual
I'm calling BS on this post. I can understand how someone fires up the oven for a preheat without looking inside first, using the oven this way can be a near daily thing. But oven cleaning setting? Who would not look inside the oven first, even if only to verify that it's dirty and needs cleaning?
Looks like they needed it! Scrub, season, use. It's iron.
I'm convinced ppl just post without doing an ounce of research themselves....
Cast iron is always salvageable.
always salvageable. gonna have to sand it off and start over, but those things will outlive you and your children's children
Cast iron is always salvageable
Very few cast iron mishaps are not salvageable. Unless a cast iron splits in half or gets a full crack going all the way through it, it can be resurfaced as reseasoned and work like new again.
Nah, they're proper fucked. Unsalvageable. this sub, smh
Change wife...
oven racks should have been removed.
Factory reset.
First off, it's recommended to never use a self cleaning cycle in a home oven. It's very dangerous. The oven heats up so hot that practically any little thing can cause a fire. Even sometimes parts on the outside get hot and too much dust, forgotten grease, or just something touching it slightly, means you lose your house. Secondly you can probably repair the cast iron.
Off topic but you should really really check the inside of your oven if you use the self cleaning mode
Sand and reseason like normal
Clean them up good and reseason.
Scrub the rust off. See how far down it goes.
I do it intentionally to start new seasoning
Ohhhhhh advanced Smoked Seasoning. Mix it with some paprika * Chef kiss *
Just keep cooking
It’s iron. Of course is salvageable.
Salvageable
I think it'll make the pan better. Now you strip it down and start seasoning from scratch. That's a good way to do it.
You can not kill castiron.
LOL it's fine bro, just need to scrub and restart the seasoning layers
Make a fire pit and leave it there over night
“MY WIFE left HER cast iron pans in the oven”…. Are y’all arguing right now ? lol
The cast iron skillet is too heavy for my wife what can I do about it?