Restart a Cast Iron Skillet - food.straw.restart PEP BB

Lots of bacon cooked in this cast iron skillet.  It was time to restart it and make it all pretty again

Reseasoned a cast iron pan for my sister.

Scrubbed the rust out with baking soda and elbow grease
Season with walnut oil
Into a hot oven for 30 mins
Repeat oiling
Repeat oven
Repeat a third time
Better than new

Aurora House wrote:Reseasoned a cast iron pan for my sister.

Method- cook oily/greasy food burnish clean repeat.

Minimum requirements for this BB:
- restart a cast iron skillet, griddle or dutch oven

To show you've completed this Badge Bit, you must provide proof of the following as pictures or video (<2 mins):
  - original cast iron skillet
  - progress of restarting the cast iron skillet
  - completed restart of cast iron skillet

This cast iron pot has been sitting in my grandparents cabinet at least thirty years if not longer. I do not EVER recall my grandmother cooking with cast iron but upon her passing I was given several pieces of cookware. It had light rust in patches all around as shown in the attached photos.

Process
1. Scrub/soak with hot water and vinegar to remove anything loose. I did a careful inspection for cracks/chips and found nothing which was excellent.
2. Coated the pot/lid with a neutral avocado oil followed by putting it in the oven at 400 degrees for an hour.
3, This was followed by rendering suet from the last quarter cow I purchased locally.
4. Finished the pan off by cooking down a bag of onions.

Turned out great!

My pan needed a restart since it wasn't acting very non-stick. I also caught myself putting tomato sauce (acid) in the pan because the recipe told me to do it and I'm sure it broke down the seasoning. I put the pan in the oven during the self cleaning function, propped up on a firebrick. Then used a steel scrubber and elbow grease to scrub the surface. Then used flaxseed oil and a cloth to season the pan and put in the oven (on a rack, not the firebrick) for 30 mins to harden the oil -- repeated 3 times. Had to fry an egg to check it's nonstickiness.