Seasoning Cast Iron: What am I doing wrong?!?!?! (pizza, chef, purchase)
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I also oil them after I clean them.. What I do is clean them and then dry them and put them on a burner on very low and brush them with a bit of oil.... and leave it on the burner for about 15 minutes then turn the burner off and let it sit...
Soap has never touched mine and I intend to keep it that way- period. Myth or no myth you have a choice. My choice is to pre-heat my pans prior to cooking, and not have any soap residue in my food. Mine has a nice layer of patina carbon- burned oils are that, ya know? It's a nice, smooth sheen that shall not ever absorb any odor other than what was cooked into it. No lye, no soap, no detergents. Just heat and oil.
There is no soap residue in my food. I know plenty of people that use soap on their cast iron, with no issues at all. Sure I have a choice. And I choose to use soap, when I feel I need it.
All my cast iron skillets start life as bacon cookers. I only use paper towels to clean them and they live in my oven for 6 months or so. I have never used any kind of soap on my cast iron skillets. It takes years to get them as slick as teflon but when they do get their they are worth their wait in gold.
My mom always washed (with soap, as she learned from her mother) them, put them on the stove with the fire on to dry them, then put oil (vegetable oil, Crisco or whatever) in it and rubbed it around to coat the inside of the pan and wiped out the excess.
There is no soap residue in my food. I know plenty of people that use soap on their cast iron, with no issues at all. Sure I have a choice. And I choose to use soap, when I feel I need it.
Don't care what you do or some other foodies do. I do as my born and bred country parents and grandparents did, one set from Ohio and one from NC. No soap. No lye, no lie.
Wow, I came to the right place for advice on my free cast iron frying pans.
As for "pounding" with scrambled eggs--what I mean is that I scramble eggs in the frying pan as they cook, that involves a lot of "pounding" with the spatula.
I also hear, of course, that cooking cornbread in the oven in a cast iron frying pan produced exceptionally good cornbread. If so, I'm looking forward to that.
My mom always washed (with soap, as she learned from her mother) them, put them on the stove with the fire on to dry them, then put oil (vegetable oil, Crisco or whatever) in it and rubbed it around to coat the inside of the pan and wiped out the excess.
That worked for me, lo these many years although I seldom saw the need for soap. Used a plastic scrubber and hot water to get rid of the crud. The light coat of Crisco and putting it on the gas burner were essential.
I got lazy after I retired and switched to a porcelain-lined cast iron pot. No need to season.
Personally, I consider eggs a delicate food and pour premixed eggs (usually about four dozen strokes with a wire whip) into a moderately hot and oiled cast iron pan. Let the lower layer congeal a bit, then fluff them as they cook. You end up with big fluffy clumps of egg that way. Omelets are even easier since you sort of do the same thing but never get to the lowest layer. But, it's your eggs, so maybe pounded are better, I've never tried them that way.
Cast iron pans are very durable. You can pound and thrash them quite a bit. Scratching the surface seal off isn't so good, but it's not so easy, either. But, if it gets damaged, it can be repaired. We use metal utensils on the cast iron and have one of those commercial restaurant lava bricks to scrub the griddle if it needs it. And if we find a really abused cast iron pan at a yard sale, we can usually rescue it with a bit of sandblasting and then reseasoning. The stuff is durable as long as it's not dropped and shattered.
I bake bread in the frying pans as well as biscuits and cornbread. They heat up nice and evenly. One of these days I'll find a cast iron bread pan, but so far that hasn't appeared.
The older cast iron such as Wagner and Griswold have much nicer surfaces than the new stuff. I'd say Griswold is the best that I've come across, followed by Wagner and then Lodge.
I follow this guy's directions when it comes to cleaning and maintenance and always oil them before putting them away.
I do not use soap on my pans ever and scrape them out if need be with an old credit card ( or a similar type of plastic card. I mean you can buy that Lodge scraper if you want to but why?)
I have almost entirely switched over to cooking exclusively with cast iron. I wish I had done this earlier as it would have saved me a fortune in buying cook wear that did not preform as well.
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I know plenty of people that use soap on their cast iron, with no issues at all. Sure I have a choice. And I choose to use soap, when I feel I need it. 
