Stupid me left my skillet on the burner. I was lucky, nothing close by to burn. What do I need to do to Reseason  t?

See if whipping it down with oil and baking it in the over at low heat for an hour or so will help.

You know it's intersting. I have 2 cast iron skillet/pans in my camper at hunting camp. Use them for dam near everything I cook. I even leave them outside upside down on the camp stove for weeks at a time. And I have never had to do more then wash them and wipe down wih whatever oil is handy.

And just yesterday my 11 year old daughter took over the pancake flipping duties and not a one stuck to the flat skillet.

I hope when I'm dead and buried my kids will still be using them. And tell tales of Granpa to my grand kids about those dam cast iron pans.....

Flax seed oil works great.  I use it on both cast iron and high carbon steel pans.  Get the pan hot, then smear a very thin coat of oil and continue to heat the pan.  The oil will turn dull and spotty looking.  Turn off the heat and let the pan cool.  Repeat with each use until the coating is black.  You will notice the pan is not greasy after it cools.

if the finish is damaged or you want to start all over:  put in oven and put on self clean---leave pan go for rest of afternoon.  Let it cool all the way down.  Then follow your seasoning plan.

If you don't have one, here's mine:
heat pan until juuuuuuust warm enough to melt grease (I like crisco).  Slather that bad boy up and put in over upside down at like 375 for about an hour.  take it out and wipe down excess.  Let it cool and then repeat.  I go through a total of 3 cycles of that.  Just did an old pan last month.  came out with a glistening black finish that is slick as snot

I did the exact same thing as the OP today.  



My skillet is baking in the oven as I type this.



 

People make this way too hard.

Heat it up to where water will dance on it. Deglaze with water. Wipe any crap off with a towel. If it's worse than that use a scrubby.

Heat back up to about 250 and wipe with oil. Not too much. Just like you're oiling a gun.

Done.

I burn the crap out of mine all the time.

i usually just throw in some olive oil and let it sit on the stove top for a few hours on low heat.

use a paper towel every so often to make sure the sides get a bit of attention.

wipe  the majority of the oil out when its looks ok, then cook some bacon in it.

scrub it up with salt and a scotchbrite. I like peanut or cocoanut oils in the oven 400+ till it smokes rinse and oil again.
I've seen threads where the OP sands or bead-blasts but w/o pics I cant comment on how far I'd go on the Pan.
Ps. On a Lighter note, I wentto a Wedding Rehearsal Dinner with Friends.
 A guy came to the table late, sporting a huge shiner. I had to throw it out there,
What Happened? Come home late and your Old Lady connect with the Cast Iron?
+1 for Davy and his intition.-1 for the look on the Guy's face when I called it..

I have come to the conclusion that with the new rougher cast iron pieces you have to do the whole season/reseason procedures to get or keep a useable surface.

Just throw out that pain in the ass new stuff and search out family or tag sales and get some old time Griswold goodness. Cook up some bacon or something else good and you are off and running without any voodoo messing about.

Its just a frying pan not a way of life that you have to take a college course to know how to run

The chemistry of seasoning cast iron.

Beat me to it.  Do this.

I had to redo mine a few weeks ago, I took it car camping and for some weird reason it rusted over night, I had to scrape it, wash it and start over.

It is super old though and has just about a mirror finish on the original metal, so I basically just heat it like normal over oil it on the first use and go about cooking like I would anyway.

After physically removing anything loose......add oil/grease and turn upside down on a turkey fryer type burner....then get it hot enough to turn black.  Add more grease and repeat.

Then go back to using the pan for everything.

Sorry that is a bunch of new age pseudoscience crap.  She starts by saying bacon fat, lard, olive oil, peanut oil is wrong and won’t properly season cast iron that only flax seed oil will work properly.  So my grandmother, mother and I have not properly seasoned a cast iron pan in the last 100 years?  I’ll bet 9 out of 10 people here did not season their cast iron with flax seed oil either.

She also says that modern pork is bad, but pork from years ago when the pigs chased the buzzards off so they could eat dead stuff, and other animals shit was healthier!?!?!

+1 on this!

Truthfully, I collect both Griswold and some Wagner. I have used both Crisco and Bacon grease for years, as that's what I learned as a kid (I'm 64). It has worked fine for many years for my stuff. It think the Flaxseed stuff actually glazes the items much like a varnish, that doesn't readily burn. Probably good for the newer junk cast iron that's out there! But the old stuff doesn't need a glaze coating, just a good cooking oil type finish.

In fact, when I season mine, I clean it first with an Electrolysis bath, then I heat it on the gas grill (lid down)at the max setting for 45 minutes to an hour. Then I remove it (with pads)while it's hot and the metal pores are open, then I coat it with Crisco or Bacon grease. It's worked great for all my stuff for many many years.

One very important thing though, is to never never use soapy water to clean cast! That will ruin it worse than anything! Just very hot water and coarse steel wool is the best ticket!

We have both old (inherited) and new(er) cast iron.

Pork fat still rules for seasoning.

We have used crisco on some initially, but frying bacon seems to work the best.
-For the skillet and for me.