Third attempt on a 10 inch skillet. I scrub it back, warm it, rub in a thin layer of oil, then bake it at about 180C for an hour and let it cool in the oven. Every time it comes out tacky, like a fingerprint sticks to it, and it stays that way for days. The advice everywhere says thin layer and high heat and I thought I was doing both.
Honestly, the oven rounds matter less than people think. Two or three thin coats to get it started, then just cook in it. Fry things, roast things, do bacon. Six weeks of actual cooking builds a better surface than any amount of ceremony with a bottle of oil.
Which oil? Flaxseed gets recommended constantly because it polymerises hard, and it does, but the layer it makes is brittle and flakes off in sheets after a few months. Plain grapeseed or even sunflower gives a softer film that keeps building instead of chipping.
Same experience. Flax looked incredible for six weeks then came off in patches like old nail varnish.
Put a tray on the shelf underneath. Sticky patches are often oil that ran down the side and pooled at the bottom edge, and a tray also saves you scrubbing the oven floor.
@patina_shop · 5mo ago · 3 replies
Two things, and the oven temperature is the bigger one.
180C is not high heat for this. Seasoning is the oil polymerising into a hard film, and that needs to happen above the oil's smoke point. Most neutral oils want 220 to 250C. At 180 you're just baking oil, which stays oil, which is your tacky finish.
The other thing is that your thin layer is almost certainly not thin. Rub the oil in, then take a clean dry cloth and wipe the pan as though you're trying to remove all of it. It should look dry, not glossy. Anything you can see pooling in the texture will end up sticky.
Fix what you've got by putting it back in at 240C for an hour with nothing added. That will often harden the existing tacky layer. If it doesn't, scrub it off with coarse salt and start again.
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@sawdust_pete · 5mo ago
240C with nothing added took the tackiness off completely. I did not expect that to work on an existing coat.
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@patina_shop · 5mo ago
It's the same reaction finishing rather than starting. Open a window next time you do a full round though, an hour at 240 with oil in there will set off a sensitive smoke alarm.
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