Cleaning a Cast Iron Pan - Using water and electricity

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millerbuilds

Master of the Pit
Original poster
SMF Premier Member
★ Lifetime Premier ★
May 13, 2013
1,676
1,124
Little Elm, TX
Hello all:

I acquired a pretty nasty cast iron skillet.  In the past I have filled a 5 gallon bucket with Lye and let it sit for 48 hours, then grabbed some rubber gloves and went to scraping.  My wife hates having that much lye and is worried our 5 year old will get into it.

So....

I was reading about using Electrolysis.  It seemed simple and safe with not using any nasty chemicals.


Here is the pan, you can see I scraped some of the crap off.


Welded 3 pieces of plate together, added a place for the battery charger clamp


Added 13 gallons of water to a blue tote container


Put 14 TBS of washing soda in the water


Positioned the skillet as close to the positive plate as I could without letting them touch.


Turned on my battery charger running 12 volts at 20 Amps, this picture is maybe 2 minutes after turning it on, you can see the bubbles and gunk coming off the skillet.

Going to let it go for 12 hours and see if this will work.

I will post more pics then.

Smoke ON!

- Jason
 
Okay good deal,now I need a welder and a welding class to clean my CI LOL Just kidding

Hope it works

Richie
 
 
Okay good deal,now I need a welder and a welding class to clean my CI LOL Just kidding

Hope it works

Richie
You don't need a welder, you just need a piece of metal bigger than the pan.  So instead of running and buying on, I welded some scrap pieces together!

-Jason
 
Very interesting, I'm in to see the finished pics!

popcorn.gif
 
That's COOOOOLLL.... Yep I'm watching to, I would never have thought of that..... Great thread.....
 
I have cleaned quite a few old CI cookware pieces using electrolysis and a 6amp battery charger. Your using the 20 amp will make it go faster. I found that if I turn the skillet so both sides get to face the plate then it seems to be more evenly cleaned. But, that could be due to my lower amp power source.  Try it on an old rusty tool. I have enjoyed cleaning various rusty things.
 
This doesn't seem like the right way to tackle the problem because it is the dirt you want to remove, not the metal. Electrolysis will remove metal, not dirt (old bacon bits will not be attracted to the anode).

The usual way to clean a cast iron pan is with some sort of chain mail scrubber (there are lots of them sold for this express purpose). You then simply re-season.

Castings (this is true of any metal) tend to have rough surfaces compared to metal that is rolled, extruded, forged, and other ways of fabricating metal products, and electrolysis may tend to accentuate that roughness. This is not a good thing for cookware.

So, let us know how it turned out.
 
the easiest way to clean any thing cast iron is to put it in the coals of a good fire and leave it until all the coals are cool , wash then re-season and its good as new 
 
I find this interesting for sure, and curious how well it works. I cant say I have ever come across a CI pan that I couldn't resurrect by other traditional means. At worst case by mechanical means with a wire wheel on a grinder, or by sanding. Followed by a mild detergent, rinsing well, then re-seasoning upside down in the oven.

A bath in muriatic acid would take it to shiny bare metal for sure, but never had the guts to trust any my post cleaning of any residual that might be left behind. It is technically toxic, but has industrial food, pharmaceutical, and drinking water uses.

Edit: Usually just boiling water for a while in my CI, will clean out about anything and everything- including rust out of the pores.
 
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