Removing Rust from Cast Iron Pots

The following is a great little tip from a reader that I received in an e-mail and I’m hoping it can be of benefit to everyone out there. It’s a simple way to remove rust from cast iron pots. Special thanks to Eltexan for this tip.

RW,

I'm not sure how I ended up at your site - BUT - I did, and read with interest a lot of posts about a variety of things. I think it was last winter that some folks were talking about reconditioning old cast iron cookware. Most of it dealt with reseasoning, but I saw nothing about removing 50 years of rust.

About 25 years ago I got involved with pre-1840 re-enactors and began to build a collection of "period" cookware. At a junk yard south of Nacogdoches I found a pot-bellied cast iron pot that someone had used as a planter for something. It was full of dirt and rotted roots which, when dumped, revealed a LOT of heavy rust. I figured it would at least look appropriate, even if I couldn't cook in it, so took it home.

Then I remembered a trick an old blacksmith once told me about how to remove heavy rust from old hinges. Vinegar!

I washed out the pot as best I could and filled it with cheap, plain, distilled vinegar, and set in a dark corner of the garage. It started to work immediately. By the end of the week there was a "head" of varicolored foam sticking up about eight inches above the pot. I poured it out and filled it again. All-in-all, it took about three weeks and the inside of the pot looked almost new - pitted in some areas, but certainly usable. I reseasoned it and cooked beans and chili in it for the next fifteen years for large groups of campers.

Since that first beginning, I've re-claimed more than a dozen old pots and skillets that way. It really works.

Two warnings rolled into one: Find a protected place to do this outside. The chemical reaction really stinks and when it bubbles over it leaves a stain on concrete that will last as long as the slab.

Keep walkin' and talkin'.

Eltexan