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Comment by SeanLuke | Hacker News Reader

There's basically no science in this "science-based how-to".

This was the article which started the flaxseed oil cast-iron fad. I think that has now faded: apparently flaxseed oil has a tendency to deteriorate and flake off over time.

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There's basically no science -- in the broad sense of hypothesis testing -- around cast iron at all. It's all tribal knowledge. "I do it this way because that's how my grandma did it and it works for me." That's fine enough, but it makes for a frustrating experience as a newcomer with no way to evaluate the credibility of different sources; it's just everyone's word against everyone else.

This is especially confusing given how long cast iron has been around; you'd think that someone would have taken an interest in cataloguing what actually works, by now.

So while this post may not be good science, or very much of it, I still appreciate that it exists.

I think the confounder is that cast iron is just rather resilient and cooking is dominated by other choices and technologies. Such that much of what folks think were needed just didn't matter.

The page linked in another top comment is worth reading in full.

I can confirm, I’ve tried flaxseed (based on this article and other ancedata) and while the seasoning came out really nice after 6 months or so it has started to flake and after a year it looks really bad.

Agreed. This article started a fad when it came out 10 years ago, and now everybody agrees flaxseed oil is a bad choice, "science-based" as this may claim to be.

How the heck do you get a thick enough layer to flake off?

For me, it all just came off when washing it, 6 months or a year after seasoning. The sponge was filled with black flecks. Seems like once you get a defect in the surface, it fails catastrophically. With more traditional seasoning oils, the seasoning gets thinner gradually as it's abraded away.

This seasoning fad is some post-teflon madness IMO, after weeks of trying a dozen odd formulas there was always someone with another oil or temperature setting. Might as well be working on inertial confinement.

Agreed, please don’t season with flaxseed oil — it doesn’t last. Obsession over the smoke point is unfounded, you just want polymerization and carbonization, which any unsaturated fat coated in a thin layer will do for your cast iron.

I did the flaxseed thing when this blog post came out some years back and ended up having to redo my seasoning on the couple pans I tried it on. The seasoning easily flaked off. Just use canola oil and call it a day.

Yes it seems like a very flawed assumption to assume that the other uses of linseed oil would make flaxseed oil a perfect candidate. I've never tried it. Personally I just use canola oil but it can leave a sticky residue as the author says. It lessens if I heat it for a longer time, but I just store it wrapped in a cloth anyway.

Indeed, no science at all here--only conjecture.

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