Has anyone tried sanding their cast iron to smooth before seasoning?
Nice.
I find that even avocado oil gets smoky when I try to season. Maybe my oven is just dirty.
What was your routine?
Honestly I think you’re going to get smoke with virtually any seasoning oils or fats. Even if you don’t hit the bona fide “smoke point” you’ll still get a bit of smoke naturally, be it from natural impurities in the oil, residual seasoning or flash rust on the pan, grime in the oven, etc.
Best thing you can do is just get really good at airflow maintenance.
I use homemade ghee, a very thin layer that I towel basically dry, oven for 1hr or so at 485F. I was doing it at 525F before but I find that the lower temp also works great.
The current photo was only with one cooked layer of seasoning, plus a new one that I had just toweled on which is what the photo is. I usually just go for two coats + top layer but plenty of people swear by more. Just never really seemed worth all the extra effort to me when cooking will give you the seasoning all the same.