Seasoning CI on charcoal grill

[Attjack]

Yeah, when I do a new pan it takes all day. I get the oven hot wipe the warm pan with oil and it goes in upsidedown for an hour. Then the oven goes off and I let it completely cool. Then I repeat 2 more times.

[rickgregory]

The main issue with doing this on a charcoal grill is that you want to do several layers which means apply oil to cool pan, heat, let it cool, repeat. In an oven that's easy. Gas grill too. Charcoal.. you can do int but you're building several fires.

[Loren]

I like your bacon logic!

[jfmorris]

PBCDad found the pics of when I did this. Looks like the full chimney of lit charcoal had no issue hitting over 500F in the dome. If you have lump, use that.

[jfmorris]

FYI, it was not me that abused the CI. It was my son in law, before he married my daughter. He treated them like other cookware, would soak them, scrub with steel wool, put them in the dishwasher. These 2 skillets that came from his grandmother got horribly rusted and messed up. My daughter brought them home for me to "fix". One is good now and in use. The other is still in my garage, as it needs more love from a wire wheel on a drill, and further re-seasoning.

[jfmorris]

PBCDad I used my Performer+SNS to re-season some really abused 10" Lodge skillets back in the spring, and it worked out great. I pretty much followed the method you outlined. At the time I used Canola oil, but if I did it today, I would use avocado oil - that is what I used for seasoning my Camp Chef flat top.

The trick is, my understanding is that you want to get the heat ABOVE the smoke point of the oil, as you do want the oil to smoke off. For Avacodo Oil, the smoke point is 520F according to Google... for Canola oil, it is 400F.

So you need to get the kettle pretty hot, like pizza cooking hot, to get to the smoke point of avocado oil in the indirect part of the grill.

EDIT: If you have an elevated rack for your kettle, like a hover grill or the SNS elevated rack, that would be a way to move the CI up higher to get more heat on it.

[rickgregory]

Im with Attjack on this one. I'd worry a bit about smoke from the charcoal but if it's burning clean, you should be OK. avocado oil will be fine.

FYI, the issue with frying bacon in it only is that it doesn't season the outside which you also want to do - the Lodge 'seasoning' isn't really durable. The upside to the bacon method is... bacon .

[PBCDad]

The smoke detector was an easy out. The wife also hated the smell and smoke last time. Outside is where it has to happen, just trying to figure out the best way. Happy wife, happy life

[barelfly]

^ this - do it in the oven. Much easier.

[jhapka]

What I wanted to say, but didn’t want liability for. Put the batteries back in when you’re done.

[Attjack]

Take the batteries out of the smoke detectors and do it in your oven.

[willxfmr]

You'll get as many opinions on what oil to use as the are oils. I use canola, but I have heard of many others using avocado, so if that's what you have, I'd go with it. For the heat I would go as hot as you can get your grill and reapply another dose of oil after the first one has quit smoking and the pan has a dry appearance. Repeat this as many times as you choose. With a new pan, I usually try for at least five layers of oil.

[jhapka]

You could always buy a bag of potatoes and fry a few batches of potato skins and salt. It’s already got a base layer so it may just need some conditioning instead of full seasonings and blowing through a bag of charcoal. It’s hard for me to keep my kettle above 500 for any extended time and avocado oil has a high smoke point. Crisbee or another alternative might be nice because the smoke point is a little lower. I don’t think the temp needs to be exact and steady it just has to be above the threshold of the oil you’re using for an hour to make sure it gets fully polymerized and isn’t sticky.

[BFlynn]

Put it on the grill. Fry some bacon.
Wipe it out. Let it cool fry more bacon.

Repeat daily until you're happy with its seasoning.


In seriousness, I don't think it matters what kind of oil you use.
I think "get it hot" is as accurate as you need to me. I've always seasoned mine indoors, and never checked the temp.

Personally I'd do 2 or 3 rounds. It will season more as you use it.....so.cook bacon often.

[PBCDad]

Yes but most places on the interwebs say to add a few more layers. Last time I had CI from Lodge, I added seasoning and stuff still stuck to it pretty badly at first. I'm trying to get a good seasoning layer at the beginning