Bought a wash pot today I plan to clean up for cooking stews in. It's around a 12 gal. size, but needs to be cleaned up. Has surface rust but not pitted very deep. It is not cracked either.
Anybody know anything about cleaning and seasoning these pots for cooking? I will post pics tomorrow. Thanks, RH

Have it sandblasted then season it again will look new.

Use hot water, dish washing liquid and steel wool(you will only do this once). Give it a really good cleaning, then get some lard and put a coating all over the inside of it. Build a fire since it is to big to go in a oven and get the temp. somewhere around 200 to 300 degrees and let it cure for a few hours. A day or two later coat it again with the lard and put back in a fire.

I was told putting a flame under it without something in it would crack it. Anybody know if that's true?

Old timers threw them in a fire and burned it off. I have took my grannys skillets and put them on a fish cooker and heated them until they were glowing you can then brush them with a wire brush and they will be silver just like new then start the seasoning process. I use olive oil and just about all of the Boy Scouts I know use it too. It is not as sticky and doesn't turn rancid.

I soaked mine in red devil lye overnight. It did a really good job.Then, like others said, put some lard on it or it will rust pretty fast.

This is what I do when I salvage cast iron cookware from old barns.

There are some other tricks too, but this method works real good.

When I worked at a restaraunt that used cast iron skillets, we used a drill and a wire brush attachment. Grind all the rust off, coat in cooking oil, put on a rack in the oven at 450 degrees for several hours.

After all the rust is removed and I've got it cleaned up, what is the best way to season it? It's too big for the oven. RH

Is it too big for a grill?

Maybe I'll just build a fire outdoors and burn it off by putting it in the fire.

Build a fire big enough to put the pot on top of. Keep it raised off the fire with blocks or something. Once it gets hot, coat it in peanut or olive oil. They have a higher smoke temp than vegetable oil.

I've done that before, and you can season it at the same time but pay attention to these instructions.

First start the fire with seasoned hardwoods like oak so it gets raging hot so as to butn everything off and, try and get it so hot that the metal turns red. After it starts to cool a bit like an hour or more, throw green grass on it over and over for about an hour and dont let it get super raging hot. The grass oils will season the pot. Then let it cool for about a half a day before trying to touch it.

I've done a few big cast iron cookers this way before, its a chore but a good all day beer drinkin chore. Just be careful, that first fire you build should be hot enough to melt beer cans and bottles but it wont melt the iron.

Skinny, everybody around here seems to think putting this thing in a fire will crack it.

My dad use to do this as well and it works great and will not crack the pots.Putting water on them or trying to cool it to fast when its hot will crack them.

put a dang fish cooker under it and light it up. it will put heat in it an cook you some oil. that much oil will cost you a few bucks but it will season the tub. we cook jambalaya in a big tub every year a big wash pot.

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