Carbon Steel Issues

Two questions about carbon steel skillets that I'm about to face:

1. If you get home after a year and find that your carbon steel skillets have been in a somewhat less ideal environment than they should have been, and they've got some rust and some embedded dusty crud, what do you do? Presumably scour, get the rust off, and re-season, but can anyone give me more complete instructions and advice?

2. If you're going to leave a nicely-seasoned carbon skillet for many months at a time, how should you store it to prevent the above-mentioned problems?

Thanks!

You'll probably have the same experience as I do with rarely used cast iron.

The oil will be rancid and a bit sticky from polymerization. The best cure for those conditions is high heat to burn them off. Then some new oil to refresh the patina.

If rusted, yes, just scour it. Bad rust you may want to try a soak in Coke for the phosphoric acid to help you along. I've read about people doing it but have not done it personally.

Camp Chef makes a product based in coconut oil as I recall that resists rancidity and polymerization. You might give that a try for your next long term storage coating. Google on "Camp Chef Conditioner". It's also good for regular treatment and seasoning of cast-iron and carbon steel. I've gone through a bottle and a half over the years.

This won't help with the rancid part but store the pans in a bag full of rice, it will keep the humidity low.

As to storage, my experience is with cast iron. They make beefy nylon bags for cast iron that keeps the dust off, lets air flow and such. I usually store them upside down so the cooking surface remains dust free. Also, you don't store with lid on as the rancidity is worse if air can't move. Sounds counter-intuitive as air is part of what promotes rancidity.

I don't think that packing it away in a vacuum bag would be good as the plastic and oil would probably stick in bad ways. But the various plastic storage totes would be reasonable I think. I have a lot of my bulky, rarely used, and holiday items in my basement in such totes. My bagged cast iron is there too, but I live in a dry environment so I'm not concerned about humidity, condensation, flooding and such.

Occasionally I reseason my CS frypan by:
1. Placing it upside down in the oven and setting the temperature to cleaning cycle or broiler.

2. Once cooled, clean and then coat with peanut or some other vegetable oil. Then place the frypan into a preheated 350F oven for around 3 or 4 hours.