bryan Posted August 2, 2015 Report Share Posted August 2, 2015 What say you http://www.cooking-outdoors.com/how-to-season-the-island-grillstone/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CeramicChef Posted August 2, 2015 Report Share Posted August 2, 2015 Interesting. It's not for me, but it's interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syzygies Posted August 4, 2015 Report Share Posted August 4, 2015 Nice presentation, but olive oil? There's a school of thought that infers: Seasoning is about polymerizing, and flaxseed oil is best at polymerizing, ergo one should season with flaxseed oil. I'm not going to spell out all the flaws in this reasoning, but one should be trained to not buy into such a logical sequence. Flaxseed oil does work reasonably well on cast iron, because cast iron has a rough enough texture. Try the same method (as described all over the web, e.g. Cooks Illustrated) on a wok or a carbon steel paella pan, and the flaxseed oil residue has a tendency to flake off. I was trained by my Thai cooking teacher to use lard (she laments its replacement by soybean oil in modern Thailand). If one views seasoning as "which fat to apply" and one's beliefs allow the use of pork products, then this is the best fat I've ever found for seasoning. (I've had several stretches where I made many, many experiments.) One wants a thin film of fat to turn black. The Komodo Kamado is an ideal oven for this, because the fumes stay outside, though a KK can get hot enough to approximate a self-cleaning oven cycle, which can destroy any seasoning that hasn't been burned in for decades. In practice, restaurant pans get beautifully seasoned after dozens of uses per night, night after night. They see whatever cooking oil the restaurant uses, plus all manner of food starches, which are mostly but not entirely removed between uses. In the abstract, not sure this reasoning is any better than "Oh gee! Let's polymerize!", but I've had the best luck by emulating restaurant cycles, frying potatoes and salt in fat. One wants the cooking to stick then release, that's a spot on the pan that can now properly season. Scrape it clean with a sacrificial wooden spoon, and keep frying. Pour olive oil once over a stone? Not so sure. In any case I'd recommend instead a custom order 1/2" baking steel round, which can be seasoned as I describe: http://www.bakingsteel.com/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bryan Posted August 4, 2015 Author Report Share Posted August 4, 2015 I'll stay with the oil. This is about lava rock not metal. I agree with the lard thing for metal. Been useing it all my life and my family before me.used it. Do you turn the metal over after each cook? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
