Isn’t canola or rapeseed essentially the same oil? I mean not all rapeseed oil is canola, but most food-grade rapeseed oil is canola I think? As canola refers to a particular cultivar of rape that is better for human consumption.

Just nitpicking/wondering.

Anyway, do you have suggestions on how to clean it after use and also when do I need to re-season it?^1^

I got my first ever cast iron pan as a birthday present and I’ve been scared of it so far, haven’t seasoned it yet, because the instructions vary quite a bit in different places and honestly I haven’t had a lot of time either. But I hear cast iron pans are the best for making a good steak or burger indoors^2^. And apparently great for frying other things too, just not great for simmering sauces for several hours because sometimes sauces are acidic because tomato?

^1^ I know, I know, I can just google or chatgpt or local-deepseek it. But I like talking to strangers online, and I like getting people to share their advice, particularly on the fediverse so that maybe it’ll show up on someone’s search results a decade from now on a non-commercial search-engine that favors non-commercial websites. One can only hope.

^2^ I’m a grill guy, but in Estonia the weather between the beautiful -20C and snow and the beautiful 20C and sunshine, is disgustingly wet, smoggy^3^ overcast where you not only don’t want to be outside, you don’t even want to live in the country anymore. And there’s max 6 hours of daylight. If you can see the light behind the clouds. It’s fine grilling in the spring, summer and proper winter when it’s frozen over and snowy. But much of autumn and winter, I don’t want to even step out of the house when I have to, let alone voluntarily.

^3^ Outside of soviet-built commie blocks districts or new developments, a lot of houses are older and have wood furnaces. It’s being reduced slowly through grants for people who convert their heating systems to less smoky ones (newer furnace, chimney reconstruction, heat pumps, or joining a remote central heating network), but that takes time, many many more millions of euros than are currently being pumped into it by the government, and it doesn’t stop my neighbour from burning construction leftovers in his sauna furnace that’s entirely separate from his house. He owns a construction company and us Estonians love our wood-burning saunas over the newer electric ones.