Care & feeding of cold handle frying pans

[snapper]

I know many folks on this forum use cold handle frying pans but I'm wondering what sort of care do you give your pan? Do you have a particular way you clean your pan? How about storage between trips? Do you re-season it annually? After each trip? Bottom line, I'm just wondering what kind of care and feeding folks give to their pans to keep them in tip-top shape.

Thanks in advance for your tips. Take care and until next time...be well.

snapper

 

[Bob B.]

Ok, I will tell you what I do … but it will be different from every other reply you will receive.

I clean the pan and it’s inside walls with hot water and a scrub brush thoroughly before I season it, then likely never again. I rub olive oil once dried on the inside and the walls of the fry pan. After it is rubbed in I put on stove or low fire until it starts to smoke lightly. I try to get the entire bottom to smoke and it works up the sides. Remove from heat, let cool. Then I do it again with a bit more oil to really darken the pan … season the pan.

I have a cloth bag I keep my pan in when on a trip. Once in a while I have to reseason, easy to do on a trip. I boil my walleye in it, easy to clean. I cook eggs, bacon and pancakes in it. Clean up is still easy. If it needs more cleaning … I do not use soap, I use ashes from my fire a bit of water to remove any charred food remains. Rinse with water, give a very light coating of oil ( pan looks shiny and black again ), put back in my cloth sack it is good for the next time.

I do not know of anyone else who treats a pan this way, but it has worked for me for 20 plus years. Another reason to trip alone eh.

Bob.

 

[Woodpuppy]

I like grape seed oil for my cast iron and plan to do the same with my cold handle. Once properly seasoned as Bob said, you should only need water and a stiff brush to clean it. I haven’t used ashes before, but I’ve used sand and water on stainless.

 

[Gamma1214]

I do the initial seasoning with bacon grease (preferred) or olive oil. In the field, I use olive oil to cook and wipe it clean with a paper towel after use. It then goes in the pack dry. If something sticks (only happened once), I scrape it with a stick or my knife, dump a little more oil in and reheat, wipe & throw it in the pack.

Once I get home, it hangs on the kitchen wall or sits on the stove. I try to use them all once in a while during the off season but I don't go to any trouble fussing over them.

The closest I've ever come to cleaning one (after seasoning) is to use some hot water & a plastic "scrubby pad" (no soap, obviously). Anytime I have hot water in the pan, it'll get heated and wiped with olive oil or a dollop of bacon grease then wiped lightly before returning it to the wall.

 

[sweeper]

I found this on the Tube which has a lot of information. It's mainly about Cast Iron but CHPs are Carbon Steel which are seasoned the same way.

 

[snapper]

Thanks to all who have chimed in thus far. Seems like we're all pretty much on the same track. I've had a large cold handle pan for a while now that I picked up at a flea market. I watched the Dave Canterbury videos on how to clean up and re-season a pan. I've always used Crisco but I may go to Canola oil in the future. I also was fortunate enough to recently pick up two, 6" pans and have been working on cleaning and re-seasoning them as well. I've been finding excuses to use all of them around the house so as to build up a nice layer of seasoning before they go out on trips. I also make sure they're totally dry before storing them away. The best way to do it in our home is to let them dry on the warming rack of our wood cook stove. Works every time.

@Bob B. - Using cold ash from your fire pit to clean is an old trick I learned years ago. Although I haven't been out lately in this manner, we used to use an ash slurry to clean our kettles and pans when out on 18th century living history scouts. To me, the beauty of using the ash is you can ensure that no soap ever makes it into the water source.

That's all for now. Take care, happy cooking and until next time...be well.

snapper

 

[Bob B.]

Well I 'll be darned, I did not think anyone had ever used ashes before except me and the old way people. Good on ya snapper. Post a pic or two of your pans as well, sitting on the wood stove. I like looking at traditional stuff like that.

Bob.

 

[yknpdlr]

I use my favorite high sided cast iron fry pan often at home. It was found hanging on a tree at a campsite in a canoe tripping wilderness area of the Adirondacks. it is my go-to for cooking bacon and stir-fry. Hence it has a long term seasoned layer that is virtually nonstick and easy to clean. For clean up I use hot water with a chain scrubber meant for the job. It never needs and I do not ever use soap. Wipe the water out and a quick spray and wipe with Pam saves it glossy smooth for next time. My favorite cast iron pan I use at home.



Chain scrubber:


For BSA wilderness guide training canoe trips I use a huge long handle steel pan that has been seasoned mainly from a single use of cooking several batches of bannock for the group on the last breakfast morning to feed up to 30 people at a graduation gathering point. It has been used in this way for 30 years, mainly for cooking bannock over a wood fire, I use liquid margarine and nothing burns in it or sticks even though it does not seem to have developed a black polymer coating. After that use I take it home and scrub it with the same chain scrubber to remove any browned margarine residue, or a light wipe with a soapy brillo pad if needed to finish. Then a light spray coating until next year.




I have found very rough abused cast iron pans before. The best way to clean them is to use coarse salt as a scrubbing agent and scrape down to bare iron. It will eventually become smooth and then you can go through the fat seasoning process in the oven.

 

[Odyssey]

I stripped our cast iron pans either by a) baking them at high heat on a bbq, or b) soaking them in a solution of coarse salt and cleaning vinegar. Either way you'll end up with raw metal. Then I seasoned them with repeated wipes of grapeseed oil on the heated metal followed by cooling. Over time though, most of the non-stick accretion these days is probably animal fat. I'll throw some olive oil in there but my wife prefers cooking with duck fat and/or bacon grease etc. These heavy pans never leave our kitchen.
Camp CH pans recieve a slightly different approach. I seasoned them with grapeseed oil and use them more gently. Those get cleaned with water and plastic scour pads only.
The wood ash is an interesting and historical way to clean! Wood ash, in particular hardwood, is similar to lye ( a high pH alkaline caustic substance) and can be mixed with fat ( a weak acid) leftover from the used pan to make wood ash soap.
The ashes mixed with the leftover cooking fat produce a crude soap. Cool idea. Thanks snapper and Bob B. I'll have to try that.

 

[snapper]

Google Photos

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@Bob B. - A bit of a Luddite when it comes to posting photos. Hopefully the links will take you to the photos. I took them up this morning before the stove was going but it gives you an idea of what I do to dry them.

Also, this is our full time kitchen stove. The wood side is on the left and there is a "gas sidecar" on the right of the stove. We use the wood for cooking and heating pretty much from the end of October to the beginning of May. The rest of the year we use the gas portion of the stove.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time...be well.

snapper

 

[Robin]

I tried seasoning my cold handles years ago but it didn’t seem to last. If I remember correctly, I gave them a good scrubbing with steel wool, then added some oil and baked them in the oven. It worked but didn’t last.
Now, I just ad oil or butter before cooking, and wash them in soap and water and then rub some oil on them to prevent rust afterwards.

 

[yknpdlr]

Well I 'll be darned, I did not think anyone had ever used ashes before except me and the old way people. Good on ya snapper. Post a pic or two of your pans as well, sitting on the wood stove. I like looking at traditional stuff like that.

Bob.

I use ashes as recommended by the manufacturer on the glasss door window of my wood stove. Along with a damp spray of windex it does a remarkable job of cleaning soot for a sparkling clean view.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

A bit of a Luddite when it comes to posting photos. Hopefully the links will take you to the photos.

Snapper, those links don't go to photos. If you want, you can PM me and I'll try to explain how to upload or link photos.

 

[Bob B.]

Snapper, I have lusted after the LP/ wood stoves forever, set up is not practical with my house. I look forward to seeing it and your drying cold handle once you get posting figured

 

[snapper]

Glenn - That's funny because I get the photos when I click on the links. Maybe because it's my own computer.

As for how to post photos, I'll shoot you a PM. Thanks for trying to help me out.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time... be well.

snapper

 

[Boreal Birch]

Snapper…..
Having a lawyer explain things to you is not necessarily a good thing. Getting a child to teach you how to use current technology is maybe a better route to take.

 

[snapper]

Yea...my biggest issue is my grandkids live 4 hours away. If they were even remotely nearby, I'd already know what to do!

Until next time...be well.

snapper

PS - Glenn is definitely helping me. We're making headway. I've now got my photos into a file on my laptop so I'm just awaiting further instructions from the Chief!

 

[scratchypants]

Dish detergent hasn't contained lye in quite some time - using soap on your seasoned cookware won't hurt it. Ash does contain lye, so although I have no empirical evidence myself, that should actually do more harm. If in your experience you have found it to be harmless, then I certainly wouldn't worry about using detergent.

At home I keep an oily, 100% cotton rag on a small plate in my cupboard. After washing my pans I put them on the burner to heat them up and then give them a wipe.

I would say that the bigger threat to carbon pans is shock - they will warp and once that happens you are stuck with it. It would seem obvious not to plunge a hot pan into cold water, but less so is deglazing a ripping hot pan with a deluge of room-temperature liquid. If deglazing is in the cards, take the pan off the heat and add the liquid a little at a time.

 

[snapper]

Did this work? If so, here's our stove...

Until next time...be well.

 

[Seeker]

I'm still trying to find a cheap Cold Handle at a local antique store... In the meantime, I use two other sheet steel pans.

One is a modern Paderno 6" pan with almost vertical sides, to which I've added the folding handle from a 'non-stick' Coleman pan that started sticking (grind off the rivets, drill the new pan, remount with tinners rivets). It nest in the bottom of my pot sack with the handle sticking up the side.


The other is a smaller 'period' reproduction my wife found. It's about 4.5" across the bottom, 6" at the top, and had a folding handle/socket for a stick. I cut off the top of the socket (like 2/3 off, 1/3 remaining), flattened it out, and drilled holes for 2x copper wires, still for use with a stick, but much lighter now.

I season both with bacon or olive oil as described, clean as needed, retreat as needed, and am generally happy with them for solo use. 8-9" is probably the minimum for 2-person use. In use, I generally place it a walmart-type plastic bag before putting it into the cloth bag with the rest of my cook kit on top. Mostly this keeps the dirty pot from sitting directly in the frying pan, but also keeps the sooty pan bottom from soiling the cloth bag.