Cast iron cookware : restoration and maintaining

Greetings

If you followed my other two articles that touched on saving old nasty cast iron, you are now ready for the final stages. 

You want to make that cast iron as non stick a cooking surface as possible.. And you do that with layer after layer of seasoning,  this is also what gives cast iron that great flavor to cook with..

Ok to start out you need some sort of oil, grease etc... I use lard myself... Or and I want to give a shout out to a friends product, crisbee... It's a special blend of crisco and beeswax... And it will work wonders on the iron.

first apply a very thin layer of lard, oil, grease, whatever to all over the item... Now take paper towels, rags, whatever and wipe that layer back off...( you actually can't get it off, but that's how thick layers we need.) now place upside down (prevents pooling and spotting) in the oven at 400 degrees, for an hour....oh yeah, open a window and unhook smoke detector, trust me on this... If it doesn't smoke, your doing it wrong !

after the hour, let it cool down enough to handle it again, and repeat the process..

do this 3-4 times and you will have a good start on seasoning.. When cooking avoid tomato or acid based foods for the first few uses, until seasoning layers are hard enough to handle it..

after cooking, simply rinse out, wipe down and always finish up with a thin layer of oil/grease etc..

soap and water is ok if required, just try and work fast to limit exposure time at first, until seasoning has aged...  And that's basicly it... Once going, it's as nonstick as any cookware made..