Maintaining and taking care of your cast iron skillet might seem easy but sometimes things happen and we forget to follow proper maintenance and cleaning procedures.
Sometimes you might even lend the pan to your friend and they will fail to take care of it. Failure to follow the maintenance and cleaning protocol will result in your skillet rusting.
This is a bad thing for you because there is no way you can use the skillet as is. But does it mean your pan is no longer useful?
Absolutely not, you can get rid of the rust and the skillet will be ideal for use once more. How do you get rid of the rust?
Well, there are so many ways to do so but for this particular article, we are going to concentrate on how to get rid of rust using vinegar. So, let’s jump straight to the steps you should follow.
First Step: Mix Vinegar with Water
Vinegar is not effective when raw, and this is the reason why you need to mix it with water. When mixing them, it is important that you maintain a 50:50 ratio. Once you have achieved this ratio, empty the contents into a large bucket.
Second Step: Soak up the skillet
The second step is to soak up the pan in a large bucket. You have to ensure that the skillet is submerged entirely so that the vinegar solution can do its job.
Have the skillet sit in the solution until the rust disappears. It is important to keep checking the pan regularly as there is no specific time when the rust should take to resolve.
In fact, the amount of time it takes depends on the amount of rust and the size of the skillet.
Third step: Wash the skillet
Once you are satisfied with the results, it is important that you remove the pan from the solution and wash it immediately. You can use a sponge or anything else that won’t cause damage to the skillet.
Fourth step: Dry the pan
Dry the pan once you are done with the cleaning. You can use a cloth or paper towel to dry the water off. After drying the skillet you need to place it an oven for 40 to 60 minutes.
Final Step: Re-season your Skillet
Once you have removed the rust from the skillet, it is probably great if you re-season it. Just apply a thin layer of vegetable oil and leave the skillet in an oven for an hour or so. Make sure you do so at temperatures of 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
How to prevent your cast iron skillet from rusting
You guys now know how to get rid of rust but it should probably not get to that point. Below are some tips on how to keep your skillet free of rust.
- Clean the skillet as required
- Dry the pan after washing it
- Always store the pan in a dry place
I hope you have learned a thing or two about removing rust from a cast-iron skillet using vinegar. Of course, you are not limited to this technique, you can use others as well.