I Found a super rusty, pitted, old cast iron pot forgotten in the barn and decided to restore the cast iron pot for cooking. I cleaned decades of rust out of the inside and outside before seasoning the pot. Then I could cook in it again. This is how I did it.
This is how to clean the rust out of an old cast iron pot with pitting, using a wire wheel brush on a drill or grinder, and wire brush surface rust from the inside and outside of the cast iron pot. To season the cast iron pot, apply melted beef, chicken, or pork fat to the bare metal, inside and outside. Heat the pot on a BBQ grill, hot oven, or over a fire until the pot smokes and turns black. 450′ to 500′. Repeat the seasoning process. Vegetable oil will also work.
If you have a cast-iron pot or pan with a small amount of rust you can clean it with a stiff scrub brush and some vinegar eater solution.
This cast iron pot was so severely rusted and pitted that the only option was to use a wire brush wheel on a grinder.
This cooking pot came from one of our barns and if I remember it came from my Grandmothers barn after she passed away in 1980. This pot could very well be a hundred years old.
I first started by gathering the tools
- Grinder
- wire wheel
- gloves
- eye protection
- mask
The mask is important because of the fine rust particles that will come off the pot during the cleaning process. The last thing you want is to be blowing black gunk out of your nose for a couple of days.
The first step is to work in an area that is well ventilated because the dust is going to fly.
Start working the wire wheel on the inside removing the layers of rust. The time you work the wire wheel depends on the amount of rust buildup. This pot took me about 15 minutes of cleaning on the inside and only 5 minutes on the outside. The outside was not as rusty as the inside.
After you get the pot as clean as you can it is time to season the pot.
As you can see this pot has severe pitting from the rust. It must have been under a leaking roof for many many years.
Seasoning cast iron is the process of carbonizing fat on the surface of the cast iron creating a surface that resists rusting. The seasoning also acts as a nonstick finish. To put it simply, you are burning the fat on the metal.
I have used vegetable oil for seasoning cast iron and it does work, I have found that animal fat works the best and gives you a black shiny finish that almost looks like gloss black paint.
The fats I have used in the past are beef, pork, and chicken. I used chicken fat For this cast iron pot, that I saved from some chicken soup I made.
Take the fat out of the freezer and put it in the pot on the BBQ grill. You don’t need to use the entire block of fat; it only takes enough to coat the inside and outside of the pot.
I like to use a BBQ grill because the seasoning process creates quite a bit of smoke. I have seasoned cast iron in the oven in our kitchen, and I get yelled at because the whole house gets good and smoked up.
Heat the cast iron in the BBQ with the top closed to get the temperature up into the 400′ – 500′ range. Open the lid after it starts smoking to check on the pot. When you notice the shine of the fat you wiped on the pot begins to get a little dull, it is time to give it a second coat.
The second coat creates a thicker layer of seasoning and fills in any spots you may have missed on the first wipe.
It is essential; if the cast iron gets too hot, the fat carbon will turn to ash, and the pot will need to cool, and you will need to wipe it clean and start new like it was never seasoned.
Once the second seasoning is complete, let the cast iron cool naturally. Do not cool it with water, or you will go back to the beginning.
After cooking with your cast iron, wash it with warm soapy water and dry with a towel. It is easy to keep the seasoning on cast iron cookware, don’t scrub the pan with wire wool, and never put the pan in the dishwasher. I put one of our frying pans in the dishwasher once. When it came out, it had started to rust, and I had to re-season it before cooking with it again.
Good Luck
Gary 2/11/2021 updated 2/15/2022, 4/4/2022