My carbon steel pans turned blue when I tried seasoning them
Any idea what I did wrong? :(
Posted Jan 11, 2018, 10:28 PM UTC
1110
Overheated. Did pan warp is the Q.
2
Looks dope. There are such things as blue steel pans after all. Don't worry about the color. 10 bucks says that your initial seasoning will start to come off when you start cooking. After a bit of frying and broiling you'll develop a better and more resilient seasoning. Some manufacturers recommend that you wash the pan then fry up some potatoes and onions to season and that's it. Just keep cooking and the pans will season themselves.
1
Totally normal, different steel types change different colors with heat. It's possible your oil was too thin which let the steel oxidize a bit, not an issue though. If for some reason the blue bothers you just at another layer or two.
1
Fundamentally nothing. Heat forms colorful oxides on carbon steel. Depending on the temperature it can be straw yellow to blues and purples. It's not like you broke it.
Though blues... that's usually really high temperature. Like 500+ if I remember right. How were you seasoning them exactly?
Just need a very light film of oil and and 400-450 oven temp for this kind of thing
They were rusted so I scrubbed off some of the rust and reseason them with shortening at 400°F for 1hr.
Is there any way to unblue them?
Huh, that's interesting. And your oven runs true at that temperature? Maybe it's something else then. Almost wonder if it's too little oil if the surface is reacting that much.
Regardless though - carbon steel isn't going to stay gray/silver. It will patina, it will react with temperature and change color. It's not a bad thing. It's normal.
But if you really don't like things discolored you can hit it with steel wool or gray Scotch Brite or whatever. It comes right off. Of course your seasoning will as well!
If it's me I say there's nothing wrong with it. I'd go put another layer or two of seasoning on it and call it good.
Why do you want to unblue them? As the person above said, it’s normal.