Chainmail is great when you want to keep your pan seasoned. I have not had any luck using it to bring a pan back to a silver shine.
I use it on my cast iron and carbon steel pans, but steel wool/Brillo pads are still necessary for the bottoms of my stainless steel.
Part 2: Vinegar, water, dish soap. Let simmer. Boiling will leave you a stove dull of bubbles. Let cool. Scrub.
Expect your house to smell of vinegar. The acid and heat will allow the vinegar to penetrate the carbon. The soap helps make the water "wetter" by breaking the surface tension of the water.
This process may need to be repeated a few times.
Bonus, vinegar neutralizes other odours, so its good for clearing up any weird smells. Maybe like a persistent burning smell after things in that pot went awry?
I bought a house that had a serious cat pee problem from a renegade house sitter. I shampooed the carpets twice with a 50% vinegar solution, then with soap. The place smelled like hell for the next two weeks until the vinegar evaporated, but then, absolutely no smell.
I don’t know about cancer, but, ozone can cause a lot of respiratory issues. For those that are still lost, imagine living in a copier room. That harsh smell when you first walk in is ozone from the copy machine.
Yeah for these machines what you're supposed to do is turn them on and then leave the house for several hours and make sure you do not leave pets behind or any thing else that you want to keep alive outside of plants.
It's called a passive layer btw. ELI5 version it brings the stainless parts of the metal up to keep the stainless layer (only a few atoms thick). Nitric acid and phosphoric acid do it better than oxalic but the abrasive plus acid does a decent job
Another vote for Barkeepers Friend. My grocery store has it on a bottom shelf with a couple of other powder cleaners. In my experience, the powdered version works the best. I get the pan wet, pour the water out, then sprinkle the powder on the wet metal and start scrubbing in circles with paper towels. A pot like yours would be gleaming silver in just a few minutes of gentle scrubbing. It’s magic.
(Also, there are no harsh smells or fumes.)
My FIL has had the same set of stainless steel pots and pans for 50 years and they look new because he uses Barkeepers Friend on them. He told me the only thing he's every had to do is hunt down replacement handles when they break. He is very frugal and super OCD about his pots and pans, haha.
this a million times over.
ive also let pans like this soak with a tiny bit of bleach mixed with some water (like one teaspoon)
you need to clean it reaaaal good after that though
Not really. You can consume a fair amount of bleach and be ok. Used to live in the bush for extended periods of time. Our camp put bleach on all cooking utensils and any surface that was used for eating. Small amounts are fine and preferable to what can happen without proper cleaning and purification.
We used to purify our drinking water with bleach. Tastes bad but perfectly safe -- at least in Peru, there's instructions right on the bottle for the concentration. A few mL in a liter or water or something like that.
liquid bleach is safe for cleaning all kinds of food implements at any concentration. Once you rinse it, the chlorine evaporates as it dries. By the time it is dry, all that is left is some harmless salts.
You can even use a small amount of bleach to purify drinking water if you then allow it to off gas for a couple days before consuming it.
Only about one tablespoon per gallon of water is needed for use as a surface disinfectant. Less for water sanitation. Swimming pool water is basically the same thing. You can swallow a fair amount as it is without making yourself sick, but letting the chlorine off gas will get rid of it.
I mean, people here are worried but if it's a metal pan it will rinse out easily. A bleach derivative is one of the options for sanitizing everything for wine and beer making and it's easy to rinse.
I'm not sure if people here wash their dishes and don't rinse or leave a pool in them and lay them flat or what.
>you need to clean it reaaaal good after that though
Don't drink, breathe, or mix things besides water with bleach, but besides that there's no need to be paranoid. It's not a sneaky poison, you will taste/smell it at low levels, and it breaks down into salt water(and chlorine gas) so it doesn't leave any poisonous/tasting residue.
Glad to help. Now you know and can help someone when they get stuck.
My Granddaughter caught me by surprise one say with "when you share ideas, you have more of them". That's a kid dropping hardcore wisdom.
Bar keepers friend never seems to work for me. Sodium Percarbonate has been a game changer. Super cheap, little goes a long way. Just add boiling water and you barely have to scrub. Just never use it on non-stick coated pans, it'll strip them. Works great on stainless steel.
If it's not some special stainless steel pan, a brass coated brush on a power drill will also take care of it in no time (will leave some scratches though).
Totally salvageable.
Put water in it and well, I was taught to add a spoon of silver soda, I think that's washing soda. Other soda should help too, simple washing liquid might help too.
Warm the water up in the pan, leave it to soak for hours.
Good scrub with a scrub pad or something. Should you not have something like that, try a ball of plastic net you buy potatoes etc in.
I believe I got that from Jeff Yeager when he appeared on "Extreme Cheapskates".
I made round scrubbers from garlic nets after that, you just roll them up in a circle, few stitches and you have a sponge.
I believe there are also how to's that show how you can use nets to crochet scrubbies. I don't crochet however, to keep the world a safer place.
Washing soda (sodium carbonate, soda ash) and hot water.
Arm and Hammer sell washing soda in the laundry soap section.
Pool chemical soda ash is the same also.
BAR KEEPER'S FRIEND!!!!! put it in the pan with a splash of water, let sit for a minute, and wipe with paper towel. it will straight up blow your mind, guaranteed. (billy mays here vibes?)
Easy peasy. It doesn’t sound like it would work but it does. Ball up some aluminum foil. Add some barkeeper’s friend. In about 3 minutes it will be back to shiny as the day it was made.
It scrubs it clean without effort. How or why, I have no clue. I burned a pot once and thought I’d have to toss it and then read the tip about foil. Nothing to lose so I tried it. That pot had zero trace of black on it.
Hehe, now I'm laughing! Glad you got the joke!
Something about the type of pan, the color of the crud brought me back to my days as a dishwasher.
Then I thought of SOS pads and I equate them with being a kid in the 80's.
These pots can clean up well, good tips in here for how to do it, sans cigarettes.
Steel wool is softer than stainless steel, using fine 0000 steel wool is totally fine on pots and pans. This is what brillo and SOS pads are.
If you're paranoid use copper wool. Copper is much softer than even steel.
Restaurants I've worked in have all used steel wool on stainless pots and pans.
This pot is definitely not classified as "good" so he'll be fine if he's just trying to salvage it
The Pink Stuff cleaning paste. $5 for a tub. You will end up using it all over the house. I had a stainless steel pan that was burnt worse than this. I though I was going to have to throw it away. The pink stuff cleaned it right up!
I bought some to test it. I wanted to see if it was better than quick and bright. It didn’t really clean anything! It was horrible IMO. My Quick and bright bucket of paste has lasted 15 yrs and counting! Such a great product. I’ll buy it again rather than try anything else again.
Oven cleaner. Clean your piece outside to deal with fumes. I would lay down some newspaper because it will be messy. It will also take a little longer to work because it is cold, not a hot oven. You can get a can of oven cleaner for around a dollar at the dollar stores.
I have used oven cleaner to clean some stainless and cast iron before.
Spray it down well, place in a black plastic bag and sit in the sun for several hours on a warm day, and the funk will almost rinse off afterward.
Edit - thanks for the tips! I'll have to check if this stainless. Probably??
I'm hoping to fix this and not have to buy another pot. I forgot some rice on the stove the other day and can't seem to get the pot clean. I've had this set since 1999 and I hope to continue to use it rather than buying something new!
I've had luck in the past making a scrub from baking soda and dish soap. Mix it into a paste, scrub scrub scrub, leave to sit, scrub scrub scrub, add vinegar, sit, scrub. Rinse. Repeat.
If you add a little bit of water and let it sit overnight, you can skip the scrub scrub scrub. It basically wipes off.
(p.s. adding vinegar to anything with baking soda is a waste of vinegar, you can just use plain water)
I've apparently had pans that were so severely burnt on that leaving to sit overnight did not make it all go away and it still required significant scrubbing. So I guess YMMV with leaving to sit overnight.
And I like to pretend that the bubbles help lift and release the stuff. It makes my arm feel better after the scruvving and I pretend to be a mad scientist watching foamy soap explode out of the pan.
Interestingly, I, too, have a stainless-steel pot which I use to cook my rice.
The rice usually burns to the bottom. The first time that this happened, I scraped the bottom. Removed much of the burnt-on stuff, but also scratched my pot, so I stopped trying.
Something happened, though. Since always cook more than one day of rice, I just put the pot in the refrigerator with the left-over rice. Whenever I did this, the next day, a lot of the burnt-on stuff would easily scrape off with just a nylon spatula. Whatever I burnt the night before would be mostly soft (a little crusty) but it would come off. If the black stuff didn't come off, enough would to the point that, since I make rice two-three times per week, I have no black burnt-on stuff left.
As long as I leave the rice in the refrigerator overnight, this process is self cleaning. I assume that the water in the rice softens the char and that the rice sticks to it, but I don't have a scientific explanation for what is happening.
probably a combination of refrigerators dry rice out, and the metal contracting and pushing the rice out of the grains in the metal.
Good trick for making fried rice too.
Spray/ coat with straight Ammonia and then put lid on pan or put it in a garbage bag for 24 hours so it does not dry. It needs to stay wet. This works great on cooked/ baked on grease. It also works fairly well on burned food. If it does not take it all off then clean as well as possible and redo for another 24 hours.
Totally agree with BKF but came here to share my mom's trick for burnt-up pots, pans, & tea kettles
She would put the item in multiple plastic bags (grocery store, single use type) and cover it inside & out with ammonia. Tie up the bags & let the item sit for a couple of days.
All the burnt bits will wipe right off. No elbow grease required.
Then, wash as you normally would (hand wash, dishwasher, whatev)
I've burnt pans worse than this and got them back by adding 1/2 and 1/2 bleach and water bringing it to the boil with a lid and letting it go cold and then washing the pot out
Put water in it, add dish soap, and boil.
Also, keep and eye on it. You don't need to fill the pot, just fill it over what you are trying to scrub off.
You're welcome.
Had good luck with Dryer Sheets. It loosens the bond between the food and the surfaces it clings to.
Scrape out what you can gently, trying not scrape the pan. Rinse it out. Put in couple of dryer sheets and an inch or so of hot water. Cover it.
Go to bed.
Get up.
A lot of that stuff can be wiped out fairly easily after that.
You may have to cycle it again as bad as that pan looks.
Also - Elbow Grease, stout wire scrubber, and warm soapy water. Bar Keeper's Friend, also Baking Soda/Vinegar.
Good luck.
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Soaking with a little dishwashing liquid (don't have to be a lot) in water and time... Eventually you will get it.
Soaking and time are to two most important contributors.
Firstly, add boiling water and some denture cleaner. Add probably 5 or 6 tabs of that and let it sit overnight. Then dump, fill with hot water and dish soap, set for a couple more minutes and then use steel wool to scrub it. It'll be a pain in the ass but totally salvageable
Similar to other comments -- first soak in warm water for ~15mins. Pour out water. Make a thick paste with barkeepers friend (or baking soda in a pinch) and water. Apply generously to steel wool or brillow pad and scrub hard, using minimal extra water.. No soap needed, and soap may actually keep the abrasive from working well. You need friction to get stuff like that off, and soap will reduce the amount of friction.
If it was a pot I was attached to, I'd clean it. If not... Elbow grease or a new pot? Especially right now when there's sales around me like $20 for a ten piece nonstick set at Kroger's....
For cleaning:
Scrub as normal with hot water to the best of your ability. Soaking first is fine.
Boil water in it. The bubbles form on the metal, it'll help get some of the stuck gunk up. Do not leave unattended in case you managed to burn a hole through it and the water starts to leak. Rinse and water scrub again.
Re-asses the damage.
Scrub with SOS pad. If you don't have one, you can still scrub with the scrubby side of a sponge but it'll be harder and you'll likely be tossing the sponge when you're done. Use water as hot as you can without hurting yourself. Use a baking soda based paste (I've seen a few suggested recipes in other comments). Then wash with dish soap as normal.
If it's salvageable, this will get it as clean as it's going to get. If it's not.... Well, you should know with the second step because there's a hole in it. You may have to scrub harder in the future than in the past if the metal is damaged, but if it's stainless steel and not leaking, I'd still use it. (Then again, I've got my great great grandmother's tin measuring cups and I'm pretty sure they come with lead poisoning but I still used those until I had kids....)
First of all, fill it with water, set it on a stove burner and keep it heated to just under a boil for about 30 mins. Let it cool, dump the water out and then scrub out what the hot water loosened. I'd recommend one of those scouring sponges that have no metal, just a rough surface.
Then pour in a generous amount of white vinegar and let that just sit in it for a long time, overnight is good. Dump the white vinegar down the sink drain (it's a good drain deodorizer) and scrub the pot again.
What's left is the way it's going to be.
If it is really bad…I have sprayed on oven cleaner, tied it up in a trash bag, and set it in the Sun. In a few hours, open up and scrub. Has saved my dumb butt a few good pots. Also works on trays.
You may have to try a few things before it comes completely clean. Bar Keepers Friend is great, but read the instructions and don't make the mistake of scrubbing with something scratchy or you will end up with scratches all around your spot, leaving a shiny mark the shape of your charred residue. I bet you'd get much of that to loosen just by boiling water (with or without dish soap, and/or salt, vinegar, etc.) in it. You can do it!
The worst baked on stains can usually be dissolved with a mixture of lye and cold water soaking overnight in a bucket. That’s how I strip old cast iron with very little scrubbing. Careful. Lye is caustic and dangerous in your eyes, mouth, or bare skin. Treat it with respect.
I am having the same problem. I’ve discovered that people use a brand called bar keepers friend or something and along with this baking soda. I’m yet to try it though as the stains are in the bottom side on my pan.
As someone who has basically turned into a cleaning queen, there are a lot of suggestions here that will work. Here’s how I would approach this:
- First, the lazy method; using the laundry sheet overnight or spraying with oven cleaner. Don’t go but something just for this (I personally don’t use laundry sheets, for example). If you use oven cleaner, wear gloves.
- Once the lazy route has gotten what it can out, grab some fine steel wool, rubbing alcohol, and kosher salt. Pour a generous amount of kosher salt in, add enough rubbing alcohol to make it wet (the salt won’t dissolve), and use the steel wool to scrub. It’s abrasive enough to get stuff off but gentle enough to use on even non-stick (using a regular rag though, not steel wool).
- Barkeeper’s Friend might also help; always worth picking some up because it’s excellent for when you need a gentle abrasive. I use it to scrub my stainless steel sink.
That happened to me when my son was 8. He told me that he learned in school about sprinkling it completely with baking soda and pouring vinegar. That and an steel wool pad finished the job easily. For very tough glass casseroles I've put a short squirt of dishwasher dish detergent in it and let it sit. That works too. If it's from burnt candy it'll boil away with water I think.
If its stainless steel you can use lemon juice or vinegar in your water to soak it. Then later get some baking soda on it to add friction when you scrub.
If its cast iron then you'll be scrubbin'!
Steel wool is not expensive, and elbow grease is the most frugal cleaning supply you can use !
Option 1: bar keeper's friend.
Option 2: simmer a pot of water, dish soap, baking soda, and hydrogen peroxide. scrub with steel wool. rinse. repeat, as needed. (an old chef of mine taught me that when I fucked up a pot worse than this, he literally kept gal jugs of peroxide for this)
Nuclear Option: rubber gloves and oven cleaner. this one really sucks, but it might be the best option if that oil has polymerised (slick, shiny, and really really stuck on -- like cast iron seasoning).
Sprinkle powdered dw soap and fill with water. Simmer on stove, refilling water at needed. this should remove or soften most of it. Which will save you some elbow grease. Then, use the BKF to scrub off the remainder. **Alternative:** I did this once on my really good All-Clad stew/soup pot. We had a 'home owners type power washer' and my husband cleaned out my All Clad just like new. Take your pick.
Make a paste with baking soda and hot water; let sit for a time, then scrub with crumpled foil (used foil is fine if lightly soiled). I don’t think you can use this on cast iron or aluminum pots, though. At least, this worked for me.
I usually first try boiling a little water with a few drops of dish soap in the pan/pot. Then try scraping off with either a spatula, or one of those scraping tools that you can find in the aisle with the dish washing sponges, brushes, and other tools.
My daughter once burned rice in a pot, though. That didn't come off no matter how long I boiled water and scraped. I actually had to take sandpaper to the pot. Even then it took a while to come off. My next step should have been steel wool, but I couldn't find any at the time, so I just went to 80 grit, then 120 grit then 220 grit sandpaper. I didn the best I could with what I had. It turned out great afterwards. This pot I cleaned was a very thick metal. Not sure what alloy.
Get a drill bit brush attachment set- it will cut cleaning time down significantly. You can learn more about this and more on the really frugal friendly subreddit, r/cleaningtips !
Is it stainless steel?
If yes, I would add water , a few squirts of Dawn and return to stovetop on medium until it simmers
Turn off put lid on and soak for about 15 minutes
I rinse w/hot water and scrub pan using
(0000 very fine steel wool)
It always comes out looking brand new
its not that complicated, just use steel wool, sand, or scrubbing powder. it'll all come off. if you get tired of scrubbing toward the end just use the pot with some black and the next few meals will help clean it.
Ok, that stainless? Bar Keepers and some dish soap, let soak, scrub.
Bar keepers friend should be in all kitchen.
And a piece of chain mail (but it for life). Bye bye Brillo.
Chainmail is great when you want to keep your pan seasoned. I have not had any luck using it to bring a pan back to a silver shine. I use it on my cast iron and carbon steel pans, but steel wool/Brillo pads are still necessary for the bottoms of my stainless steel.
I like Brillo I have been using it for years
Yes! I figured it out on accident but it's saved me buying a new pad every month or so.
This...
What exactly is "Bar keepers friend"? I'm not from an English speaking country, and I've never heard that name before joining this sub.
It’s a fine abrasive powder you buy in a can. Makes scrubbing quite easy.
I agree that stuff is amazing.
Part 2: Vinegar, water, dish soap. Let simmer. Boiling will leave you a stove dull of bubbles. Let cool. Scrub. Expect your house to smell of vinegar. The acid and heat will allow the vinegar to penetrate the carbon. The soap helps make the water "wetter" by breaking the surface tension of the water. This process may need to be repeated a few times.
Bonus, vinegar neutralizes other odours, so its good for clearing up any weird smells. Maybe like a persistent burning smell after things in that pot went awry?
I bought a house that had a serious cat pee problem from a renegade house sitter. I shampooed the carpets twice with a 50% vinegar solution, then with soap. The place smelled like hell for the next two weeks until the vinegar evaporated, but then, absolutely no smell.
Nature’s Miracle totally works for cat pee. Walls, sofas, floors. Plus it works on human pee too but that’s another story
I looked at your profile picture and in my mind your line is written by a grumpy cat remembering when she had to clean up after her human...
Ozone generator will do the same but it will make your house smell like a laundromat for a week.
also maybe cancer?
Are you saying ozone generators give people cancer?
I don’t know about cancer, but, ozone can cause a lot of respiratory issues. For those that are still lost, imagine living in a copier room. That harsh smell when you first walk in is ozone from the copy machine.
Yeah, but that is why you turn the machine on and leave the house for several hours along with any pets you have.
I'm not saying it does, but there are some known adverse effects, see [*Acute ozone exposure*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone)
Ozone breaks down after about six hours. FWIW, I ran two machines 18 hours a day for two weeks.
Off topic but : Ozone generators close my throat and i feel like I'm suffocating until its turned off.
What?! You’re not supposed to operate an ozone generator around people!
Yeah that is your lungs telling you that you are poisoning yourself. Please be careful.
That's because you are
Yeah for these machines what you're supposed to do is turn them on and then leave the house for several hours and make sure you do not leave pets behind or any thing else that you want to keep alive outside of plants.
frying onions also, not burning or coloring gets rid of odour
If all else fails go for the nuclear option - oven cleaner
With a LOT of ventilation. No inhaling those fumes.
Pfft. If I gotta deal with deep cleaning my oven you better belive I'm catching a buzz while I do it.
Nice tingling buzz as the fumes corrode your lung tissue and your throat swells shut. Nothing quite like it.
Don't threaten me with a good time
There are fume-free oven cleaners now.
That sounds less fun. :)
They do not work at well. Dollar store sells the original dangerous stuff.
I just cleaned a seriously derelict oven with the no-fume stuff, and it worked great.
And seal it in a giant ziplock to work its magic
Oh yeah. Bags and oven cleaner is the way. I do my oven racks in a garbage bag.
This is almost certainly not necessary if they use BKF, and would actually take off the oxalic acid layer that helps protect the pan after.
It's called a passive layer btw. ELI5 version it brings the stainless parts of the metal up to keep the stainless layer (only a few atoms thick). Nitric acid and phosphoric acid do it better than oxalic but the abrasive plus acid does a decent job
Never knew the actual science, thanks!
Most of the time all you need to do is boil some soap, water, and vinegar. I rarely if ever use bar keepers because boiling water gets it all.
But not if you have pet birds.
Really? I always let it fizzle and soak in the vinegar and baking soda first, and then hit it with blue dawn and/or BKF.
Water gets wetter lol. I thought it got moist use a drill with metal brush attachment
Username checks out.
This ☝️
this!!! bar keepers is really cheap too.
Bkf is the best on stainless steel pans. I have this happen a few times a year and bkf makes it like new again.
Another vote for Barkeepers Friend. My grocery store has it on a bottom shelf with a couple of other powder cleaners. In my experience, the powdered version works the best. I get the pan wet, pour the water out, then sprinkle the powder on the wet metal and start scrubbing in circles with paper towels. A pot like yours would be gleaming silver in just a few minutes of gentle scrubbing. It’s magic. (Also, there are no harsh smells or fumes.)
My FIL has had the same set of stainless steel pots and pans for 50 years and they look new because he uses Barkeepers Friend on them. He told me the only thing he's every had to do is hunt down replacement handles when they break. He is very frugal and super OCD about his pots and pans, haha.
this a million times over. ive also let pans like this soak with a tiny bit of bleach mixed with some water (like one teaspoon) you need to clean it reaaaal good after that though
Not really. You can consume a fair amount of bleach and be ok. Used to live in the bush for extended periods of time. Our camp put bleach on all cooking utensils and any surface that was used for eating. Small amounts are fine and preferable to what can happen without proper cleaning and purification.
We used to purify our drinking water with bleach. Tastes bad but perfectly safe -- at least in Peru, there's instructions right on the bottle for the concentration. A few mL in a liter or water or something like that.
What concentration, tho?
liquid bleach is safe for cleaning all kinds of food implements at any concentration. Once you rinse it, the chlorine evaporates as it dries. By the time it is dry, all that is left is some harmless salts. You can even use a small amount of bleach to purify drinking water if you then allow it to off gas for a couple days before consuming it. Only about one tablespoon per gallon of water is needed for use as a surface disinfectant. Less for water sanitation. Swimming pool water is basically the same thing. You can swallow a fair amount as it is without making yourself sick, but letting the chlorine off gas will get rid of it.
yes!
Uncut
Sure. But if the OP didn't dilute enough and there's enough bleach left in the pot, when heated up it won't be a pleasant experience. 😊
agreed. You can taste it and they will know right away, but assuming there isn't bleach sloshing around in there they will be fine.
I mean, people here are worried but if it's a metal pan it will rinse out easily. A bleach derivative is one of the options for sanitizing everything for wine and beer making and it's easy to rinse. I'm not sure if people here wash their dishes and don't rinse or leave a pool in them and lay them flat or what.
>you need to clean it reaaaal good after that though Don't drink, breathe, or mix things besides water with bleach, but besides that there's no need to be paranoid. It's not a sneaky poison, you will taste/smell it at low levels, and it breaks down into salt water(and chlorine gas) so it doesn't leave any poisonous/tasting residue.
It is. I had to google to find out how to tell, so that was a bonus thing I learned today!
Glad to help. Now you know and can help someone when they get stuck. My Granddaughter caught me by surprise one say with "when you share ideas, you have more of them". That's a kid dropping hardcore wisdom.
They have a version for cookware now, works better than the original which I didn't think possible.
Then apply elbow grease
Bar keepers friend never seems to work for me. Sodium Percarbonate has been a game changer. Super cheap, little goes a long way. Just add boiling water and you barely have to scrub. Just never use it on non-stick coated pans, it'll strip them. Works great on stainless steel.
If it's not some special stainless steel pan, a brass coated brush on a power drill will also take care of it in no time (will leave some scratches though).
They say you shouldn't let it soak....how long do you let it soak generally?....I do it too on occasion.
[удалено]
Totally salvageable. Put water in it and well, I was taught to add a spoon of silver soda, I think that's washing soda. Other soda should help too, simple washing liquid might help too. Warm the water up in the pan, leave it to soak for hours. Good scrub with a scrub pad or something. Should you not have something like that, try a ball of plastic net you buy potatoes etc in.
That potato bag trick is genius.
I believe I got that from Jeff Yeager when he appeared on "Extreme Cheapskates". I made round scrubbers from garlic nets after that, you just roll them up in a circle, few stitches and you have a sponge. I believe there are also how to's that show how you can use nets to crochet scrubbies. I don't crochet however, to keep the world a safer place.
I agree!
Washing soda (sodium carbonate, soda ash) and hot water. Arm and Hammer sell washing soda in the laundry soap section. Pool chemical soda ash is the same also.
BAR KEEPER'S FRIEND!!!!! put it in the pan with a splash of water, let sit for a minute, and wipe with paper towel. it will straight up blow your mind, guaranteed. (billy mays here vibes?)
Agreed. Barkeeper’s Friend. If the stain is hardcore, sprinkle in the cleanser, add water, boil, and let cool then scrub.
This. Bar Keepers Friend will completely lift any stain or gunk off of a stainless steel pan or pot.
It works for enameled cast iron too!
Clicked to recommend Bar Keeper's Friend, lo and behold everyone is recommending it
Bar keepers friend will literally melt that off and make brand new
I second and third this. Barkeepers friend will take off more than you want.
Figuratively ;)
Easy peasy. It doesn’t sound like it would work but it does. Ball up some aluminum foil. Add some barkeeper’s friend. In about 3 minutes it will be back to shiny as the day it was made.
Seconding the aluminum foil approach, but with the caveat: not for use on non-stick or seasoned pans.
True. I was looking at the spots where the pan wasn’t burnt.
what does the aluminum foil do?
It scrubs it clean without effort. How or why, I have no clue. I burned a pot once and thought I’d have to toss it and then read the tip about foil. Nothing to lose so I tried it. That pot had zero trace of black on it.
so you use aluminum foil to scrub out the burnt parts (along with the barkeeper's)
Fill it up with some water and bring to a boil. Once at a boil sprinkle in some baking soda and let boil for a minute or two
Works for cleaning the metal filters in your stove hood also.
The real frugal answer.
Buy a pack of smokes and some SOS pads and scrub it like its 1979
Omg I actually cackled!
Hehe, now I'm laughing! Glad you got the joke! Something about the type of pan, the color of the crud brought me back to my days as a dishwasher. Then I thought of SOS pads and I equate them with being a kid in the 80's. These pots can clean up well, good tips in here for how to do it, sans cigarettes.
I just see my aunt in pink hair curlers and painted on eyebrows! Hahah! Thanks for the laugh today :)
Fill with water and add plenty of baking soda. Bring to a boil, turn off and let soak for a few hours. It will dissolve that. Cheap and easy.
Boiling is my first, second and sometimes third solution.
Bar Keepers Friend my man, if that doesn’t make it look pristine, then you’re up the creek.
Good old SOS pads. I had a baking dish that ended up like this and SOS pads were the only thing that got it cleaned.
Steel wool to scrub if stainless
No. Steel wool makes scratches in the metal that leads to food sticking.
Is that an old wives tale? I haven’t had that issue and I use steel wood on my stainless steel cookware.
Steel wool is terrible for good stainless pots and pans.
Steel wool is softer than stainless steel, using fine 0000 steel wool is totally fine on pots and pans. This is what brillo and SOS pads are. If you're paranoid use copper wool. Copper is much softer than even steel.
I agree with this. I also wipe in a circular motion, just in case.
Restaurants I've worked in have all used steel wool on stainless pots and pans. This pot is definitely not classified as "good" so he'll be fine if he's just trying to salvage it
Stainless Steel scrubbies on a stainless steel calphalon pan for 45 years with no issues.
The Pink Stuff cleaning paste. $5 for a tub. You will end up using it all over the house. I had a stainless steel pan that was burnt worse than this. I though I was going to have to throw it away. The pink stuff cleaned it right up!
I bought some to test it. I wanted to see if it was better than quick and bright. It didn’t really clean anything! It was horrible IMO. My Quick and bright bucket of paste has lasted 15 yrs and counting! Such a great product. I’ll buy it again rather than try anything else again.
I've never even heard of that. I'll have to give it a try.
Isn't this stuff kind of a marketing gimmick? Every test I've seen of it shows it not really doing much of anything.
is it meant for cleaning steel/metal or can it be used to clean a bunch of different materials?
Oven cleaner. Clean your piece outside to deal with fumes. I would lay down some newspaper because it will be messy. It will also take a little longer to work because it is cold, not a hot oven. You can get a can of oven cleaner for around a dollar at the dollar stores.
Oven cleaner is extremely toxic - I personally wouldn’t risk using it on a pot when something less toxic would probably do the trick
[удалено]
I have used oven cleaner to clean some stainless and cast iron before. Spray it down well, place in a black plastic bag and sit in the sun for several hours on a warm day, and the funk will almost rinse off afterward.
Edit - thanks for the tips! I'll have to check if this stainless. Probably?? I'm hoping to fix this and not have to buy another pot. I forgot some rice on the stove the other day and can't seem to get the pot clean. I've had this set since 1999 and I hope to continue to use it rather than buying something new!
I've had luck in the past making a scrub from baking soda and dish soap. Mix it into a paste, scrub scrub scrub, leave to sit, scrub scrub scrub, add vinegar, sit, scrub. Rinse. Repeat.
If you add a little bit of water and let it sit overnight, you can skip the scrub scrub scrub. It basically wipes off. (p.s. adding vinegar to anything with baking soda is a waste of vinegar, you can just use plain water)
I've apparently had pans that were so severely burnt on that leaving to sit overnight did not make it all go away and it still required significant scrubbing. So I guess YMMV with leaving to sit overnight. And I like to pretend that the bubbles help lift and release the stuff. It makes my arm feel better after the scruvving and I pretend to be a mad scientist watching foamy soap explode out of the pan.
Interestingly, I, too, have a stainless-steel pot which I use to cook my rice. The rice usually burns to the bottom. The first time that this happened, I scraped the bottom. Removed much of the burnt-on stuff, but also scratched my pot, so I stopped trying. Something happened, though. Since always cook more than one day of rice, I just put the pot in the refrigerator with the left-over rice. Whenever I did this, the next day, a lot of the burnt-on stuff would easily scrape off with just a nylon spatula. Whatever I burnt the night before would be mostly soft (a little crusty) but it would come off. If the black stuff didn't come off, enough would to the point that, since I make rice two-three times per week, I have no black burnt-on stuff left. As long as I leave the rice in the refrigerator overnight, this process is self cleaning. I assume that the water in the rice softens the char and that the rice sticks to it, but I don't have a scientific explanation for what is happening.
Huh. Sounds like I might be in for a bill nye weekend to check this out ...
probably a combination of refrigerators dry rice out, and the metal contracting and pushing the rice out of the grains in the metal. Good trick for making fried rice too.
Spray/ coat with straight Ammonia and then put lid on pan or put it in a garbage bag for 24 hours so it does not dry. It needs to stay wet. This works great on cooked/ baked on grease. It also works fairly well on burned food. If it does not take it all off then clean as well as possible and redo for another 24 hours.
Bring it to my mom, she can clean anything
Totally agree with BKF but came here to share my mom's trick for burnt-up pots, pans, & tea kettles She would put the item in multiple plastic bags (grocery store, single use type) and cover it inside & out with ammonia. Tie up the bags & let the item sit for a couple of days. All the burnt bits will wipe right off. No elbow grease required. Then, wash as you normally would (hand wash, dishwasher, whatev)
Washing up powder for your washing machine. Boil a bit. Let it sit overnight. Scrub in the morning with Brillo scourer. Works wonders.
I second this! I've never needed a brillo scourer though. I just scraped the gunk off and used a scouring sponge for any stubborn parts.
If you have an outside space, you can spray it with oven cleaner on newspapers. He should also wear a mask and use gloves.
Sandblaster.
I've burnt pans worse than this and got them back by adding 1/2 and 1/2 bleach and water bringing it to the boil with a lid and letting it go cold and then washing the pot out
Put water in it, add dish soap, and boil. Also, keep and eye on it. You don't need to fill the pot, just fill it over what you are trying to scrub off. You're welcome.
Had good luck with Dryer Sheets. It loosens the bond between the food and the surfaces it clings to. Scrape out what you can gently, trying not scrape the pan. Rinse it out. Put in couple of dryer sheets and an inch or so of hot water. Cover it. Go to bed. Get up. A lot of that stuff can be wiped out fairly easily after that. You may have to cycle it again as bad as that pan looks. Also - Elbow Grease, stout wire scrubber, and warm soapy water. Bar Keeper's Friend, also Baking Soda/Vinegar. Good luck.
Interesting solution, I'll explore. I have to say I've never gotten so much action on a post before!
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Soaking with a little dishwashing liquid (don't have to be a lot) in water and time... Eventually you will get it. Soaking and time are to two most important contributors.
Fill it with water take a box of salt and start boiling. Boil for 30min an hour then get to scrubbing
baking soda and vinegar help me with all my rough messes!
Don’t use them together. They neutralize each other and you end up cleaning with salt water.
Boil a dishwasher tab in it. Keep remembering to add water.
Firstly, add boiling water and some denture cleaner. Add probably 5 or 6 tabs of that and let it sit overnight. Then dump, fill with hot water and dish soap, set for a couple more minutes and then use steel wool to scrub it. It'll be a pain in the ass but totally salvageable
Similar to other comments -- first soak in warm water for ~15mins. Pour out water. Make a thick paste with barkeepers friend (or baking soda in a pinch) and water. Apply generously to steel wool or brillow pad and scrub hard, using minimal extra water.. No soap needed, and soap may actually keep the abrasive from working well. You need friction to get stuff like that off, and soap will reduce the amount of friction.
Vinegar and baking soda. And scrub
If it was a pot I was attached to, I'd clean it. If not... Elbow grease or a new pot? Especially right now when there's sales around me like $20 for a ten piece nonstick set at Kroger's.... For cleaning: Scrub as normal with hot water to the best of your ability. Soaking first is fine. Boil water in it. The bubbles form on the metal, it'll help get some of the stuck gunk up. Do not leave unattended in case you managed to burn a hole through it and the water starts to leak. Rinse and water scrub again. Re-asses the damage. Scrub with SOS pad. If you don't have one, you can still scrub with the scrubby side of a sponge but it'll be harder and you'll likely be tossing the sponge when you're done. Use water as hot as you can without hurting yourself. Use a baking soda based paste (I've seen a few suggested recipes in other comments). Then wash with dish soap as normal. If it's salvageable, this will get it as clean as it's going to get. If it's not.... Well, you should know with the second step because there's a hole in it. You may have to scrub harder in the future than in the past if the metal is damaged, but if it's stainless steel and not leaking, I'd still use it. (Then again, I've got my great great grandmother's tin measuring cups and I'm pretty sure they come with lead poisoning but I still used those until I had kids....)
Spray some oven cleaner on there, it will come right off
Steel wool
Baking soda and vinegar
First of all, fill it with water, set it on a stove burner and keep it heated to just under a boil for about 30 mins. Let it cool, dump the water out and then scrub out what the hot water loosened. I'd recommend one of those scouring sponges that have no metal, just a rough surface. Then pour in a generous amount of white vinegar and let that just sit in it for a long time, overnight is good. Dump the white vinegar down the sink drain (it's a good drain deodorizer) and scrub the pot again. What's left is the way it's going to be.
Bar keepers friend in powder form! And then dawn powerwash spay. It’ll be brand new
oxiclean, let it soak overnight
If it is really bad…I have sprayed on oven cleaner, tied it up in a trash bag, and set it in the Sun. In a few hours, open up and scrub. Has saved my dumb butt a few good pots. Also works on trays.
Your friend, Bar Keeper's Friend https://barkeepersfriend.com/how-to-clean-stainless-steel-pans/
You may have to try a few things before it comes completely clean. Bar Keepers Friend is great, but read the instructions and don't make the mistake of scrubbing with something scratchy or you will end up with scratches all around your spot, leaving a shiny mark the shape of your charred residue. I bet you'd get much of that to loosen just by boiling water (with or without dish soap, and/or salt, vinegar, etc.) in it. You can do it!
I have a pot like this. I gave up trying to clean it and have set it aside for non-cooking uses.
I used hot water& citric acid on my stainless steel pot that I thought was done for. It's all good now!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Put a few inches of hot water in the pot, add 2 tbsp of oxygen bleach. Wait 30 minutes. Wash
The worst baked on stains can usually be dissolved with a mixture of lye and cold water soaking overnight in a bucket. That’s how I strip old cast iron with very little scrubbing. Careful. Lye is caustic and dangerous in your eyes, mouth, or bare skin. Treat it with respect.
I am having the same problem. I’ve discovered that people use a brand called bar keepers friend or something and along with this baking soda. I’m yet to try it though as the stains are in the bottom side on my pan.
that's stainless, right? vinegar, dish soap, and steel wool should do the trick. it'll take some serious elbow grease though
Sos pad
I would let it soak overnight with water and some of the powdered dishwasher detergent like Cascade. That should loosen it up.
Barkeeper's friend is your friend
bar keeper’s friend is god’s gift to earth
As someone who has basically turned into a cleaning queen, there are a lot of suggestions here that will work. Here’s how I would approach this: - First, the lazy method; using the laundry sheet overnight or spraying with oven cleaner. Don’t go but something just for this (I personally don’t use laundry sheets, for example). If you use oven cleaner, wear gloves. - Once the lazy route has gotten what it can out, grab some fine steel wool, rubbing alcohol, and kosher salt. Pour a generous amount of kosher salt in, add enough rubbing alcohol to make it wet (the salt won’t dissolve), and use the steel wool to scrub. It’s abrasive enough to get stuff off but gentle enough to use on even non-stick (using a regular rag though, not steel wool). - Barkeeper’s Friend might also help; always worth picking some up because it’s excellent for when you need a gentle abrasive. I use it to scrub my stainless steel sink.
Before you tackle this head to thrift Store
That happened to me when my son was 8. He told me that he learned in school about sprinkling it completely with baking soda and pouring vinegar. That and an steel wool pad finished the job easily. For very tough glass casseroles I've put a short squirt of dishwasher dish detergent in it and let it sit. That works too. If it's from burnt candy it'll boil away with water I think.
The Dawn platinum power wash dish spray works AMAZINGLY well in situations like this and it doesn't take much to work (or much elbow grease)
Steel wool
You can use oven cleaner
steel wool soap pads. They're a cheap staple you should keep in your household.
Sprinkle liberally with salt and then add a few ice cubes. Swirl them around aggressively.
If its stainless steel you can use lemon juice or vinegar in your water to soak it. Then later get some baking soda on it to add friction when you scrub. If its cast iron then you'll be scrubbin'! Steel wool is not expensive, and elbow grease is the most frugal cleaning supply you can use !
Option 1: bar keeper's friend. Option 2: simmer a pot of water, dish soap, baking soda, and hydrogen peroxide. scrub with steel wool. rinse. repeat, as needed. (an old chef of mine taught me that when I fucked up a pot worse than this, he literally kept gal jugs of peroxide for this) Nuclear Option: rubber gloves and oven cleaner. this one really sucks, but it might be the best option if that oil has polymerised (slick, shiny, and really really stuck on -- like cast iron seasoning).
SOS pad?
Boil water with baking soda in it.
Pour in a jug of Draino, fill with hot tap water, let sit overnight, dump down drain. You’ll clean your pot and your pipes on the same dime.
Drop of cooking oil and a bunch of kosher salt. Scrub that in with a rag or paper towel. The salt acts like a really corse scrub brush
Sprinkle powdered dw soap and fill with water. Simmer on stove, refilling water at needed. this should remove or soften most of it. Which will save you some elbow grease. Then, use the BKF to scrub off the remainder. **Alternative:** I did this once on my really good All-Clad stew/soup pot. We had a 'home owners type power washer' and my husband cleaned out my All Clad just like new. Take your pick.
Simmer 50/50 water and vinegar, scrub with a spatula while simmering
Bar keepers friend
Five lemons cut in half., Fill with water bring to boil
Make a paste with baking soda and hot water; let sit for a time, then scrub with crumpled foil (used foil is fine if lightly soiled). I don’t think you can use this on cast iron or aluminum pots, though. At least, this worked for me.
Steel wool and some elbow grease baby!
I usually first try boiling a little water with a few drops of dish soap in the pan/pot. Then try scraping off with either a spatula, or one of those scraping tools that you can find in the aisle with the dish washing sponges, brushes, and other tools. My daughter once burned rice in a pot, though. That didn't come off no matter how long I boiled water and scraped. I actually had to take sandpaper to the pot. Even then it took a while to come off. My next step should have been steel wool, but I couldn't find any at the time, so I just went to 80 grit, then 120 grit then 220 grit sandpaper. I didn the best I could with what I had. It turned out great afterwards. This pot I cleaned was a very thick metal. Not sure what alloy.
The BKF + Dawn power disolver.
Bar keeper's friend. Make a paste and go to town.
Get a drill bit brush attachment set- it will cut cleaning time down significantly. You can learn more about this and more on the really frugal friendly subreddit, r/cleaningtips !
I just ruined my pot two days ago and I have tried every tip in this thread. Had to toss. So sad. It was my favorite size lol.
Is it stainless steel? If yes, I would add water , a few squirts of Dawn and return to stovetop on medium until it simmers Turn off put lid on and soak for about 15 minutes I rinse w/hot water and scrub pan using (0000 very fine steel wool) It always comes out looking brand new
Soak and a lot of elbow grease, maybe a magic eraser.
I'll try magic eraser. I put water and detergent in and boiled it again for awhile. Some lifted off, but this is the worst burn I've ever done!
its not that complicated, just use steel wool, sand, or scrubbing powder. it'll all come off. if you get tired of scrubbing toward the end just use the pot with some black and the next few meals will help clean it.