Baking soda and vinegar, try not to volcano yourself.
this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2025
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Steel wool hurts? Where are you sticking it?
Yall this is not a seasoned pan.
This is a fucking filthy pan that’s had its filth carbonized and polymerized to the pan. I assure you there is “powdery carbon bits” to scrape off that pan.
Season your pans on their own, then you can wash the gunk off after each use.
Best bet: unless you don’t value your time, replace it.
The idea is to build up enough layers that you can put a glaze like cast iron on it.
A seasoned cast iron is the oils polymerized into a near non-stick surface.
It is not necessarily “food stuck on in layers”
This is what every pan in 90% of commercial kitchens look like, because aint nobody paying someone to sit thete and scrub them. They get run through the sanitizing dishwasher and then they're 'clean enough' and any other bits get burnt off/into the pan surface. So people saying this pan is clean arent really wrong, especially since the carbonized bits are almost definitely inert and non bacterial.
This has raised burnt crispies on it still.
Like, if your food brushes against it then it’s gonna take some with it crispies.
Just put parchment paper on it
I have heard of seasoning a cast iron skillet but never a baking sheet.
I season some of mine.
It makes a difference. Now I have sheets just for baking things that I want to brown more, and sheets for things I don't want more browning.
Just like cast, the seasoned baking sheets are nearly non-stick (especially if seasoned using Flax seed oil). Great for air frying potatoes in the convection oven, or bacon, etc.
Things like cookies get the un-seasoned sheets.
I hope you don't season non-stick pans. ... or really use them, for what it's worth.
Be an artisan and clean it well. Your time is only wasted if you dance the capitalist watusi, where somehow, time is money. If you don't want to clean it, that's acceptable as well.
Dude I fucking love scrubbing pots and pans that need it.
I polished a busted cast iron pan watching ELF the other day before throwing it in for a fresh seasoning. Of the 6 I picked up it was the only one that tested lead free … test your secondhand cast iron friends
Barkeeps best friend does amazing on jobs like this.
Also basic powder dish washing detergent with a little water and time.
Also you can put it in your oven and put it into self-clean mode.
Its clean. Just put some foil down if it bothers you
Parchment paper is cheaper and far easier to work with.
Foil is for messy things that would leak under the paper.
Parchment paper burns at a lower temperature.
If you're trying to cook at those temps, you already know not to use parchment paper.
And if you're silly enough to go over 210°C while using parchment paper, you get a nice lesson out of it too.
Oven cleaner?
Sand-blaster
Steel can be easily cleaned with lye, sodium hydroxide, often sold as oven cleaning spray. Just like a cast iron pan. Don’t use lye on an aluminum baking sheet. Don’t use lye in an enamel sink.
Steel baking pans can (should) be seasoned just like cast iron.