Cast Iron Dutch Oven Restoration

Hello everyone, I'm Steven Stronach, Cast Iron Cookware, where you can find information that will be best for you to collect, restore and use

cast

iron

cookware. Today we're going to restore this large antique number eight Dutch

oven

and I'm going to show you how Okay? Before starting. I just want to welcome you to the pan cave and thank you for tuning in and learning about

cast

iron

cookware. Today we will take this large cast iron Dutchman number eight.

oven

and we are going to restore it now it doesn't have any old seasoning apparently this has never been used even though it is a little rusty inside and out here is the inside of the pot but I can tell it has never had seasoning except for the seasoning factory original, which was the first single coat preseasoning that came from Lodge, we're just going to take care of the rust and I'm going to show you a little trick that I learned to take care of the rust. and it's very simple, so let's get started.

The tools I'm going to use to remove this rust are number one, a vinegar and water solution that is 50% vinegar, 50% water. Number two, my famous little scrub, and I'm telling you. It looks like it has been cleaned, it has been through a lot of chunks of cast iron, but I would also like to warn everyone not to use wire wheels, sandpaper or any type of mechanical means because they are working much harder than you. It should and is also affecting the surface of the cast iron and we want it to look as old as possible. Hopefully, if the world is still here, this little Dutch oven will be around for generations and enjoyed by many people. so we just want to make sure that we take care of the history and take care of the iron that way other people can enjoy the way that we do it, so let's get started, okay, I have this little bag that I got from work, it's nice. good size, you can use a foot tub, you can even do it outside, you don't have to do it inside, but for me filming this is quite useful and we see that there is also plenty of space to put the lid on.

There are a couple of rules of thumb when making a vinegar bath or even a vinegar spray: number one, only use 50/50 vinegar, meaning 50% water, 50% vinegar, don't use 100% vinegar or you'll end up hitting you cast iron before you know it, number two, never go over 30 minutes or when, if you're going to soak it in a full immersion bath or if you're going to baste it like I'm doing today, never go over 30 minutes. . because if your iron already has tar on it, it will eventually eat away until there's nothing left. Now it takes a long time to get to that point, but if you have pets, your pets will grow, so you will lose iron if you soak it. too long, so 30 minutes is the limit.

Now what we're going to do is spray it with my vinegar and water solution using my trusty little pink bottle that you've probably seen before if you watch my videos. I'm going to spray it. I won't soak it very well and wait about 10 minutes. I'll come back and rub it and soak it again. I'm going to wait another 5 minutes and take five minute intervals, miss, it's only going to take me about 30 minutes to get rid of all the rust now, like I said before, you can actually, you can actually just soak it, but this saves vinegar.

I'm just going to spread it. all right, make sure it covers it. You know, you can even let it rise at the bottom. It is not a problem. Now the bail isn't rusty, but I'll go ahead and beat it up a bit. I'll go ahead and spray the outside. and I'll try not to splash my camera, it won't be good now if you're going to dive in and do a full soak bath, you're going to need a lot more vinegar than you can get in this little spray bottle and I think we shouldn't even have to refill my bottle. of spray.

I think I have enough to do what I want. I'll give you ten minutes. We'll come back and hit it with our little scrub, so watch. ten minutes we're just going to take it and we're going to go around the bottom and be careful not to splash it because it will stain your clothes and anything else you splash it on because it's pure rust and you don't need to rub it much, you're just loosening it up a little bit, okay, let's cover up now, Mabel wears gloves, I got a little stain on my fingers and it's no problem. but you can walk around with brown fingers for a day or two and you can see it coming off the wires of these other

dutch

men and some of the fan caps will break your knuckles, you see it just coming off, turn it over.

I want to leave a little bit on it, slide it over here to the corner, give it one more spray. I'm raising my hand so I don't splash my camera lens and we'll be back in five minutes, okay? It's been five minutes and we're going to go ahead and hit him with our scrubber again. I didn't mention that there's one more tool we're going to use after we finish our last vinegar cycle and there are some stains here. they may come off and we wash it, but if they don't, they will season again and everything will be fine, we will go here and be careful with your knuckles, why I like the space of these bushes with a little hill of palm trees. kind, they will save your knuckles because these little drippers will eat your knuckles.

You know, if you're going to do a vinegar soak where you actually soak the pieces in a vinegar bath, you'll still want to rub them in the first one. 10 minutes and then every 5 minutes after that and you don't want to leave it in the vinegar bath for more than 30 minutes, so we're going to soak them again and we'll come back in five more minutes, okay, another one. It's been five minutes, to start we've had 10 minutes in 35 minutes, so we've had a total of 20 minutes and we could probably add a minute or two of scrubbing, so we'll do it one more time.

We're really not going to spend more than 30 minutes, okay, we're going to get to where our bottles are running low, we're going to give it another good soak, we're going to give it five more minutes and then we're going to rub it in and put it on. in the sink, okay, we've had another five minutes, okay, now I mentioned that I'm going to use one more tool and it's going to be a Plano SOS platform. You're probably saying that you're not supposed to use metal on it. Well, this isn't that hard, it's a wire wheel or sandpaper and it won't hurt you.

I use an SOS pad a lot, especially right before seasoning the piece, so we're going to hit it really good with an SOS pad and then we're going to characterize the sink and wash it with soap and water and get all the vinegar out of it. We won't start with the inside of our pot first. These were turned in the middle and go around the pages. a swirl and I'm not trying to get rid of all the stains, just making sure there aren't any bits I missed. It's usually more common to have problems when you have old seasonings, but that's a completely different matter now when you're removing old seasonings vinegar won't work vinegar won't remove the seasoning vinegar will only remove the rust you'll have to use lie or electrolysis to remove the old seasoning that's another video for the other day okay, let's give the sink some character and "We're just going to scrub it real good with our scrub and a little bit of dish soap and we're going to put it back here, let it see , we're not going to use a Washington on the sink part, that's all we do." We're just going to look at the super dishwashing liquid and we're going to dry it really well with the towel and we're probably going to put a little bit of oil on it after we dry it just to keep it from rusting quickly and if you're worried about Flash, check it out.

I put out my video on flash rust, that's another video too, so I'll be back in a minute. Okay, we took it out of the sink and it looks great and it has some stains on it, but there's no rust at all, you can see it with a little bit. marks and things where it has horse head water or moisture, you know, it runs off and where the rust has stained it a little bit, but it's good at this point, these little stains will disappear with the seasoning, so we're ready to start the seasoning. process now I won't say that I have a trick to avoid sudden rust, which I usually do when I wash my pieces before putting a coat of seasoning or anything else on them.

I'm going to go ahead and scrub it real good. I'll warm it up with an SOS pad and then come back with the scrubber and make sure all the soap is completely gone. I'll dry it real quick with paper towels or maybe some old cloths or rags that you don't use. You don't mind, don't use your towel, I'll get you in trouble, but I'll drive as best I can, as fast as I can. One of my secret weapons. I have a bottle of grapeseed oil. I'll spray it really well. then i will clean it with a wipe which my wife won't miss unless she watches the summer video.

I will clean it very well and even polish it, you know, I will clean it and polish it very, very well, old is old. It will still be there but it will protect it from sudden rust because as soon as the water starts to evaporate the rust will attack so basically you want to dry it off, you won't have a chance to evaporate it, get it off as quickly as you can. apply the old one as soon as you can and then polish it off completely and you won't have any problems with flash rust and on top of that you'll have a nice coat of grapeseed oil or whatever type of oil you want.

I personally like grapeseed oil because I can spray it on quickly, but the spray ball is great and I like grapeseed oil, it's one of my favorite seasoning oils and it has a high smoke point of four to 20 degrees. and it works great, so Now that we have our first layer of seasoning applied, we're going to put it in the oven and cook it for 1 hour at 500 degrees. Grapeseed oil is one of my favorites, so whatever you use. make sure you go above the smoke point and let it smoke, turn on the fan, make sure you don't breathe it in, make sure it's running out in your house because it's going to be smoky and it's going to stink, so let's put this on. in the oven and we'll let you see what it looks like after the first layer, after the second layer and then after the third layer, so let's get to it, okay, we take it out of the oven after the first round of seasoning, It's still a little bit on the hot side, a really very warm side and fitting very well, kind of hard to handle, at least the hoods aren't too hot, this is the inside.

I still have a little discoloration so there are spots but this is just one it's fine except. It has a little staining, but it will look good after a few rounds and not too bad now that it's still warm. I'm going to go ahead and put another round of seasoning on it and maybe go ahead and do two more rounds of seasoning and then I'll let you see the finished product, but I think it's going to turn out really good, so let's put two more rounds on it and then I'll let you see the finished product.

I'll let him see it. Okay, we've let our Dutch oven last about three rounds in the oven. and this is what it looks like, it looks very nice and we still have a little bit of discoloration here and there, but it will fill in and look nice and black, so there's the finished product and it will get blacker and blacker and shiny as As I use it, as long as I keep applying seasonings when I'm done cooking with it and if you keep them properly they look better and better every time you use them, okay, let's discuss, there are a few things you need to remember when you're using vinegar to remove rust number one.

You don't want to leave it in the vinegar bath for more than 30 minutes. If you still have rust after it's done, you can go back and maybe do it five minutes at a time. Okay, number two. Do not use any mechanical means. I would just use a scrubber and an SOS pad. In the end, don't use sandpaper wire wheels or brushes, metal brushes or anything like that, just stick to the scrubber and your light blue pad, so I hope that's the case. I enjoyed this video and if you have, don't forget to subscribe, turn on the notification bill that way you'll miss new videos when they come out.

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