I have been cooking with cast iron since I was a kid. I didn’t even know non stock Teflon pans were a thing until I was on my 20’s! When I got married I didn’t even go there, my husband and I bought our first cast iron pan and now 17 years later, it’s all we cook with. With 8 kids we’ve accumulated quite a collection, including pans given to us that people have asked us to restore.
With 8 kids I admit our cast iron gets pretty bad. We get busy and distracted and our pans suffer from time to time.
We’ve left it to soak overnight and even used soap. Yikes. I actually think soap is ok and I make a dish soap bar I formulated just for washing cast iron. Soaking however, has caused some issues that have been tough to correct and get that non stick finish back.
I’ve tried a lot of different fats with high smoke points over the years. Coconut oil, while I’ve read some people use just this fat to season their cast iron with success, my experience is that it dries out and creates rust on my cast irons.
Flax seed oil is supposed to be another high smoke point season oil people use for cast iron. We don’t like the taste it gives our food and flax seeds are high in estrogen which I find I can’t tolerate with my thyroid cancer and disease.
Olive and avocado oil are other seasons I’ve read some use, but using them alone doesn’t give us a non stick finish. Ever since we moved to an animal based/carnivorish diet to heal, I’ve been moving away from seed oils and to animal fats. However, I find just tallow or lard doesn’t quite work either.
I’m not sure why I’ve had such a difficult time seasoning cast iron with single fats/and oils. Maybe our climate has something to do with it, we live in an extremely dry climate that’s unbearably cold in the winter and at times, unbearably hot in the summer. It’s dusty and dry with hardly any humidity in the air. It’s possible that affects my ability to season cast iron, it sure affects my hair, skin and nails ha ha!
A few years ago I discovered a perfect ratio of fats that seal and “heal” my cast iron. I’m still working to build up a good season on some of my worst pans. But many of our daily use pans have developed a shiny non stock finish and now we just rinse, wipe, re season a bit as necessary, then slip it into a hot oven oven to cure with the leftover heat from making supper.
This combination of fats creates a convenient hard bar of lotion that can also be used as skin care. The cocoa butter and beeswax seal the cast iron, the coconut oil is antibacterial and then of course the beef tallow creates a rich nourishing fatty layer for a non stick finish. Here’s how I make my cast iron lotion bars.
Cast Iron Lotion Bars
4 Ounces Beeswax
4 Ounces Beef Tallow
4 Ounces Cocoa Butter
4 Ounces Coconut Oil
Scale, Double boiler and Silicone molds
*if you don’t have a scale just measure the ingredients out in a one to one ratio. 1 Cup to 1 Cup. Less or more, depending on how large of a batch you want to make. I weigh my materials to create a more accurate end result as I used to sell these.
These were one of my biggest sellers, feel free to make and sell your own too!
I melt my ingredients in a double boiler, using a stock pot with a little water and a glass Pyrex measuring dish inside of that. The Pyrex dish makes it easy to pour the melted oils into molds.
Start with the hardest ingredient; beeswax. I buy my bees wax in bulk and it’s micro filtered and food grade. You can buy whatever bees wax you can source, maybe from a local bee keeper. It is tedious cutting your own but I love how fragrant this is so I choose to buy in large chunks and cut.
You can buy beeswax in pellet form too which is much more convenient for weighing.
If you cut your beeswax, just be sure to heat your knife and wipe it with a paper towel before putting in your sink or dishwasher.
I weigh the cocoa butter next as these two materials will take the longest to melt.
I buy my beef tallow from a grassfed ranch here in southern Alberta. Grassfed Tallow
Lastly the coconut oil.
Stir the oils and fully melt them before removing from the heat.
Once melted, very carefully remove the Pyrex dish from the stock pot. Be careful of escaping steam.
*This is the point you could add essential oils if you wanted to make body lotion bars. Do NOT add essential oils if you’re using this for cast iron through.
*If you’re interested to make body lotion bars and try some different essential oil combos, you can find that article here .
Stir oils and carefully pour into silicone molds. Allow the bars to set up over night before removing.
I store a lotion bar in a small jar with a cotton cloth in a drawer next to my stove for the purpose of seasoning our cast iron.
To use: gently heat your cast iron. Turn off the heat and rub the bar around the base of the pan. The heat will melt some product off the bar. Take a cotton cloth and wipe around the bottom, sides, rim and handle.
I like to turn my pan upside down and heat again then rub the bar on the bottom of the skillet then wipe the bottom, sides and handle with a cloth.
If my oven is hot from baking, I’ll then slide my pan into the oven to heat and cure with the leftover heat. Otherwise, I’ll leave the burner on for a minute or two, heating the pan. Then I’ll just leave it there until it cures amd cools.
You can package these in pretty tins or glass jars for storage, as gifts, or even to sell.
Warmest Blessings,
Ashley
