How to restore your old rusty cast iron camp oven

[mudski]

I decided to do a little walk through on how to restore your old rusty cast iron camp oven as mine was getting pretty bad after I stupidly left it out one night and it rained...
So...
The pic below is what mine looked like. Not too bad on the inside, but the pics dont do it justice, there was a bit of well stuck food and slight rust too. The outside, left a lot to be desired.


Tools needed for the job is a drill, corded or cordless and a wire wheel, I used both wire wheels in the pic.


You also need some cast iron conditioner. After researching and hunting around, I found that using olive oil or canola oil won't do the job right and can also hold any nasties in the oil. Not good for cooking. Last thing you want is to have the trotts out in the bush. This stuff wasn't expensive, although no one here in OZ sells it and I got it from Amazon US, I think I paid around $30 delivered. four days later I had the stuff! Nice and fast postage... If you get some Crisko oil, I think it is, which has animal fat in it, this would work, or lard. I found a lot of the yanks using these two...



Preparation to finish time. Pretty much a whole day...

So the first step is you need to set your oven to the self cleaning mode, or on as high as it will go if you don't have a self cleaning oven and put the pot in the oven upside down for around three hours. This will burn off any excess food and help remove the rust.
Once its been cooking for three hours, let it cool down and attack it with the wire wheel. Then in hot soapy water, preferably a natural soap, give it a good wash, then chuck it in the oven again on around 200c to let it dry. When you remove the pot, it will look rusty again. This will happen, its just how rust goes... Go at it a few more time with the wire wheel, clean it, dry it. Rinse and repeat. On the last time with the wire wheel and washing I dried it on the wok burner on high. I found this dried the cast iron much faster and there was no time for the rust to come back.

Next is to apply your conditioner.
Use this sparingly, dont soak the iron in conditioner, but just make it wet enough to change the colour of the iron. Then back in the oven on around 250c for two hours. You need to do this process atleast three times, getting the pot hot in the oven everytime. On the last session of conditioning, run the pot in the oven for around 3 hours at no less than 300c. Or as hot as your oven will let you.
Note : I did the middle two conditioning sessions in my bbq with the lid closed at 250c and it worked a treat. As the pong you will get in the kitchen won't make the boss too happy.

So once all done you should see a result like I did. No rust and one near brand new looking camp oven.


Enjoy your cleaning...