Can I grind stuck on candy off a cast iron skillet?

[Codger_64]

Try heating it up and scraping out the liquid first.
Then

If you have an outdoor propane barbecue, use that to do the self cleaning oven thing and keep the smoke outside.

Once it's all ashed = use a cupped wire brush in an angle grinder or handdrill to brush it out.

Of course re-seasoning is needed.

^This^. If it is brunt sugar, it is hard glazed carbon. I didn't have a tool like the above, but I used a flat wire wheel chucked in my battery powered drill and it worked fine. I stripped an old Griswold of nearly a century's accumulation, right down to the bare metal. Then I washed it several times in Dawn and hot water. Heated it on the stove with water to boiling and washed again. Then recured it. Like new.

 

[dave9969]

for what its worth, I was a professional chef and we had lots of cast iron burners an such
and honestly the fastest way to clean cast iron that is messed up is
FIRE
I used to toss the really badly gummed up burners into a good hot fire an burn them clean
its a dramatic approach but I promise you get it HOT HOT HOT, the stuff will clean out of it leaving clean iron

 

[Gollnick]

The melting point of iron is 2800F.


The flame temperature of natural gas burning in air is about 2750F. But, even in a natural-gas fired oven won't reach anywhere near 2750.

The point here is that you aren't going to melt your pan. Ask a knifemaker what it takes to melt iron.

 

[beau5278]

Fire is the only way of cleaning cast iron that will take it down to bare metal without a lot of scraping and wire brushing. I've left pans soak in a bucket of lye water for a couple of days and still couldn't get some of the dark carbon spots out of the deepest of the casting marks on the outside. Fire takes them 100% to bare metal and when they are seasoned look like new.

 

[dma1965]

I used to be a pastry chef, and had this happens a lot. Fill the pan 3/4 full with water and bring it to a simmer. It should come out then. At least for me this worked every time.