Thanks very much mate. I appreciate the kind words. Best wishes on your seasoning journey! 😬

Hi r/Mr Redder - please forgive me for the one month turn around reply time. Thanks heaps for watching and I'm glad you got something out of it. If you are still on a knowledge hunt, check out a video by Jed at Cook Culture channel, title "Why ALL non-stick pans will wear out: I spoke with a Polymer Chemist" - this supports my outlined scientific reasoning to how flaxseed oil works best, but the video does not cover why a certain oil is better than another (ie. why would canola oil or grapeseed oil be better than flaxseed?). I just had a look at your channel - looks like you are having some fun! Best wishes mate

This is a really uplifting comment. Thanks very much Jason. Glad you enjoyed it. The audience is growing slowly, and I'm learning at the same time with each video I'm making. It's really rewarding. Hopefully the video snow balls over time - I think it will. Glad to have you here :D

I agree, 3 coats into my cast iron skillet with this method and it's working a treat, can't wait to get to use it.

Also, there’s a lot of myth about chemical toxicity. Toxicity would imply some form of chemical induced poisoning or damage of the body system. The visible smoke you see is made of pyrolyses hydrocarbon that manage to vaporise but are still big enough to be visible. If it’s visible, it is too big to be absorbed through your tissue cell walls They would instead accumulate in the respiratory tract, and be cleared through mucus excretion. The more concerning bits would be invisible, and would react with other free radicals quite rapidly to terminate the process. Free radicals are far more concerning to our atmospheric ozone layer than to our own body tissues as we have lots of water to neutralise free radicals. The problem with flaxseed oil is that it has a lot of oxygen molecules incorporated into it,a structure. Sure it can form a good hard layer to protect the iron from rusting quickly, but the oxygen molecules are incorporated into hydroxyl groups when it is completely saturated (this is essentially it’s most stable state and will occur with time and exposure to the elements). The hydroxyl groups can make it hydrophilic, which means things can stick to it from a macroscopic POV. This means if we cook food on it, small pores will allow water molecules and hence protein molecules to seep into crevices and “stick”. This does not equate to the food molecules forming chemical bonds with the surface, but it does result in less non-stick property. If we look at industry perfected non-stick, teflon uses polyethylene, in a saturated polymer. No oxygen, no hydroxyl group. Therefore, we shouldn’t worry about drying, but about nonstick when it comes to the top most layer of the seasoning.

Therefore, for the top most layer, we should go back to using non-drying oils to form the polymer layer (as drying oils contain lots of oxygen molecules that made them unstable in the first place and prone to oxidising). The more saturated the hydrocarbon, and the longer it is, the more non-stick/teflon like the top layer would be. From chemistry, we know that longer hydrocarbon molecules results in more viscous states, same with saturation. From here, we can conclude that the top most layer should be formed with a fat that solidifies at room temperature. This leaves us with lard or butter. Lard is more saturated than butter hence more solid at room temp, therefore, lard would be the ideal fat to use to form the top most surface polymer.

Hello Sir, apologies for the delay. I needed to take a short break. Your presented argument for the top layer being different seems very reasonable, thanks so much for sharing your obviously academic approach to the topic. The process shown in video is still performing strong for me - I am careful not to char or burn food on the surface - but I will consider a lard 'top layer' in the future. Happy researching. Happy cooking. Cheers.🙏

@@Soneoak Hence for maintenance, periodical seasoning you suggest the use of lard?

Thanks mate! Glad you got something out of it. Welcome Aboard!

Thanks Felix - You are welcome.. Glad you found it useful and appreciate the encouragement! Best wishes back to you from Aus!😬

Hey Thomas, Thanks for the feedback mate its really great to get this assurance people are finding my videos enjoyable or useful. Got any tips or advice in return? Cheers

Thanks Jack. Glad you found it useful! Cheers

Cheers Mick!

I agree with this reasoning!

Glad you thought it was worthwhile! Thanks for watching😬

Glad that has worked for you. Happy cooking!

Glad it was helpful! Cheers Stephen

You are welcome Heidi! Appreciate you watching and Thanks from 'Downunder'. Best of luck with your cast iron seasoning!

Hi Alex. Don't overthink it. Sounds like you are on a winner - if it's working for you, don't get caught up with all the hype. Just get on with making some delicious meals 😁

@@OTWD This is the greatest advice, i did tend to overthink it Although my seasoning did chip a bit in a week of cooking almost everyday but it might be due to the dents of the pan itself

Hi Kelly, Thanks so much for the kind comment! I've been to LA and Monterey CA, beautiful place. Its great to reach folks on the other side of the world :) 1) much of the black gross stuff will come off immediately (noticeable when you rinse after seasoning), but any seasoning left will probably be weakened/compromised, so will probably leach out/flake off onto your food when cooking. If I were you in this case, I would cut my loses, rub back to bare/fresh surface and start again (trying a lower heat). 2) Soap will not hurt it, though I would be gentle with scraping but you can be reasonable - check out this product on amazon "Tobepico Cast Iron Cleaner" Its hard, but not scratchy - so its ideal to use gently on seasoning. Good luck!

If your oil flakes off, you applied too much oil. Take a cloth rag and wipe the pot again - paper towels aren’t absorbent enough. You want the oil to be almost gone. And you want to apply the oil when the pot is hot.

Dr Strange -, there is certainly a lot of misinformation out there. Thanks for watching mate, glad it was useful. Best wishes!

Hi Josh, thanks so much for watching mate. Glad you enjoyed. I've heard the landscape of Wisconsin is very beautiful. My oven has held up great. Done a few stews and curries. Will do a cooking vid with it in a few months time and talk about how its going. Be patient with it, and you'll get a great result. Best of luck!

Hi Ola, Thanks for watching. Glad I could consolidate some information for you. And I appreciate the feedback about the music :) Best wishes.

Hi Dustin, glad you appreciated the video. The article was an interesting read wasn't it? Thanks for calling out my pretty average explanation ... Ventilation in our house isn't great, and neither is the fan extraction in the kitchen)- If I had better ventilation inside I would have done it inside. Didn't want to put my daughter at risk, or kick them out of the house whilst I performed this science experiment! Kind of like using aerosol paint inside - you probably could do it, but its also probably always safer outside. In regards to comparing with cooking charcoal, I believe carbon monoxide is the main risk there (which is why there are warnings to use charcoal outside only). I use charcoal all the time - hopefully not shortening my life too much :D Atleast outside you can take a few steps upwind and the risks are mitigated. Thanks for watching mate. Let me know if you have any tips in return for cast iron. Cheers

Hi Rob, glad you enjoyed. Thanks for watching. There is a lot of misinformation out there. Its a bird,... now you brought it up its hard to ignore :D. Can't tell you what kind - The trees in our backyard brings some nice natives, but also a few pests!

Despite making this video and going down this rabbit hole - I actually do most of my cooking on a carbon steel pan - it's an Aussie made 'Bedourie oven'. It's different to cooking on cast iron but the pros outweigh the cons for sure. Sounds like you reached the same conclusion. Thanks for sharing mate! PS. Keep making more videos !!😁

Helicopter in my back yard, of course! I started the channel with the means I had until I was confident I would continue the passion project, that included a GoPro hero 4 that even with an external mic on, had these sound artefacts and feedback that was hard to manage. In late 2021 I bought a quality camera and microphone combination and my recent productions are a cut above in quality across the boar. Thanks for watching!

Glad you found it useful, Laura. Thanks heaps for watching!

Thanks Vicky! Nothing like a some good ol'fashion hatchet simplified DIY science :D

Hi Nicholas, please forgive me replying two weeks after your comment. I've had to put the channel efforts on hold - we welcomed our son into the world on Saturday and I've been naturally pre-occupied. I've only seasoned this one dutch oven using this method. I've been thinking about your question. Most cast iron is cast in sand moulds, so you get a fairly rough and cheap finish straight out of a mould. I'm sure sand grain size and uniformity plays a role in smoothening the piece straight from the mould, but I gather its not economical to manufacturers to optimise the surface out of the mould. A smooth surface (by touch) comes from secondary processing (grinding, linishing, etc).This extra step is what sets apart cheap cast iron and more expensive cast iron cookware. At a macro level (by touch and feel), I do not think the roughness should have an impact on how well the seasoning layer bonds - although it probably influences how resilient it is to abrasion/cleaning (smoother the better- imagine a scourer taking off the peaks of the rough surface when cleaning ). More rough cast iron (as discussed usually cheaper also) generally comes as 'pre-seasoned'- and usually this implies a cheap wax coating or similar, and not a seasoning in the way I have spoken about. This is marketed as seasoning, but its essentially a coating to stop it rusting before you buy it in a store - and nothing more. This coating, unless totally removed MAY interfere with the layer of hard dryng oil seasoning one applies later. So may I suggest sanding/grinding/polishing back the cast iron until you have a fresh reactive surface, and start again. So to summarise, there should not be an intrinsic difference in the effectiveness of seasoning considering the surface roughness alone, however a rougher surface may indicate more commerical manufacturing techniques (coatings) that could interfere with a (more expensive) manual seasoning like flaxseed oil. I'm hunting for a pan/skillet, and will most definitely report back once I have a bit more experience to share. Good luck mate. Let me know if you have found any more juicy info. Cheers. Dan

I haven't run into this problem yet. Will monitor and see how it goes! Thanks for watching Tim!

@@OTWD I'm interested in how many times by now you have seasoned and also how the performance has been for you. The cast iron community says a million different things about each seasoning type.

I formulate powder coatings, and if my background applies then we can see the bottom layer onto the base metal as a primer. In powder we want primers to have high crosslink density, and not too thick. High thickness can hurt some mechanical properties. Surface preparation is also key for adhesion to metal. Most of the failures we see in the field are related to dirty substrate (metal), which makes these pans kind of a nightmare haha. But then after we have the harder high crosslink density layer (which is more brittle) we can add other layers to the top with less crosslink density, and apparently things like grapeseed oil have fewer reactive sites (double bonds) and will be perfect for that. It's possible that adding flaxseed oil on top of softer polymers will cause inter-coat adhesion problems because high crosslink density polymers can have higher surface energies. In other words the layer of flaxseed oil polymer might stick to itself more than whatever is underneath. Anything like a wax layer between the old stuff and what you're now trying to lay down would be even worse. All conjecture.

Not too thick for seasoning is so thin that it looks like you wiped it all off. Cloth works better for this because it absorbs better. Flaking or chipping is generally because not enough oil was wiped off. And you want to apply the oil to a heated pan so it starts to bind to small defects in the iron or to prior layers before polymerizing. Back before modern times, lard had similar polymerization characteristics as flaxseed oil, because the pigs used for lard had a diet that incorporated certain elements that deposited into the fat. So that is why lard or bacon fat was often used for cast iron - it was the cheapest polymerizing oil.

Thanks heaps! Good luck :D

Hi Mate, so sorry I have not replied timely! I super appreciate your time and effort here crafting this comment. I had not seen Jed's Cook Culture channel, but Ive just watched a whole bunch! Have you done your experiment yet with flaxseed vs grapeseed/canola? I am super grateful that Cook Culture brought on actual professor, because it seems to be what's lacking in the cooking education space. A lot of here say and experience and past down generational knowledge - but my engineering brain needs a scientific approach! I did some chemistry at uni but polymerisation is a complex beast and I certainly don't have a doctorate ! Dr Zac Hudson is supporting my simplified scientific approach, explaining HOW it happens. but not WHY flaxseed or grapeseed or any other oil would be best. I believe flaxseed based on the reasons I outline is better - until I am proven wrong with scientific backing (which I welcome). I agree with the gentle, 'low and slow' approach too (above the smoke point temp) - makes sense that controlling the rate of reactions will yield the most uniform result. Best wishes mate! Keep me posted. I'm going to share those cook culture videos on my community tab - thanks for the advice.

Yeah, he’s talking Celsius (We use the metric system here in Oz) @Dan, you might want to mention both measures for the benefit of our American brethren in future vids

Thanks. Appreciate you jumping in!

Hi Willy, Glad you liked the video and it was useful. Thanks for the encouragement 😬 As kindly mentioned - Celcius referred to in this video. Check out between roughly 4:00 and 6:00 minutes again - The layer from Flax Seed Oil will be more robust than other oils. Cheers!

Hello! Thanks for watching, and you are welcome. I have heated mine directly in contact with hot hardwood charcoal and nothing bad has happened yet. You would require oxygen reaching the bare cast iron to interrupt the adhesion of the polymer-like layer. So as long as you are patient and get good coverage - go nuts! Interested to here how it goes. On a related note, soaps and detergents wont affect the layer (the 'dont use soap on cast iron' theory does not appear to be based on any scientific grounding - but any abrasion will damage the seasoning. Use a cloth, and be very gentle if you need to use anything more than that to scrub spots on the surface. Cheers, Dan

Hi Marco. Sorry for taking so long to reply mate. Thanks heaps for watching and taking time to comment with your question. Did you manage to fix it? If I were you, I would start again - clean it with something lightly abrasive, try to get a fresh, clean, smooth surface to work with, and start again, layering carefully one bit at a time. I havent been able to recover in the situation you have described, and it will definately not last as long cooking - so best to accept and start again! Maybe I am wrong though and you were able to salvage it! Let me know. Cheers, Dan

I haven't seen this, but I hope you are enjoying the hobby and making some awesome dishes! Cheers.😁

Hi Mimosveta, I'm sorry its taken me so long to reply - I've been away for a few weeks. The whole idea is that the oil 'burns off' - thats what you want - heat it up to above the smoke point and wait for it to polymerise to a hard layer. I would google something like "Table of cooking oil smoke point" or something similar, and a table will come up in search showign different temps for different oils. I don't own a mortar and pestle, infact, I've only seen the ones made of stone, but after some quick research I see that people prefer to season them, atleast once before first use. The same principles should apply! best wishes

I have used grapeseed oil with really good results.

Hi Kimberlindy, maybe you should try both yourself and see how it goes :) So far using flaxseed has worked well for me.

Thanks Elizabeth. I'm glad someone appreciates my jokes :D

Happy to learn about/try other alternatives with scientific backing - I just haven't found any others with such scientific reasoning. And my results match the theory. Let me know what works for you. Cheers

Heard of this manufacturer and might try in the future.

@@OTWD best ever