Bought my first cast iron six weeks ago, seasoned it three times before first use, and I've cooked in it maybe four nights a week since. Steak and vegetables are fine. Eggs still weld themselves to the surface every single time, even with plenty of butter on medium heat. Is six weeks too early to expect this to work or am I doing something obviously wrong?
Mildly contrary: don't be precious about it. If eggs are annoying you, cook eggs in a nonstick and use the cast iron for what it's good at. The pan doesn't care and neither should you.
Also normal. A pan gets genuinely non-stick over months, not weeks, and eggs are the last thing to work. The order tends to be: fatty meat fine at week one, vegetables at a month, pancakes somewhere around three months, eggs last. Keep cooking bacon in it and be patient.
Agreed. My first pan took about four months before eggs slid. I nearly gave up at week eight and I'm glad I didn't.
Modern pan? If so the surface is textured and eggs will find every bump. Nothing wrong, it just takes longer. A few months of cooking gradually fills it in.
Use more fat than feels reasonable while it's young. A proper tablespoon of butter, not a smear. You can cut back once the surface is established. Trying to cook a low-fat egg on a six week old pan is fighting physics.
@carbon_steel_cam · last wk. · 3 replies
Six weeks is early but you should be doing better than that, and the most likely culprit is heat management rather than seasoning. Two things almost everyone gets wrong with eggs on cast iron:
First, preheat properly and slowly. Five minutes on medium-low, not two minutes on medium. Cast iron is slow to heat and has hot and cold spots until it's fully saturated — a pan that's 200C in the middle and 120C at the edge will grab anything you put in it.
Second, the pan is probably too hot when the egg goes in, not too cold. Butter should foam gently, not brown instantly. If it browns the moment it lands, pull the pan off the heat for thirty seconds.
Also: don't touch the egg for the first 45 seconds. Egg protein bonds to metal and then releases as it sets. Poking it early breaks the release.
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@carbon_steel_cam · last wk.
Very common mix-up. Hot equals no stick for steak, where you want a crust. For eggs you want the pan barely hot enough to set them, or you cook the underside to the metal before the protein has released.
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@newborn_noob · last wk.
The butter browning instantly thing is exactly what happens. I've been preheating on medium-high because I assumed hot pan equals no stick.
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