Smithey Won't Admit Their $200 Skillet Has a Seasoning Problem

A $200 Smithey skillet arrives with a thin, blonde seasoning that disappears on the first cook, and the company calls it normal. I'm Wes Fordham. I cooked on the line for forty years, from 1979 to 2019, and I cooked on the same cast-iron pan the whole time. A cook doesn't buy his tools. He earns them. This video shows what I found when I put a ten-inch Smithey under a microscope and then fixed it myself. WHAT YOU NEED 1 ten-inch Smithey skillet ordinary white kitchen vinegar, usually 5 percent water, mixed half and half with the vinegar lye Barkeeper's Friend steel wool cool tap water Here is what you will learn: ✔ Fine concentric rings mean the pan is machined, not naturally nonstick ✔ The blonde coating on a new Smithey disappears on the first cook ✔ A sanded-smooth Lodge never bonded seasoning in months of cooking ✔ Heat bluing alone still stuck, even with a fresh seasoning layer ✔ Vinegar bluing released a pancake with no oil, no butter ✔ Microscopic pits give the oil something to grip and hold ✔ Corrosion frees locked carbon that makes seasoning tough and slick ✔ Smooth skillets season worse than coarse ones, not better ✔ A simmer of vinegar and water for 10 to 15 minutes pits the iron You do not need a pre-seasoned promise. You need iron you prepared yourself. Was there a pan in your family's kitchen that got handed down, and do you still cook on it? Keep it hot. Keep it oiled. Keep it simple. Chapters: 0:00 - The $200 Skillet Claim 2:09 - Blame the Cook Excuse 4:13 - Testing Magnetite Bluing 6:28 - Vinegar Bluing Method 8:37 - The Results 10:41 - A Fair Critique #castiron #cooking #skillet