The Burner Can Only Reach Half the Pan

The short answer: yes, you can season cast iron on the hob, and it is worth understanding what you are getting. Wash the skillet, dry it over the burner, apply a very thin film of high smoke point oil to the inside only, and heat until it smokes and stops. Repeat two or three times. The important limitation is in that word inside: oiling the outside of a pan that is sitting on a burner risks a grease fire, so the stovetop method reaches the cooking surface and nothing else. The oven does the inside, the outside and the handle in one go. So this is a repair and maintenance method rather than a full substitute, and used that way it works very well.

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What the stovetop method can and cannot do

Search this and you get a straightforward set of steps: clean, dry, thin oil, heat until smoking, repeat. All correct. What almost none of them say is what you are giving up by not using the oven, and there is a specific safety reason behind it.

One cast iron site states it plainly and it is the most useful sentence on the subject: never oil the outside of a skillet when using the stovetop method, because the burners should never come into contact with oil or you risk a grease fire.

The same source concludes what follows from it: you can only season the inside of the skillet using the stovetop method.

Which changes what this method is for

The oven method exists to coat an entire pan. Lodge’s own instructions, quoted by a national outlet, are to apply a thin layer of oil to the surface inside and out including the handles, then bake it upside down at 450°F for an hour and repeat three more times.

Inside and out. That is the whole point of putting it in an oven, and it is also why the pan goes in upside down: excess oil drips away rather than pooling.

The stovetop method is not that job done differently. It is a smaller job. It restores the cooking surface, which is the part that wears, and it leaves the exterior and the handle alone.

Used for what it is, it is excellent: quicker than the oven, no hour of a hot kitchen, and it targets exactly the area that gets scraped by a spatula. Used as a substitute for a full seasoning on a stripped or newly bought pan, it leaves two thirds of the surface bare.

And a note on why people ask

There are three ordinary reasons to want the hob and they lead to different answers.

No oven, or one too small for a 12 inch skillet plus space around it. Then the hob is what you have, and the limitation above is simply the deal.

Wanting to fix a worn patch rather than redo the pan. Then the hob is the better tool anyway.

A wooden handle, which is rarer on cast iron than on carbon steel but does exist on vintage pieces and waffle irons. Then the oven is genuinely out and this is your method.

Which leaves the question people ask straight afterwards, and it has three different answers depending on what you look at.

Work out your method in 3 taps

Why you are avoiding the oven, what state the pan is in, and what it looks like now. Those three decide whether the hob is enough.

The stovetop method, step by step

Open a window and run the extractor before you start. This makes considerably more smoke than people expect, and a smoke alarm going off halfway through is the usual reason somebody abandons it.

1. Wash the pan thoroughly with hot soapy water and a stiff brush. Soap is fine here, and Lodge says so explicitly in its own re-seasoning instructions: it is acceptable to use soap because you are preparing to re-season the cookware. Scrub off any stuck-on residue.
2. Dry it, then dry it again over the burner. Pat it with a paper towel rather than a cloth, then set it on medium heat for a minute. Any remaining water will visibly evaporate. Moisture under a seasoning layer is how rust starts underneath it.
3. Apply a very thin film of high smoke point oil to the inside only. A paper towel dipped in oil, held with tongs, covering the base and up the interior sides. Then wipe it back until the metal looks almost dry. Never the outside.
4. Heat on medium-high until it smokes. The smoke is the oil polymerising, which is the change from liquid oil to a hard bonded layer.
5. Keep heating until the smoke stops, then give it one more wipe with the towel while it is still hot. That layer is now finished.
6. Repeat two or three times. Two thin layers beat one thick one, every time, and this is where people go wrong by trying to do it in a single heavy coat.
7. Let it cool completely before use or storage. The layer is still hardening as the temperature drops.

The safety rules, which are not optional here

Never oil the outside. A burner in contact with oil is a grease fire, and this is the reason the stovetop method does the inside only.

Never leave the pan unattended. You are deliberately heating oil past its smoke point on an open flame for several minutes at a stretch.

Oven mitts, and tell the household. A cast iron pan at seasoning temperature looks exactly like a cold one, and the handle is as hot as the base.

How to tell if it is seasoned

Three tests, in order of how quickly they answer the question.

One: look at it after washing

The clearest description I found puts it like this: you can tell a pan needs re-seasoning if, after washing, it no longer has its black glossy appearance and instead looks dull and grey.

That is the signal, and the timing matters. A pan can look fine while oily from cooking and reveal the truth once it is clean and dry. Judge it after washing, not before.

Two: fry an egg

The practical test. Heat the pan properly, add a little oil, crack an egg in. If it slides freely around the pan, the seasoning is doing its job.

If it sticks, that tells you something is wrong but not yet which thing, because an underheated pan sticks regardless of how good the layer is. Preheat before the oil goes in, add the egg once the oil shimmers, and if it still sticks then it is the seasoning.

Three: look for blotches and dry patches

A pan that is blotchy, has dry patches or seems slightly dull needs minor service rather than a full re-season, which is a useful distinction: a couple of thin coats on the hob rather than an afternoon with the oven.

Patchiness that follows the shape of the burner usually means uneven heating during the last seasoning rather than wear. It evens out with cooking.

How often, and the honest answer

There is no interval, and that is the answer rather than an evasion. A cast iron pan in regular use for oily, high heat cooking seasons itself, because every meal deposits and polymerises a little more oil. A pan used mostly for simmering liquids strips itself at a similar rate.

So the schedule is the condition rather than the calendar. Re-season when it goes dull and grey after washing, when food starts sticking on a properly preheated pan, or after anything that visibly stripped it.

The maintenance version takes thirty seconds and is worth doing every time: after washing, dry the pan over the burner and wipe a few drops of oil round the inside while it is still warm. Done consistently, that alone keeps most pans from ever needing a proper re-season.

Oven or hob, side by side

The first row is the one that decides it, and everything else is preference.

Read the bottom row rather than the first one if you are choosing. A pan that has been in use for years and has simply gone dull in the middle wants the hob, because the exterior is already protected and only the cooking surface has worn. A pan that arrived bare or has been stripped back to metal wants the oven, because everything needs covering.

And if you have no oven and a bare pan, the workaround is not heat. Wipe a thin film of oil over the outside by hand after each wash, without heating it, and keep the pan somewhere dry. It is not a bonded layer, it is rust prevention, and it does that job well enough until you can get to an oven.

The kit with the spray, which solves the thin coat problem

Five pieces: seasoning spray, scrub brush, pan scraper and a silicone handle holder.

The mistake this whole article keeps coming back to is too much oil, and a spray is the easiest way to avoid it. Pouring oil onto a paper towel and wiping gives you whatever came out of the bottle; a spray gives you a fine even film to start with, so the wiping back is a correction rather than the entire technique.

The scraper matters more than it sounds. Stuck-on food is the reason people reach for detergent and soaking, and both of those are worse for a pan than a plastic scraper and hot water. The stiff brush does the same job on the parts a scraper cannot reach.

And the silicone handle holder is the piece you will use daily rather than occasionally, because a cast iron handle is exactly as hot as the pan and does not look it.

Worth it or skip: Worth it if you are seasoning on the hob, where controlling the oil quantity is the whole difficulty. Skip it if you already own a pan scraper and a bottle of grapeseed oil, since the spray is convenience rather than a different chemistry.

Check the five piece care kit on Amazon

Three more, by what you are doing

A chainmail scrubber, for the cleaning step before you season. Stuck-on residue has to come off before oil goes on, and chainmail is the tool that does it without stripping the seasoning underneath, which is what steel wool and scouring pads do. The rounded stainless rings are hard on food and not on the pan. This one has a silicone core, which gives you something to hold rather than working with a handful of loose mesh, and it goes in the dishwasher. See the chainmail scrubber →

A larger 8 by 6 inch scrubber, if you have a big skillet or a dutch oven. Same principle with more surface area, which matters on a 12 inch pan where a small pad means a lot of passes. It is stainless rather than coated so it does not rust, and it can be used flat, bunched or folded depending on whether you are working the base or the curve of a wall. Dishwasher safe, and it will outlast several sponges. See the larger scrubber →

A 12 inch skillet with a care kit, if you are starting from nothing. Pre-seasoned. Twelve inches is the size that suits most households: large enough for a family meal, still liftable one-handed when hot. It arrives pre-seasoned, so it works from the first use, and the bundled care kit means you have the scraper and the handle holder from day one rather than discovering you need them. Cast iron takes any hob, oven, grill and open flame, which is more than most pans can say. See the 12 inch skillet set →

The same polymerised layer on a curved pan runs into a different obstacle, and there the handle decides it. I go through it in look at the handle before you turn the oven on.

Seasoned it and it is not right? 2 taps

The quiz above is for deciding the method. This one starts from the pan in front of you, and the second question usually names the cause.

People also ask about seasoning cast iron

Can you season cast iron without an oven?

Yes, on the hob, with one limitation worth knowing before you start: the stovetop method seasons the inside of the pan only. Oiling the outside of a skillet that is sitting on a burner risks a grease fire, so the exterior and the handle are left bare. Wash the pan, dry it over the burner, apply a very thin film of high smoke point oil to the interior, and heat on medium-high until it smokes and then stops smoking. Repeat two or three times. That makes it an excellent maintenance and repair method and an incomplete substitute for a full oven seasoning on a bare or stripped pan.

How do you know if cast iron is seasoned?

Judge it after washing rather than after cooking, since an oily pan looks fine either way. A seasoned pan is black and glossy; one that needs re-seasoning looks dull and grey once clean. The practical confirmation is a fried egg: heat the pan properly, add a little oil, and if the egg slides freely the surface is working. Blotchiness and dry patches mean minor service rather than a full re-season, so a couple of thin coats on the hob will sort it.

How often should you season cast iron?

By condition rather than by calendar, because the answer depends entirely on what you cook. A pan used regularly for oily, high heat cooking seasons itself, since every meal deposits and polymerises a little more oil. A pan used for simmering liquids strips itself at a similar rate, and the specific culprit is a meal with a lot of liquid such as a spaghetti sauce, which is both wet and acidic. Re-season when the pan goes dull and grey after washing, or when food starts sticking on a properly preheated surface. The thirty second habit that prevents most of it: dry the pan over the burner after washing and wipe a few drops of oil round the inside while it is warm.

What temperature do you season cast iron at?

In an oven, Lodge’s own instructions are quoted at both 450°F for an hour repeated four times, and in an older version at 350 to 400°F for at least an hour with the pan left to cool inside the oven. Both work, and the higher figure builds a harder layer faster while making more smoke. On the hob there is no number to aim for: heat until the oil smokes, then continue until the smoke stops, which is the visible signal that the oil has polymerised. Either way, use an oil with a high smoke point, since the oil has to reach that point for the chemical change to happen at all.

Cast iron seasoning FAQ

Can I use soap on cast iron?

Yes, and the rule is older than modern detergent. Lodge’s own re-seasoning instructions call for hot soapy water and a stiff brush, and note that it is acceptable because you are about to re-season. On a well seasoned pan in daily use, a little washing up liquid will not strip a bonded layer. What does damage cast iron is soaking it and leaving it wet, which is a different habit entirely.

Which oil is best?

Any with a high smoke point: vegetable, canola, grapeseed, sunflower or peanut, and Lodge mentions melted solid vegetable shortening. Flaxseed produces the hardest layer and is also the most likely to flake off later, which is why opinion on it splits. Olive oil smokes too low, so it burns rather than bonding. The oil matters less than the thinness of the coat.

Why does my pan smoke so much?

Because it is supposed to. The smoke is oil passing its smoke point and polymerising, which is the entire mechanism. Open a window and run the extractor before you start rather than halfway through, and warn anyone with a sensitive smoke alarm. If it smokes continuously and never stops, the coat was too thick.

Do I need to season a pre-seasoned pan?

Not before using it, and it benefits from more protection. Manufacturers of pre-seasoned cookware still recommend seasoning it when you get it, since the factory layer is a starting point rather than a finished patina. Two thin coats on the hob before first use gets you a better surface faster than waiting for cooking to build it.

Can I put a cast iron pan with a wooden handle in the oven?

No, and it is worth checking before you assume, since most cast iron handles are cast in one piece with the pan but vintage pieces and waffle irons frequently have wood. Wood does not survive an hour at 450°F. On those, the stovetop method is not a compromise, it is the only option, and keep the flame under the pan rather than licking up the sides.

What strips seasoning fastest?

Liquid, and acidic liquid most of all. A meal with a lot of liquid such as a spaghetti sauce will take the surface back noticeably, which is why a pan can look perfect one day and dull the next with nothing done wrong. Scrubbing with chainmail does far less damage than people expect, and soaking does far more.

The cast iron cheat sheet

Free printable

The Cozy Home Starter Checklist

Thirty seconds of oil after washing is the sort of habit that keeps a pan going for decades and that nobody remembers without a prompt. This printable walks you through a home room by room, catching the small routines worth keeping.

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Keep reading

• Look at the Handle Before You Turn the Oven On
  The same polymerised layer on a curved pan, where two manufacturers give opposite instructions and the handle settles it.
• The Board That Gets Safer With Age, and the One That Does Not
  The other kitchen surface that improves with care, where research found the assumption about hygiene runs backwards.
• Name the Smell First. It Tells You Where to Look
  Four smells, four places, and the two minute test that decides whether to clean or call a plumber.
• Washable Only Counts If It Fits Your Machine
  The runner underfoot while you cook, where the label says washable and the drum says otherwise.
• Scandinavian Kitchen Design: Functional, Minimal, and Cozy
  Where tools that get used daily belong in a kitchen meant to be worked in rather than photographed.

The hob does the half that wears

You can absolutely season cast iron without an oven, and the thing worth knowing first is what you are getting rather than how to do it. The steps are simple: wash, dry over the burner, a film of high smoke point oil so thin the metal looks almost dry, then medium-high heat until it smokes and keeps going until the smoke stops. Two or three times.

What the hob cannot do is the outside. Oiling the exterior of a pan that is sitting on a burner is a grease fire, so the method reaches the cooking surface and nothing else. The oven exists to coat a whole pan, inside, out and handle, and putting it in upside down is there to stop oil pooling where it would set sticky.

So use the hob for what it is good at, which is most of what a pan in regular use actually needs. The cooking surface is the part a spatula wears and the part a tomato sauce strips, and it is the part that goes dull and grey after washing while the outside carries on unchanged.

And the mistake to avoid is the same one every time: too much oil. A thick coat cannot harden all the way through, so it sets on top and stays tacky underneath, and no amount of extra heat corrects it. Thin enough to look like you forgot the oil is about right.