Sure, you can, but loads of twenty-four hour greasy spoons give them a scraping and just keep cooking, only giving them a real cleaning every few days.
Well, yeah, just as loads of wokking kitchens (starred and plebian) give their woks a swirl and then refire.
I worked a big griddle in college, and it got screened after every meal service.
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Hi Claus.
Some time has gone now. Did you ever regret getting rid of your CS pans? 
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Hi Soren,
Thanks for asking.
No, I have yet to regret parting with them.
No more worries over rusting pans, because my wife once again soaked the pan in soapy water, no more fumes and smoke in the kitchen from seasoning my CS pans and no worries over partly stripping the seasoning, if I once again make a pan sauce with some wine or vinegar after searing the meat.
No more having to deal with worries over if I clean my CS pans TOO WELL in detergent and don’t use them enough, so they’ll attract humidity stains from just resting in a cupboard and then start to mini rust in some parts of the pan (yes, some of my pans actually evolved mini rust spots from just resting and not being used for months and it annoyed me immensely having to also worry over this)
I now use my 3 Demeyere Proline 7-PLY pans as my searing pans.
I also use 3 Zwilling Pro rather thick 3-PLY for lighter steak searing and for other stuff, where the Demeyere Proline is overkill.
I then also have my Mauviel M’Cook trio of frying pans - 26cm/28cm/30cm, but they are more used for vegetable sauteing - if I’m not in the mood for using my 2 x copper De Buyer Inocuivre 24cm & 28 cm frying pans.
So as you can see I definitely own enough frying pans to not miss my carbon steel pans one bit.
If I’m lightly frying sausages and other type meat, which is stuffed - as a dane you know what I’m talking about here - Karbonader/Krebinetter/medister/Frankfurter/Grill sausages/frikadeller I tend to prefer my Demeyere Non Stick pans - since stuffed sausages can cause rather messy splatter and I try to keep polymerised oil stains away from my PLY pans as much as I can, since these stains are a nightmare to remove especially on the sides of a pan, since you can’t deglaze that part of a pan easily.
Me too. My CI is older than dirt; but cleans up easy. I like my Mauviel CS, but it would rust quickly without oil. My CI, not as much.
Hi Claus.
Good you haven’t regreted parting with the CS pans.
It sounds like we use our pans pretty much the same. I really love my newly acquired proline7. Such a great pan, that sears so well.
For non stick pans we use le Creuset toughened non stick, a lagostina aluminium pan( made in France) Scanpan HaptiQ( the ones with polished stainless, not brushed) and a Rösle with ceramic coating. All pretty good non stick pans.
Besides the pans must be good quality, my main priority is that the pans must work great on induction. Not all " induction ready" pans actually do that.
Also the recent years I’ve bin trying to buy as little Chinese made products as possible. It’s difficult, but regarding cookware there are luckily a lot of good European and US made alternatives.
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CS will ghost a little.
CI ghosts a lot.
If you don’t have a particularly acute sense of taste and smell, then it’s moot. It would be an exercise in describing the color blue to somebody blind from birth.
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I find it curious how many people seem to have rust issues with CI pans, cast iron pan handles, tinned steel, and carbon steel knives. I know they can all rust, but so far I have not encountered it. Whenever I soak a pan (which is rare), I submerge it. I don’t just fill it and leave it in the sink. It does not get soaked immediately after cooking. It sits on the stove to cool while I eat. I dry CS on a burner, knives and pan handles with dry towels, and tinned steel in an oven set to just above boiling.
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Tim, the environment you live in and the humidity level you have around you play a big part in how much rust issues you’ll have with raw iron pans.
I always dried my CS pans thoroughly on the stovetop at low heat before placing them away.
I do own a lot of pans, so 1-2 months could easily pass between using the same CS pan.
I nested my pans with pan protectors made from thick fabric. Yet my CS pans still evolved rust just from sitting unused in my cupboard.
I’ll never own raw iron pans ever again.
Humidity might well be the culprit, but the prevailing winds off of the Gulf of Mexico keep our humidity fairly high. Our least humid month averages 64% and the highest is 71%. Our highs for the last month have been running over 100F, about 107F for the past week.
Who knows… maybe the type of water too. I think for example, saltier water (like sea water) can induce rust faster than say deionized water. Of course, I don’t know the real reason for specific cases.
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My experience is the same as yours, Tim, even in humid marine environments.
I don’t even heat-dry. I drain, wipe and set out to air dry.
My belief is that most rusting happens because pans are stored in enclosed spaces before they’re completely dry, OR the environment (e.g., an enclosed cabinet) is prone to temperature changes that cause condensation.
The only serious rusting I’ve experienced was with a large CI camping oven that was stored lidded, in its zippered carry case, and stored in an unheated garage.
OTOH, if you leave iron pans partially submerged in/full of water, rust is a likely outcome.
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I never use the stove or oven either. I wash typically with warm water, then dry with a towel. The pans are warm this way and seem to dry pretty well. I store the pans in a drawer or open cabinet, some of them nested with other cs/ci pans.
Carbon knives, unseasoned :), are stored in a drawer block. Similar treatment.
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Your point on storage makes good sense. All of my pans are on racks or on open shelves. My tinned molds are in a cupboard, but since they are so well dried and the cupboard is over the refrigerator, I do not seem to have issues. The knives are in a block on the counter. Needless to say, my kitchen would horrify anyone who prized the uncluttered look.
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I stored all my 6 Carbon steel pans on top of a cupboard out in the open to allow for free air where most of my Staub and Le Creuset ECI pots are placed on separate shelves underneath.
I very thoroughly dried my carbon steel pans after use to an almost pedantic level (I suffer from OCD)
They were nested in 2 separate places with fabric pan separators in between each pan.
Yet my two smallest Darto pans showed a thin layer of rust after being stored there in the kitchen out in the open.
I took pretty much all precautions I feel I could possible take to avoid rust like that.
My wife’s soaking job of the CS pans overnight had nothing to do with it, as she managed to avoid soaking my smallest Darto pans and I made sure to remove all rust from the pans in question before placing them away for storage.
I have no doubt CS pans work great for many many persons out there, they are simply just not made for me.
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Is your house very damp? Rusting in place is odd. I have several carbon steel and cast iron plans have never seen rust. After I clean them, I heat on the stove top, very lightly oil, and store.
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Now I’m wondering if it’s the fabric liners that gave Claus trouble…
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I did the same thing.
Washed the pan.
Dried it.
Heat it up on the stovetop at low heat for 5-6 minutes.
Oil it with a super super thin oil layer.
Heat it up for further 2-3 minutes.
Let it rest for half an hour.
Store it away.
I live in (rather, but not too) cold Denmark. Don’t think humidity here should be a concern.
I use the Le Creuset thick black fabric pan protectors.
A small detail.
Neither of my De Buyer Mineral B Pro or my Matfer pans showed this kind of ‘passively rusting issues’, only my 3 Darto pans did rust and with quite a bit of ease.
I have a theory as to why.
My guess is that Darto pans are made from cheaper more rust prone carbon steel than De Buyer and Matfer use. It’s only a theory and I can’t back this up in any way other than base it on my own experience owning 4 Darto CS pans, that rusted very easily compared to all the other 10-12 carbon steel pans I’ve owned since 2016.
Actually i compared humidity levels in Denmark and it seems to be a good bit more humid than Austin. Glad to know the issues were only with the Dartos. I have only Matfer, DeBuyer, and “no name.”
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