I just bought a new cast iron casserole pan that is only enameled on the outside. I tried seasoning it earlier today by pouring a tablespoon of flax seed oil on the inside and spreading it around with a paper towel. Sadly, I realized shortly after that the texture on the inside of the pan is quite coarse and it causes the paper towel to "shred" leaving very little pieces of paper behind everywhere around the pan. These pieces are obviously instantly soaked in oil and become quite hard to remove. It's almost impossible to do a good job at covering the whole pan in the oil because of this. Something similar happens when I use a kitchen towel, except rather than leaving pieces of paper behind, the coarse texture of the pan causes little "hairs" from the fabric of the towel to be left behind on every wipe.  I imagine I don't have to sand down a brand new pan just to get it to a point where I can season it properly, right? It's my first cast iron pan so any help is appreciated. 
   a lot of recipes caramelize sugar in a simmering water.   Calling the solution "simmering water" isn't a good characterization.   The boiling point of pure water is 100C.  But the boiling point rises as the concentration of sugar in the solution increases.  Once you're above 75% or so, the boiling point increases significantly.  For 90% sugar (still 10% water remaining), it's up to around 120C.    As the water evaporates, the sugar concentration, the boiling point, and therefore the temperature all increase.  When you reach 160C, there's probably less than 1% water and the decomposition of the sugar (carmelization) rate starts to increase significantly.  There are some charts/tables for different concentrations here, but they only goes up to 90% 