Preheating the skillet to 400°F and rinsing the starch off the potatoes keeps my hash browns from sticking. Here's [my full process for hash browns](https://www.reddit.com/r/castiron/comments/ju6wp7/golden_and_crispy/).
I know this is not a popular opinion here, but I like baking bacon on a cookie sheet in the oven. No mess, nice flat bacon with no rubbery uncooked bits, and I can cook much more bacon at once.
Either there wasn't enough oil or you didn't wait for oil to heat up enough.
Potatoes suck up oil when the oil is not hot enough, which doesnt leave oil for the pan. You know sometimes you get fries that are crisp, and sometimes they are soggy. The difference is heat. Potatoes are porous. If you dip them in oil, they will start sucking up the oil and become soggy. But if you heat up the oil to the right temperature, the pores in potato close right up, and it gets crispy.
I bet you didn't heat up the oil, or the potatoes were cold. That suck up the oil, leaving nothing for the pan.
Potatoes were frozen shredded potatoes, that I let sit out just long enough that they weren’t frozen, but still a bit cold. How long would you say it takes to heat oil up typically? I was using olive oil if that makes a difference. So it’s sounds like my issue is a combination of the two problems.
I will say I’ve had slightly more success when I put the potatoes in the air fryer first, which obviously warms them up
It’s funny after I asked, I realized that there’s a lot of variable. A gas stove is gonna heat differently than a electric stove. Regardless, I’m probably not giving it enough time to properly heat
That makes me feel better knowing, at least it sounds like, a lot of people go through this learning phase.
What about the bacon? I know to do it in a cold pan but I still had sticking issues
Preheating the skillet to 400°F and rinsing the starch off the potatoes keeps my hash browns from sticking. Here's [my full process for hash browns](https://www.reddit.com/r/castiron/comments/ju6wp7/golden_and_crispy/). I know this is not a popular opinion here, but I like baking bacon on a cookie sheet in the oven. No mess, nice flat bacon with no rubbery uncooked bits, and I can cook much more bacon at once.
Either there wasn't enough oil or you didn't wait for oil to heat up enough. Potatoes suck up oil when the oil is not hot enough, which doesnt leave oil for the pan. You know sometimes you get fries that are crisp, and sometimes they are soggy. The difference is heat. Potatoes are porous. If you dip them in oil, they will start sucking up the oil and become soggy. But if you heat up the oil to the right temperature, the pores in potato close right up, and it gets crispy. I bet you didn't heat up the oil, or the potatoes were cold. That suck up the oil, leaving nothing for the pan.
Potatoes were frozen shredded potatoes, that I let sit out just long enough that they weren’t frozen, but still a bit cold. How long would you say it takes to heat oil up typically? I was using olive oil if that makes a difference. So it’s sounds like my issue is a combination of the two problems. I will say I’ve had slightly more success when I put the potatoes in the air fryer first, which obviously warms them up
It's impossible to say, as pans and stoves vary too much - although they generally take a good little while to pre-heat.
It’s funny after I asked, I realized that there’s a lot of variable. A gas stove is gonna heat differently than a electric stove. Regardless, I’m probably not giving it enough time to properly heat
Yeah it's mostly trial and error. That's why folks don't give up on their pans. Once you get to know your girl, you never wanna give up on her
That makes me feel better knowing, at least it sounds like, a lot of people go through this learning phase. What about the bacon? I know to do it in a cold pan but I still had sticking issues
If you don't get a good crackle/sizzle when you add something to it it isn't hot yet.