Restore That Old Rusty Cast Iron Skillet

This post will be an explanation of one way to restore a cast iron skillet. I have read a boat load about it and decided to try this method. It seems to work Just fine. There are a few reasons for wanting to "restart" a pan and in this case it was to get rid of rust, as well as to make sure we were cooking on a vegan friendly surface. Jess and I bought a van, and the previous owner decided to leave a set of three Wagner cast irons inside for us to take on our journey's. They were fairly neglected and half a year later I have finally got around to this project. Ok....Here we go!

What you will need.

• An oven.(If you have an oven with a "self cleaning" setting or any oven that can reach high temperatures that should work. In this case I used an earthen "Cob" oven we have in our yard. a fire pit may work as well.)
• A few clean rags or small towels.
• Cooking oil or shortening (I used olive oil)
• Sand paper (Some rough and some finer)
• The will.

Here is what the skillet looked like before.

 Before firing up the oven I sat the pan on a couple of bricks.

 Then I built a fire. The idea is to get the oven very hot, so I kept stoking it until I had plenty of hot coals to surround the pan.

 This is about an hour or more in. It was at this point I could see the old seasoning flaking away. That made me happy.

 After The oven was at max temperature I closed the door. I let it cook and cool down completely inside. The next morning I pulled it out and it looked like this. All of the old seasoning had turned to ash. Next I wiped it out with a dry cloth to remove the carbon and ash. Gave it a sand by hand, starting with the rough and finishing with the smooth. this step took about 10-15 minutes. Easy.

 This was the result. I wiped it out with another dry cloth to remove any more dust before oiling. It is import to remember after it is down to the raw iron you must oil it as soon as you can to prevent any rust forming. Notice there was no water used in this process.

 Then I took some olive oil on a cloth and wiped in into the pan inside and out.After that I threw it in my kitchen oven for an hour at 300 degrees to set the first layer of seasoning. It is ready for use. Their are plenty of videos out there about seasoning cast irons, I find using them every day works best. If anybody out there has some tips or advice on restoring these things please comment.
Happy cooking.

How to build a simple, brick stove "rocket stove"

Materials needed:

• Hammer
• Hatchet
• Bricks (Make sure the bricks are dry, water soaked bricks may explode when heated!)

To build this stove, you will need at least 16 bricks and two of them will need to be chopped in half. Which is easier then it sounds. So, don't worry just pretend you are a magician and follow these steps.

1. Using the hammer and ax, score the brick on all four sides

 Just like this, keep working around the brick. The more time you spend making the score, the cleaner the break. 

 Once it is scored, give it a good whack on one of the sides and it will break. Done.

 2. Lay down the base layer on an even surface. Use one of your half bricks in the center. Make sure you are building it on something that can get hot, these bricks will get very hot! Here, you can see I built it right on the ground.

3. Build the second layer, leaving an opening in the front. Make sure to over lap the bricks, so the structure will be strong. Use another half brick, as I have done here, on the front right.

 4. Next layer is the same as the last. The only difference is the placement of your half brick. It winds up on the other side, due to over lapping bricks.

 5. Fourth layer, use 4 full bricks. The front right one will be held sturdy by the fifth layer.

 6. Fifth layer, overlap the fourth with four full bricks.   Some extras in the front, you will see why.

 7. When you are ready to use it, start a fire and get some hot coals going inside.

 8. Use kindling and smaller sticks.

 9. Once it is going like this, you can add fuel from the front.

The extra bricks I used, hold the wood at a good angle for stoking the fire.

Here we are using a cheap metal grate from the thrift store, you can also use some small pieces of brick or rocks. The reason for this, is to let air escape around your pan or pot. If you place your pan directly on the bricks, it would not allow for the right air flow. So this step is crucial.

This stove once burning properly will produce very little smoke. It takes a surprisingly small amount of fuel to cook a meal or boil some water for tea. We have been using this to cook all our meals lately, it's great!