I too have my grandmothers that are jet black. I love them but I hate washing them because they're so heavy. I scrub them with d/w liquid and a nylon scrubber and have for years.I have even soaked and scraped them and never had a problem. They're cast iron--pretty tough! I also then put them on a low fire on the stove to dry which prevents them from rusting anyway.For 'seasoning' I rub oil all over them and use a low fire on the stove top for about 10 minutes, and don't mess with that oven stuff.

A friend gave me my first Griswold cast iron pan--a 10-inch square beauty that I've made countless batches of cornbread in. I also have a 4-quart Dutch Oven and a 6-inch Griswold frying pan. I have two Wagner ware fry pans as well. One was in such bad condition when I acquired it. I can't remember who told me, but you can completely recondition an old cast iron pan, heavily encrusted by years of accumulated hard crud by putting the pan in your self-cleaning oven (make sure you remove the oven racks). Close and use the self-cleaning mechanism according to your manufactures instructions. The resulting crud will have disintegrated completely with only a tiny bit of ash in your pan when you remove it from the cooled oven. Then simply re-season (I put a tiny amount of vegetable oil in the pan and with a paper towel, rub the entire pan until the oil leaves no trace.

As far as daily cleaning is concerned, once the pan is well-seasoned (and it takes about three or four times using the seasoning method I describe above), you pan can take some gentle scrubbing--and yes with liquid detergent. Just don't soak it in the sink (I usually just add some water when I'm done with the pan and let it soak on top of the stove until I do the dishes after a meal). Once it is thoroughly dry, I will add a very thin layer of oil to the pan with a paper towel again, before hanging it. A plastic scraper is a boon for getting off stubborn food that sticks to the pan. A Scotchbright pad with water only is good for stubborn areas such as oil spot build-ups too. My cast iron pans are beautiful, ready for the daily stresses of cooking that I put them through. And I proudly display them with my copper and stainless steel pans.

New Englanders pass them down in families, too. Mine are from my grandmother. They make the best Irish Soda bread. I use the first Silver Pallatte cookbook recipe. You mix it n the cast iron frying pan and pop it right in the oven. Awesome.

Another thing about cast iron--there is a theory that the early Pilgrims survived in part due to cast iron skillets. It is thought that they leach iron, which is healthy. It acts as an iron supplement to your diet. I'm a vegetarian, so this is another plus to cast iron for me. Plus, they're just cool.

In Girl Guides (I'm Canadian, eh) we learned to use salt and a crumpled wad of aluminum foil to clean our cast iron pans at camp. And lots of elbow grease. But what a great finish - so worth it. I use the technique at home now, too.

Jean with the Gunky Griddle:

If your oven has a self-cleaning feature, put the griddle in the oven and set it to self-clean. It gets so hot that stuck-on gunk turns to dust.

Then reseason your pan.

Some dish detergents, like Dawn, CAN strip the seasoning from a pan.

You only need hot water and a plastic scrubbie to clean cast iron.....a handful of salt will also help.

Restaurants clean their grills with oil and sandpaper......you do not need dish liquid to get cast iron clean enough to be safe.

And here's another tip: I could never understand why my grandma never put her cast iron pan away.....until I got one of my own. They're so heavy, and so often used, that there's no point of going to that much physical work to put it away, only to take it out again within a day. Just leave it on the stove, permanently.

Hello,

In case this is still active, I have a cast iron problem...my old pan, which I pretty much use for everything every day, had a nice, black, smooth and probably decades-old carbonized finish on it. But then it got left on the (electric...sucks, I know) burner way too long the other night by one who will remain nameless.

Now the center of the pan's coating has simply burned off, leaving me with an inner about 4-in diameter circle of shiny iron and an outer circle (and sides, and bottom) of ancient, thick coating.

So, should I just clean and re-season the thing and hope it all evens out eventually? Or should I remove every last bit of coating and start all over again? The coating that is still there is not crackly or gunky - it's very solid and smooth and it's what I've been cooking on for years, I always thought this was the goal of long-use in these pans (or am I wrong?)

Note, I don't have a self-cleaning oven to burn it all off if that's the thing to do. I could make a fire in the (small) fireplace and stick it in, I guess, but it would not be a roaring bonfire.

Thanks for any help or tips if anyone is still watching this thread...