Can you make a warped cast-iron skillet perfectly flat again?
October 20, 2011 7:01 AM   Subscribe

Speaking of cast-iron skillets, I have two, and they worked brilliantly on a gas stove. But now that I have a flat-topped glass stove, they work less well because they're not perfectly flat. One is a bit convexly rounded on the outside, so some of it gets hotter than the rest; the other is concave on the outer bottom and sort of mounded on the inner bottom, so that oil pools around the edges, around the mound, if you can picture that. Both pans work great for baking stuff like cornbread, but not so good for steaks or such. So I've got two pans I love but now understand why I could buy them cheap at thrift shops. Question: Is there any way to make the bottoms of these pans perfectly flat again so they'll cook well?
posted by fivesavagepalms to Food & Drink (8 answers total)
 
Fyi, in addition to the flat-ness issue, you're also not supposed to use cast iron on glass stoves because they're highly likely to permanently scratch/damage the stove top. So solving the flatness issue perhaps should be considered an academic exercise only?
posted by Kololo at 7:05 AM on October 20, 2011 [3 favorites]


Well, sure there is. An industrial grinder could easily flatten the bottoms. However, that would make areas of the bottom too thin to be of any practical use.

And what kololo says about iron v. glass tops. I have exactly the situation as you...convex-bottom iron skillet and glass-top range. The skillet has pretty-well scuffed-up on of the burner areas. As you say, though, the thing makes awesome cornbread.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:08 AM on October 20, 2011


I have no direct experience with this, but I have heard of folks having good success with using a sort of trivet between the burner and the bottom of the skillet. Essentially it just creates a small air gap between the heating surface and the skillet. Your mileage may vary.
posted by Lafe at 7:21 AM on October 20, 2011


Check to see how thick the bottoms are. My sister had her frypan ground down, and it works much better now, but she had a thick-bottomed pan to start with.

If yours are thin-bottomed, you may need to invest in an aluminum or non-stick frypan for doing things on the stovetop, and keep your cast iron skillets for non-stovetop use.

As an aside, why wouldn't your cast iron skillet be good for steaks? Heat your skillet up in the oven till white-hot, sear your steaks on both sides, turn oven down and roast till done. No stovetop necessary!
posted by LN at 7:34 AM on October 20, 2011


An industrial grinder... would make areas of the bottom too thin to be of any practical use.

Not unless the pan was very badly warped to begin with; there's a fair bit of thickness to work with. But it would also cost more than the pans are worth, plus the stovetop damage issue.
posted by jon1270 at 7:35 AM on October 20, 2011


If you check the manual for your stove, you will almost surely find guidance that cast iron cookware is not to be used.
posted by Danf at 7:43 AM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


As an aside, why wouldn't your cast iron skillet be good for steaks? Heat your skillet up in the oven till white-hot, sear your steaks on both sides, turn oven down and roast till done. No stovetop necessary!

God I wish this worked. Ovens will top out at 500, 550 degrees, while a cast-iron pan on a stove can reach 600 or 700 degrees. On a stove, you're searing one side while only barely heating up the other side. In an oven, the ambient temp (especially at 500 degrees) will begin the cooking process on the other side while searing the first side, and that'll significantly diminish that other side's sear.
posted by incessant at 8:06 AM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Thanks for trying. I guess that, as I suspected, there's no good answer to this question. I'll stick with baking cornbread with them until I can get rid of the glass-topped range and go back to gas.
posted by fivesavagepalms at 6:56 AM on November 20, 2011


« Older What's going on with the Federal Reserve?   |   The Case of the Toasted Bookfinderfilter Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.