I have a weird passion for caring for my cast iron. I feel great satisfaction when I clean one, because their non-stick surface gets better every time it’s used, and cleaned. I love the feeling of “progress” I get every time. It’s hard for me to not take a picture of them when they’re all cleaned up.

With that, however, they can be seem daunting to clean to the un-initiated. Many people seem to think that cast iron is some fragile piece of equipment that can, at any time spontaneously turn into a pile of rust if there’s a droplet of water left, or if they use soap on their skillet, or if they don’t apply 14 layers of grape-seed oil every 6 hours.

I’m having some fun with this, but the truth is cast iron is durable, it’s not hard to care for it, and even if it does rust, it’s rarely a serious problem.

All that being said…cast iron does require some steps to clean that your other dishes do not require, but that’s a small price you pay for the incredible flexibility these wonderful things have to offer. If you give your cast iron love, it will return that love many times over.

Cleaning Is Often Easier Outside

Regardless of if you’re living the RV life like us or not, cast iron is generally easier to clean outside. This isn’t always true – if you’re using a single skillet for breakfast, you’re probably fine cleaning it indoors, but if you’re using a 6qt dutch oven over a fire, you’re going to want to clean it up outside, too. This is for two primary reasons – soot, and space.

Something nobody ever talks about is the amount of soot that will stick to your cast iron when cooking over a fire, of with charcoal. Burning clean, and waiting until the fire has burned down to charcoal helps a ton, but even when you do that, you’ll still end up with soot. Soot will never come out of your carpet, and it seems to stain everything it touches. Save yourself the hassle and keep all of that outside.

The other reason may be a bit more obvious. Many cast iron pieces are downright bulky, and often too big to put in the sink for cleanup. This results in a ton of water splashing all over the place, and it usually makes a pretty big mess. You’ll find that you’ll spend more time cleaning up the mess you made cleaning your cast iron then you will actually cleaning the darn thing. This is especially true in an RV, where the kitchen sink can barely fit a medium-sized bowl, let alone a 6qt dutch oven.

We have an outdoor plastic table with a sink and faucet. I hook this up directly to the same hookup used by my RV, and just like that I have running water outside. It’s nice and tall, and has just enough space to at least keep me from bending over the whole time when I’m cleaning my cast iron.

We picked this table because it folds down into a small space. This allows us to fold up the outdoor setup and pack it up when we’re on the road. One problem, however, is like everything else, the soot stains it like crazy, and it pretty much always looks dirty. This is true even though I clean it thoroughly every time. If you can get this table in gray, or some other color do it.

How To Clean Cast Iron

Here are the steps I take for pretty much every piece of cast iron I own. I don’t do all of these steps every time – but even if I really screwed up, these steps have never failed me.

Step 0 – Let it Cool

PSA: DO NOT PUT EVER COLD WATER ON HOT CAST IRON! You may warp, or crack the cast iron. Instead, always wait until your cast iron is at a safe-handling temperature. Rule of thumb – if you can’t touch it, don’t put water in it.

Once everything has cooled down on its own enough for you to handle it, go for it. I find that it’s usually easier to clean when it’s a little on the warm side, while everything inside the cast iron is still in a semi-plastic state.

Possible Pre-Cleanup Step: Boil Water Inside

Sometimes, before I start the cleaning process, I’ll fill the cast iron with some water, and put it over the campfire until it boils. This helps loosen everything up without soaking overnight, where you’re bound to get rust.

I rarely need to-do this, but if I’ve already got a fire going, and I’m not ready to clean up yet, I’ll take a second to get this process started. This can make your job much easier when you’re scraping the stuff from the bottom. This method is also really handy if you don’t have the rest of your cleaning gear on-hand.

Obviously make sure your cast iron is either sitting on a stable surface, like a lid stand, or use a tripod to hang your oven. One shift in the wood can spill the water. Not only will this douse your fire, but it will also make ashes go EVERYWHERE, making your cast iron even more dirty. That’s allllll bad.

Spray, and Clean With a Scraper

Spray the inside with soapy water. As Kate suggested in her post about RV kitchen essentials, I have a spray bottle full of Dawn + water on-hand at all times. This allows me to soap up a skillet without a sink, and I end up using way less water in the process.

Side note – Don’t panic about soap on skillets. That was once very, very true however we stopped using lye (the ingredient that strips the seasoning) a long time ago. I’ve used many methods of cleaning cast iron, and it is much easier with soap. Don’t listen to the naysayers – my cast iron is always in good shape, and I use soap on them every single time.

Take spray bottle, and liberally spritz the inside of your cast iron. Then, use a plastic scraper to get the stuff that’s really stuck on there, scraped off. I like the lodge scraper, specifically, because the shape of each side lines up perfectly with all of their skillets and dutch ovens, so you can get a really good scrape with it. Do a quick rinse to get the scraped bits out.

Bust Out the Chainmail Scrubber

Sometimes, the scraper just can’t get it done. When this happens, I will switch to my chainmail scrubber. I use a chainmail scrubber that has a rubber insert. It basically feels like a really heavy sponge when I’m using it, and the extra spring that the silicone insert provides keeps me from scraping too hard.

Use this to scrape up the bits you missed. Scrape hard enough to get the crap off, but try not to scrape too hard in one spot for too long. For the especially stubborn pieces, use the scraper again. Alternate between these two tools, rinsing and re-spritzing when necessary until most of the gunk is off.

Use the Mesh Scourer, and Sponge

From here on, it’s not that different than what you do when you wash any other dish – use a plastic mesh scouring pad, and a sponge to finish cleaning both the outside and inside.

Spritz the outside, and wipe down with a paper towel, or a different sponge. This is especially important if you’re cooking outside, because the outside of the cast iron will often get covered in black soot, and you’ll never get that out of whatever you use. I get around this by using sponges that have gotten too old to be effective elsewhere. They’re going to the trash soon, anyway, may as well get some final use out of them.

Thoroughly Dry

Take a microfiber towel and dry thoroughly. I prefer microfiber because it’s the only thing that I’ve found that can really dry these things off. If I happen to have a campfire going, I’ll often set the skillets out around the fire ring to help make sure they’re bone-dry, but this really isn’t essential.

What About The Grill?

I use a Lodge Sportsman’s Grill, for my grilling. Cleaning this thing is surprisingly straightforward, and not all that different than cleaning any other grill. All you need is a wire grill brush, and time.

1. Leave the grill over the charcoal that you used to cook until the charcoal is mostly spent. This will burn everything on the grill top into charcoal. This keeps things from getting rancid, and essentially sanitizes the surface.
2. Get a metal wire brush, like this one. Scrape the top of the grill to get most of the chunky bits off. Try to-do this before the grill is completely cold. Food tends to break off easier when it’s still in a semi-plastic state.
3. Flip the grill over, and repeat this process on the bottom.

That’s it. Seriously. Every few months, I will take the grill apart and do a deep clean, but when I do that, I just treat them like any other piece of cast iron – spritz, rinse, and dry.

Season After Cleanup

After I clean my cast iron, I will sometimes apply a thin layer of oil to help keep the seasoning intact. There isn’t any real rhyme or reason to how often I do this – I just do it if I notice the inside is looking dull, or if I just finished cooking something particularly acidic. I’d guess once every 6-10 times.

In fact, most of the time when I see a skillet in “bad shape” it’s because of one of two things – they either failed to get the crud off properly, or they tried SO HARD to season their skillet that they created this thick buildup of charred oil. Neither of these are good. Just give it time. Show your skillet love, and it will return the favor.

On my skillets, I will re-season with a very, very very small amount of your oil of choice (I just use canola, myself). We’re talking a silver dollar-sized drop at most. If you get too much, you’ll get buildup, and it will be sticky next time you use it. If you do this too many times in a row, you’ll end up with chunks of charred oil flaking off in your food. Gross. Next, wipe thoroughly with a paper towel. You’re really just trying to coat it so your skillet looks shiny

With my Sportsman’s Grill, I season the grill about as often as my skillets, however since this thing is made entirely out of cast iron, the entire thing does need seasoned once every few months. While the grill is still piping hot, get some spray oil and spray the entire outside down with a thin layer of the oil. Since the grill is still really hot, it will polymerize properly. You’ll literally have a smoking grill for a few minutes, but as it cools down it will be fine. Like the skillets, if you get too much on the outside, it will get sticky. I don’t really worry about this because it’s on parts of the skillet that doesn’t touch my food. Besides, the excess oil melts, and eventually polymerizes, anyway.

That’s really all there is to it! Cast iron certainly isn’t the easiest thing to clean in your kitchen, but once you get the hang of it, you don’t really notice the extra steps that are necessary to clean and season them properly. To us, it’s worth the amazing homemade pizza, wings, shredded pork, steak, and bread that is hard to pull off without special equipment.