Cast Iron Dutch Oven Restoration

hey everyone this is Steven Stronach cast-iron cookware where you can find information that you better collect restore and use cast iron cookware today we're going to be restoring this vintage number eight large Dutch oven and I'm going to show you how I did it coming right up [Music] okay before we get started I just want to say welcome to the pan cave and thank you for tuning in and learning about cast-iron cookware today we're going to be taking this number eight and large cast-iron Dutch oven and we're going to be restoring it now it doesn't have any old seasoning on it apparently this has never been used even though it's kind of rusty inside and out here's the inside of pot but I can tell it's never had seasoning except for the original factory seasoning that was the first single layer pre seasoning that came from Lodge we're going to just be taking care of the rust and I'm going to show you a little trick that I've learned to take care of rust and it's really simple so let's get started the tools that I'm going to be using to take away this rust is number one a vinegar and water solution which is 50% vinegar 50% water number two my famous little scrubby and I'm telling you looks like it's been scrubbed out it's kind of been through a lot of pieces of cast iron but I would like to caution anybody too to not use wire wheels or sandpaper or any kind of mechanical means because you're working a lot harder than you ought to and you're also affecting the surface of the cast iron and we want to keep it looking as vintage as possible hopefully if the world is still here this little Dutch oven will be around for generations to come and enjoyed by a lot of 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 we have so let's get started okay I've got this little tote that I got from work it is pretty good-sized you can use a foot tub you can even do it outside you don't have to do it inside but for me to film this it's just kind of handy and we see that there's plenty of room for the fit the lid as well there are a couple of rules of thumb when doing a vinegar bath or even a vinegar spray number one only use 50/50 vinegar that is 50% of water 50% vinegar don't use 100% vinegar or you'll wind up hitting your cast iron before you know it number two never go past 30 minutes or when you either if you're going to be soaking it in a full submersion bath or if you're going to be spraying it like I am today never go past 30 minutes because if your iron already has pitch to it it will eventually just eat away until there's nothing left now it takes a long time for to get to that point but if you have pets your pets will get bigger so you will lose iron if you soak it too long so 30 minutes is the limit now what we're going to be doing is I'm going to spray it down with my vinegar water solution with my little trusty pink bottle that you've probably seen before if you watch my videos I'm going to spray it down I won't soak it really good and I'm gonna wait about 10 minutes I'm gonna come back and scrub it and soak it again I'm gonna wait another 5 minutes and I'm gonna take five minute intervals miss only gonna take me about 30 minutes to get rid of all of the rust now like I said earlier you can actually you can actually just submerge it but this here saves on the vinegar I'm just going to spread it down really well make sure that I got it coated you know you can even actually let it pull up in the bottom it's not a problem now the bail is not rusty but I will go ahead and hit it just a little bit go ahead and spray the outside and I'll try not to splash my camera it will not be good now if you're going to be submerging and doing a complete submersion bath it's going to take a lot more vinegar than what you can get in this little spray bottle and I believe we should not even have to reload my spray bottle I believe I got enough to do what I want to do I'm gonna give it ten minutes we're gonna come back and we're gonna hit it with our little scrubby so see you ten minutes we're just gonna take it [Music] and we're just going to go around the bottom and be careful that you don't splash it all over you because it will stain your clothes and anything else you splash it on because it is pure rust and it don't take a lot of scrubbing you just kind of you're just kind of breaking it loose a little bit okay let's hit the lid [Music] now you Mabel use gloves a little bit of staining on my fingers and not an issues but you may walk around with brown fingers for a day or two and you can see it's coming off the leads for these Dutch others and some of the lids for the fans they will tear your knuckles up you see just coming right off turn it over I want to leave a little bit in it slide it over here to the corner give it another another spray down I'm poking my hand up so I don't splashing on my camera lens and we're gonna come back in five minutes okay it has been five minutes and we're going to go ahead and hit it with our scrubby again I did fail to mention there's one more tool that we're going to use after we get through our last vinegar cycle and there are some spots on here they may come off and we wash it but if they don't they will season right over and it'll be it'll be fine [Music] we'll head here and be careful with your knuckles why I like these scrubby's space with little palm hill kind they will save your knuckles because these little drip basters will eat your knuckles you know if you're going to be doing a vinegar soak where you actually soak your pieces in a vinegar bath you will still want to give them a scrub in the first 10 minutes and then every 5 minutes after that and you won't want to leave it in the vinegar bath more than 30 minutes so we're going to soak them down again [Music] [Music] and we're going to come back in five more minutes okay another five minutes has elapsed we've had 10 minutes to begin with in 35 minutes so so we've had a total of 20 minutes and we could probably add about a minute or two of scrubbing so what we're gonna do it one more time we're gonna don't really go over 30 minutes okay we're getting on down to where our bottles getting low give it another good soaking we'll give it five more minutes and then we're gonna scrub it down and put it in the sink okay we've had another five minutes [Music] okay now I did mention I'm going to be using one more tool and that's going to be a Plano SOS pad you're probably saying you're not supposed to use metal on it well this is not as harsh is is a wire wheel or sandpaper and it's not going to hurt it I use a SOS pad a lot especially right before I seasoned the piece so we'll go hit it really good with an SOS pad then we're going to character the sink and wash it with soap and water and get all the vinegar taken off of it we won't start off with the interior of our pot first [Music] these were swirled in the middle and they kind of go around the pages in a swirl and I'm not trying to get rid of all the staining I'm just making sure there's not any chunks that I missed usually more common have issues when you have old seasonings but that's a different matter altogether now when you're stripping old seasonings vinegar will not do it vinegar will not remove seasoning vinegar will only remove rust you'll have to use lie or electrolysis to remove the old seasoning that's another video for the other day altogether okay we're going to character the sink and we're just going to give it a really good scrubbing with our scrubby and some dishwashing soap and we're going to break it back in here let you look at it we're not going with a Washington in the sink part it's all we're gonna do just watch super dishwashing liquid and we're going to dry it really well with the towel and probably put a little oil on it after we dry just to keep it from flash rust and if you're worried about Flash for us check out my video on flash rust that's another video altogether as well so be back in a minute oK we've got it out of the sink and it looks really nice and there's some staining on it but there's no rust whatsoever [Music] you can see with a little marks and things where it has Horsehead water or moisture you know drain on it and where the rust has kind of stained it a little bit but it's nice at this point these little spots they will disappear with seasoning [Music] so we're ready to start the seasoning process now I won't say I have got a trick to avoid flash rust what I usually do when I wash my pieces before I've ever put a coat of seasoning or anything on them I will go ahead and scrub it down really good I'll heat it with a SOS pad and then I go back with the scrubby and I'll make sure all the soap is completely gone I'll dry it really quickly with paper towels or maybe some old cloths or rags that you you don't mind burning don't using your towel it'll get you in trouble but I will drive as good as I can as fast as I can one of my secret weapons I have a bottle of grape seed oil I will spritz it down really good then I'll wipe it down with a washcloth that my wife won't miss unless she sees the video summer I will wipe it down really good and even buff it you know wipe down and buff it really really well the oldest comes the old is still going to be on there but it's going to protect it from flash rust because just as soon as that water starts to evaporate rust will attack so you basically want to dry it don't get a chance to evaporate take it off quick as you can apply the old as soon as you can and then buff at all in and you won't have any problems with flash rust and on top of that you'll have a nice layer of grapeseed oil or whatever kind of oil that you would like to use I personally like the grapeseed oil because I can spray it on quick but the spray ball is great and I like grapeseed oil it's one of my favorite seasoning oils and this is has a high smoke point of four 20 degrees and it works great so we're going now that we have our first layer of seasoning applied we're going to stick it in the oven and we're gonna cook it for 1 hour at 500 degrees grapeseed oil is one of my favorites so but whatever all that you use make sure that you go above the smoke point and let it smoke turn on your vent fan make sure you're not breathing it make sure it's getting exhausted from your house because it will be smoky and it will stink so we're gonna put this 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 got it out of the oven after the first round of seasoning it's still a little bit on the hot side a really really warm side and turning out really good kind of hard to handle at least the bells not too hot this is the inside I still have a little bit of discoloration so splotchiness but this is only one around okay except it's a little splotchy but it's going to look good after a few rounds and not too bad now while it's still warm I'm gonna go ahead and put another round of seasoning on it and maybe go ahead and do two rounds of season and then I'll let you see the finished product but but I believe it's going to turn out really nice so let's put two more rounds on it then I'll let you see it okay we've let our Dutch oven go about three rounds in the oven and this is what it looks like it looks really nice you have and we have still a little bit of discoloration [Music] here and there but it will fill in and it is looking nice and black so there it is finished product and it'll get blacker and blacker and shinier as I use it long as I keep applying seasoning when I get done cooking with it and if you maintain them correctly they look better and better every time you use them okay let's break out there's some things that you got to remember when you're using vinegar to remove rust number one you don't want to leave it in the vinegar bath over 30 minutes now if you still have rust after it's all over you can go back and maybe do five minutes at a time okay number two don't use any mechanical means whatsoever I would just use a scrubby 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 scrubby and their celeste pad so I hope that you've enjoyed this video and if you have please don't forget to subscribe hit the notification bill that way you'll miss out on new videos when they come out I try to post more at least once a week you can also follow us on Facebook Instagram and Twitter and check out cast-iron cookware a Facebook group if you're interested in being involved in a group that is striving to be drama-free on Facebook we also have a new letter that goes out every week or so and you can sign up for that as well and if you would like to be a part of supporting cast iron cookware in a monetary way check out cast iron cookware on 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Channel: Cast Iron Cookware

Views: 1,499,180

Rating: 4.9023428 out of 5

Keywords: cast iron, dutch oven, cast iron skillet, cast iron restoration, cast iron skillet cleaning, dutch oven cooking, cast iron skillet seasoning, cast iron restoration vinegar, restoring cast iron, restoring cast iron skillet, restoring cast iron dutch oven, restoring cast iron pans, rusted cast iron, how to restore cast iron, stephen strawn, strawn, rust removel, rust removal with vinegar, lodge dutch oven, cast iron cookware, vintage cast iron, vintage lodge, lodge cast iron

Id: s-31-_1Lw08

Length: 20min 33sec (1233 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 13 2019