TIL my $180 cast iron skillet was the problem, not my seasoning technique, after 4 years of flaking

Jordan Black · 2026-10-07T16:25:04.2002+00:00

I bought a Lodge back in 2020 and spent four years convinced I was just bad at cast iron. Eggs stuck every single time. I re-seasoned it maybe 15 times. Bought flaxseed oil because some guy on YouTube swore by it. Bought Crisco. Tried the oven method, the stovetop method, the potato peel trick my grandma swore by. Then my buddy who works at a restaurant in Boise let me cook on his grandma's 60 year old Wagner for a weekend. Night and day. Nothing stuck. I asked him what he does different and he just laughed and said he never does anything, it was smooth when he got it. Turns out the modern Lodge has a pebbly surface from the sand casting and no amount of seasoning fills those divots smooth. I spent $40 on oil and probably 30 hours of my life trying to fix a texture problem with chemistry. Sold it on marketplace for $60 and bought a used Griswold for $140. Cooks eggs clean on day one. Anyone else get suckered into the seasoning rabbit hole before realizing the pan itself was the issue?

Rigidtalk

Loading…

TIL my $180 cast iron skillet was the problem, not my seasoning technique, after 4 years of flaking | Buy It For Keeps - Rigidtalk