A little over a year ago I posted about this Dutch oven that I almost saved from my dad’s estate sale but he swiped it back from me after I cleaned it up (I was cleaning it for the sale, he didn’t know I was thinking about keeping it).
Well, Dad passed away in April and I’ve been low-key looking for this thing for like a month and a half. Last weekend I finally found it. In the barn. Getting rusty. Again. I have to keep it now for two reasons. One, it has too much of a story to give up now and two, if I find out that anyone let this damn thing get rusty again, I’m going to lose my shit!
Its not nearly as dangerous as it sounds. 12 Volt doesn’t have the oumpf to jump through a human. You can use pretty much any electric provider (old laptop charger, power brick even 9 V battery (will be painfully slow and wasteful tho). Pretty sure most alkalines work too not just hydrogen peroxide.
Vinegar works by dissolving the rust and should give you good results too. Wont get it out of tight spots the way electrolysis does tho. Just get it hot/dry and oiled fast to avoid spotrust.
Idk about baking soda, its alkaline too right?
Just try it. Its iron, you wont break it :)
My pans get used and abused, dishsoap and all. The coating regularly get destroyed but a very hot pan and a thin layer of oil, wait until it starts pooling/separate then wipe all sides as dry as possible with cloth. The cloth will get black. Repeat layer of hot oil and wipe until the cloth stays clean. Usually i find that one good layer is enough to keep even eggs from sticking. Heat is key to polymerise the oil.
thanks for the tips, I’ll look into it and probably try something this weekend
As long as you get loose stuff off and coat it, it really doesn’t matter much. It gets better over time. Don’t worry about getting it black like new, thats mostly soot and doesn’t add anything. Mine stay shiny iron forever.
Sometimes I even let it spot rust before the first coat and it gets a cool rusty colour sheen. Similar sheen using unrefined rape seed oil. But really any food oil, even olive oil, works great. Google the smoke point temperature of your oil, or just watch for it to puddle and just barely start smoking.
Good luck!