How do I make a non-stick pan, non-stick again?

[Cligereen]

I have a non-stick frying pan that has lost its coating. It is now very much a sticky pan. I remember hearing somewhere, sometime about a way you could make them non-stick again. I seem to remember that salt was involved in some way but I can't remember the details .

Can anybody help me out here please. I'd hate to throw out a very solid pan for the want of a simple solution. Ta very much.

[chickenchargrill]

Not tried it myself but I think this is the method you mean -

http://chefstales.com/2010/02/10/making ... stick-pan/

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Yopu might want to go over the pan with a steel scourer to get all the teflon off before you do this. Otherwise it lust comes off in little black scabs that are really unappetising.

[baldybloke]

Get a cast iron pan, season it well with oil on a regular basis and it should outlive you. I still use one that belonged to my grandparents and it is the best non stick pan I have ever used.
Teflon according to an article in the Ecologist magizine has never been approved for food application and flakes of it that have been ingested will stay in your system forever.

[Zech]

I've successfully coated an old baking sheet (plain aluminium originally) with an oil coating. I didn't use salt, just put a thin layer of oil on the pan and cooked on a high heat until it was dark and no longer sticky. I wash it up with soapy water in the usual way and it seems fine with that.

[oldjerry]

My old man who lived pre Apollo (and anyhow believed Capricorn One was based on the truth) non-sticked his pans by coating them in a layer of salt,heating it,then throwing it away,and drying the pan clean with a dry cloth.I do this still,and it works.

[wabbit955]

we salt pans to clean them and after heating oil in them they do not stick but these or iron pans to begin with you might get away with this if it was a good pan to begin with

[gregorach]

Yeah, you throw it in the bin, buy a proper cast-iron pan, and season it with salt and oil.

[Cligereen]

Thanks all for the info. The pan I have is a good heavy one, not sure if it's cast iron or not. It is a Wedgewood pan that T3Sco had a special offer on about 10 years ago. Oldjerry, your method is the one I remember now. Thanks for jogging the memory, I'll try that and see how I get on.

The little black bits of Teflon are a bit unappetising. I tell the kids it's Dad's special seasoning. They think a fried egg without black bits isn't cooked right at this stage!

[bonniethomas06]

Isn't Teflon carcinogenic? Now that is unappetising!

[greenorelse]

There's an unspoken myth that goes something like "technology always improves."

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Isn't Teflon carcinogenic? Now that is unappetising!

Not in itself: it's pretty hard to get it to react with anything under the conditions you'd find in the human body. That said, it does degrade at temperatures about about 300°C, which you could get in a kitchen, and I suppose some of those breakdown products could be a hazard.

I think old fashioned iron and enamelled pans have a lot going for them...

[gregorach]

Isn't Teflon carcinogenic? Now that is unappetising!

Not in itself: it's pretty hard to get it to react with anything under the conditions you'd find in the human body. That said, it does degrade at temperatures about about 300°C, which you could get in a kitchen, and I suppose some of those breakdown products could be a hazard.

I think old fashioned iron and enamelled pans have a lot going for them...

The breakdown products from PTFE are a lot worse than carcinogenic, they're extremely toxic. I've heard that you should never smoke whilst machining PTFE (or even afterwards, without washing your hands and changing your clothes), because even very tiny fragments can produce potentially fatal combustion products when heated above 400C, and the lit end of a cigarette is more than hot enough. There have supposedly been a number of deaths as a result, although I haven't been able to track down any reliable reports of specific instances.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Yeah - somewhere in the low 400s (not found in the average kitchen) you can get small quantities of things called fluoroalkenes coming along, and these are nasty. I believe they are the cause of Teflon 'flu which people inhaling fumes from hot PTFE sometimes go down with - they act on the lungs and affect the gas exchange. I'd be surprised if tiny particles on a fag would provide enough to make the smoke more toxic than it already is, though you never know, but not smoking around any machinings is considered good practice - tiny specks of lead or or tin or zinc or cadmium or nickel, for example, would probably give up volitiles on a fag end.

[gregorach]

I'd be surprised if tiny particles on a fag would provide enough to make the smoke more toxic than it already is, though you never know

Well, there's lots of claims out there, but they do seem kind of apocryphal... DuPont did apparently do some studies involving PTFE-laced cigarettes to investigate "Polymer Fume Fever": http://www.ewg.org/analysis/dupont-work ... xperiments