I have one of these cast iron grill/griddle pans... the griddle is fine, however, the grill section has a good deal of build up in-between the grill lines. Some of it is coming off just by using a spatula and I don't want the black bits on my food. I tried to clean this but all of the suggestions are not working. Can I scrape off the black stuff and reseason?
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If it doesn't clean up with a stiff brush (stiff plastic, or a brass brush), it might be easier to strip the whole thing, and re-season : cooking.stackexchange.com/a/11598/67 . (but if you can scrape it clean, go that route. No sense in removing seasoning if you don't have to).– JoeJul 7, 2016 at 16:40
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Cast iron responds well to sanding. I thought I had damaged my c.i. frying pan because of pitting - I thought in the metal. So I decided to re-sand the thing by hand. Turned out the pits were only in the "seasoning" layer. Sanded it smooth, finishing up with fine sand paper & steel wool if i remember right. Anyway all by hand. Seasoning layer turns out to be pretty soft. Whole thing took a few days, on and off. Re-seasoned, & all right again now.
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Typically the seasoning is the problem w/ grill pans -- you get grease build up in the corners, and it polymerizes. As you're not regularly scraping it, it doesn't get knocked down like the surface of a griddle would.– JoeJul 7, 2016 at 16:32