[Sca-cooks] OOP but not OT-seeking advice on a cast-iron hibachi

[Pat Griffin]

Once cast iron has been cleaned, by whatever method, it should be seasoned
with some sort of fat or oil to prevent rusting.  Will the hibachi fit in
your home oven?  If so, I would oil it well, all over, with canola oil, then
place in the oven on low for an hour or so.  You should re-oil it after each
use and cleaning, but only re-season it when it begins to show signs of
rust.

Lady Anne du Bosc Known as Mordonna The Cook

Mka Pat Griffin

Thorngill, Meridies

mka Montgomery, AL

"To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old
falsehoods." From The Notebooks of Lazarus Long by R. A. Heinlein

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel & Elizabeth Phelps [mailto:dephelps at embarqmail.com] 
Sent: Friday, August 29, 2008 10:42 PM
To: Cooks List
Subject: [Sca-cooks] OOP but not OT-seeking advice on a cast-iron hibachi

Greetings, fellow cooks!
As we stare down the throat of several more hurricanes here in Tallahassee
(the panhandle of Florida, we're closer to Mobile, Alabama than we are to
Miami), I am thinking about my cast iron hibachi again. We picked it up at a
yard sale a while back, and the times we used it to cook with we were quite
pleased with it. But, I have a maintenance question:
I loaned the hibachi to some friends to take to Gulf Wars a while back-I
believe it was the Gulf Wars that got rained out, and they returned it to me
rusty. I was entirely unenthused with this, one of the many reasons those
individuals are not friends any more. It's only surface rust as I recall,
and it's been in storage ever since, as I really wasn't sure what to do with
it. I can figure out how to clean it, steel wool/wire brush/wire brush on a
drill, that's not too hard to figure out, just a lot of elbow grease and
some very colorful language speculating on the ancestry and hobbies of said
former friends, but then what? Do I use soap and water with the steel wool
and wire brushes, or do I just use them dry? And how do I keep it from
rusting again? I though of stove polish, but googling this topic seems to
indicate this would just not be suitable. Would cast iron stove paint be
appropriate? It's a charcoal-burning hibachi, not a wood stove, so I assume
the operating temperatures would be higher. Or do I  clean it off and just
use it naked? ( The stove, not me...)
As always, any advice the good gentles on this list could offer me would be
most appreciated. And yes, I know to use it outside, and not on our wooden
deck. Thank you, and everyone have a safe and happy Labor Day weekend-here
in Trimaris we're crowning our next King and Queen. Take care now.
YIS,
Isabella de la Gryffin
Barony of Oldenfeld, Trimaris
Tallahassee, Florida

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.
Frank Zappa

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like
administering medicine to the dead. 
Thomas Paine