barrys@tekecs.UUCP (Barry Steel) (07/24/85)
How do you get rid of the brown spots (and streaks) that accumulate on pots and pans from frying? I spent an hour doing two pans last night. I used OOO steel wool, which works well but rather slow. I even went out to the garage and tried my industrial strength buffer (really) to no avail. The pots are Farberware (stainless steel and aluminum) and T-Fal (aluminum). Help!
eric@amc.UUCP (Eric McRae) (07/25/85)
> How do you get rid of the brown spots (and streaks) that accumulate on pots > and pans from frying? You might try cooking up a batch of rhubarb sauce. It will do wonders for the inside of anything aluminum. I'm not sure if it does wonders form your insides after that but it tastes good on ice cream.
reid@Glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) (07/26/85)
In article <5543@tekecs.UUCP> barrys@tekecs.UUCP (Barry Steel) writes: >How do you get rid of the brown spots (and streaks) that accumulate on pots >and pans from frying? Oh, goody. Another "kitchen technology" discussion. I love 'em. Yes, I've got a scheme that works so well it will take your breath away. (Literally--it uses ammonia). But first some rambling background. I grew up in suburban Washington DC, and some time in the late 1960's the Washington Post Sunday Magazine did an article on "the 5 most horrible jobs in Washington". They interviewed a guy who cleaned out septic tanks, and that kind of thing. One of the people that they interviewed was the man whose job it was to turn dead animals into skeletons for the Smithsonian. He had 3 techniques for doing this. The first is too disgusting to describe on net.cooks, the second was to use a laundry chemical named Axion that is no longer available (it worked too well, I guess), and the third was to use a vat of boiling (hydrous) ammonia. In the article he was quoted as saying ``enough exposure to hot ammonia will dissolve any protein''. Well, I thought about it for a while and decided that if hot ammonia would dissolve any protein, it would certainly dissolve the dirt on my dishes, so I did some experimentation, and what do you know, it works beautifully. Take a pressure canner, or some other ultralarge pan that can be capped fairly tightly. Fill it with as strong a solution of ammonia water as you can afford. The weaker the solution the longer this will take. If money is no object, then just fill the large pan with "nonsudsing household ammonia", right out of the bottle. Otherwise put in as much household ammonia as you can afford, and fill the rest of the pot with hot water. I have a 30-quart pressure canner, and a quart of ammonia costs 79 cents--we're talking $20 worth of cleaning solution to go all the way. Now take the objects that you would like to clean and put them into this boiling cauldron. Put a lid on the cauldron, bring it to a boil, and then turn it down to the lowest simmer you can muster. Seal it as tightly as you can--if you don't have a pressure canner, try covering the top with aluminum foil before putting the lid on. If you are using straight household ammonia, a 4-hour simmer will clean anything off of anything. Dilute solutions take proportionately longer. Since ammonia is a gas that is just in solution in the water, it boils off and the strength of the solution gets weaker, so you can't use 8 weeks of simmering to compensate for using only 1 spoonful of ammonia. I am at a loss for enough superlatives to say how effective this cleaning technique is. It will restore any metal or glass cooking utensil to its virgin factory condition. Sometimes a very small amount of scrubbing with a Scotch-brite or Chore Boy will speed the process up by removing large deposits of scum to let the ammonia get at what is underneath them. If I am trying to clean something that is too big to fit in my cauldron, I fill the something with ammonia solution and then seal it as best I can with steel wool. Ammonia is not the friendliest chemical in the world, and it is a good idea to leave the windows open in the room where you are doing this, and to use your fume hood, and that sort of thing. Furthermore, ammonia destroys the insides of laser printers, so if you have a laser printer at home (which I do), you have to seal off the laser printer before you begin this madness. Hot, dangerous, and time-consuming. But Ahhhhhhh, does it ever get pots and pans clean!!! My wife hates the smell, so I usually save this kind of cleaning task for times when she is out of town. -- Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid Stanford reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA
bhayes@Glacier.ARPA (Barry Hayes) (07/27/85)
In article <10031@Glacier.ARPA> reid@Glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) writes: >In article <5543@tekecs.UUCP> barrys@tekecs.UUCP (Barry Steel) writes: >>How do you get rid of the brown spots (and streaks) that accumulate on pots >>and pans from frying? > >Oh, goody. Another "kitchen technology" discussion. I love 'em. ... >If you are using straight household ammonia, a 4-hour simmer will clean >anything off of anything. ... > Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid > Stanford reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA Ur, um. How do you trust it to know which? One of these days you'll do this, you'll open up the vat, and find burned cheese, but no trace of your Corningware.
reid@Glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) (07/27/85)
In article <10059@Glacier.ARPA> bhayes@Glacier.UUCP (Barry Hayes) writes: >Ur, um. How do you trust it to know which? One of these days you'll >do this, you'll open up the vat, and find burned cheese, but no trace >of your Corningware. Easy. The material containing the least amount of phlogiston is the one that gets dissolved. -- Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid Stanford reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA
martin@yale.ARPA (Charles Martin) (07/29/85)
Summary: Expires: Sender: Followup-To: Keywords: In article <10031@Glacier.ARPA> reid@Glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) writes: >In article <5543@tekecs.UUCP> barrys@tekecs.UUCP (Barry Steel) writes: >>How do you get rid of the brown spots (and streaks) that accumulate on pots >>and pans from frying? > >Oh, goody. Another "kitchen technology" discussion. I love 'em. > >Yes, I've got a scheme that works so well it will take your breath away. >(Literally--it uses ammonia). > >I am at a loss for enough superlatives to say how effective this cleaning >technique is. It will restore any metal or glass cooking utensil to its >virgin factory condition. I tried this on the antique copper pots handed down through four generations of professional chefs (they had some minor brown spots) and I was surprised at an added bonus of the technique. Not only were the brown spots removed, but all the utensils now have a lovely patina of green and black. My copper-clad Revere Ware has suffered the same fate. Two seventeenth century cast-iron pots vanished completely during cleaning. A companion piece to this posting will be appearing in net.legal, where I discuss the legal ramifications of posting destructive advice to the net. :-) If you're the kind of person who puts amazingly corrosive stuff into his or her pots and pans, we recommend that you use Drano as an alternative to straight ammonia; this has actually worked for us on stainless steel (you take your chances with other items), and it makes it possible to clean pans with a copper exterior. In addition, if your apartment is broken into while you are cleasning, you can throw the panfull of Drano into the face of the assailant. -- From the kitchens of Joe Lisp
nelson@cvl.UUCP (Randal Nelson) (07/30/85)
> If you're the kind of person who puts amazingly corrosive stuff into his > or her pots and pans, we recommend that you use Drano as an alternative > to straight ammonia; this has actually worked for us on stainless steel > (you take your chances with other items) ... Lest anyone should be actually tempted to try this, a word of warning: Be absolutely certain the pot is not aluminum. Drano works by combining a corrosive solution of lye and sodium nitrate with small aluminum chips. The reaction comsumes the aluminum producing quantities of heat and hydrogen gas. A pressure cooker loaded with Drano and aluminum utensiles would probably explode violently. Even in the open air the reaction can be vigorous enough to splash caustic solution all over. As for the pot... Randal Nelson nelson@cvl
render@uiucdcsb.Uiuc.ARPA (07/31/85)
I have gotten the brown spots out of the inside of my Revere Ware by
putting in a few tablespoons of baking soda and enough water to nearly fill
the pan and then boiling the hell out of it. The soda-water solution seems to
dissolve the film quite nicely. Also, the same technique may be used to remove
mineral scale from tea kettles, though with cream of tartar replacing the
soda. I would be quite leery of using anything as strong as ammonia, unless
you have SERIOUS build-up. I have seen the stuff take the paint off of my
range hood while cleaning with it, so I give it a healthy respect.
Hal Render
{pur-ee, ihnp4} ! uiucdcs ! render
render@uiuc.csnet render@uiuc.arpamartin@yale.ARPA (Charles Martin) (08/07/85)
Expires: Sender: Followup-To: Keywords: Let me briefly say: Don't use a pressure cooker with Drano. The reasons have been given already in the net. Frankly, the spots just aren't worth your life. I wouldn't use Drano myself, and I'm sorry the note went out without the intended smiley face. By the way, a friend has used Drano (no cooker) and got marvelous results, but it's just not for me. Apologies again, folks; I think it's wrong to post advice one wouldn't use oneself.
reid@Glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) (08/08/85)
I think that a number of people thought I was either kidding, crazy, (or both) with my posting explaining how to clean pans with hot ammonia. I am quite serious. I am also not crazy. I do not run unnecessary risks. I do not pressure-cook with ammonia. I use my pressure canner because it is the largest pot I own (40 quarts), and because it can seal neatly to prevent the leak of ammonia into the kitchen. When I am canning with it, I use the burner on high and I run the pan up to 15 pounds of pressure. When I am using it as a cleaning cauldron I keep the burner on the lowest simmer, just enough to keep the ammonia warm enough to do its thing. I assert that there are many common household substances that are much more dangerous than ammonia. I wouldn't trust my 2-year-old daughter anywhere near it, but it isn't going to kill her or even badly injure her unless she decides to go swimming in it, and even then, the worst danger she faces is not chemical damage but scalding. Dishwasher soap is much more toxic than household-strength ammonia. So are laundry enzymes like Biz. So is drano, but everybody knows that. So is silver polish. So is Clorox. So are toilet bowl cleaners, and bathroom lime-removers, and those little blue things that you put in your toilet to turn the water blue and cause your friends to think you are a good housekeeper. (And for God's sake, please don't ever mix Clorox and ammonia--it liberates poisonous gas). I posted that note with the expectation that people would understand what the technique is for. If you have a wimpy little spot in your pan that you can get out with baking soda, then use baking soda. If you can get it out with bleach, then use bleach. If you can get it out with Rotebjorn or Wenol, then use that. Don't bring in the big time tools until you've tried the obvious. If you can't get it out with any of the standard Hints from Heloise, and if you do in fact want to get it out, and if you are a responsible adult and understand what it means to say "use in a well-ventilated area", then you can get it out with hot household-strength ammonia. I guarantee it. Well, if "it" is any form of organic compound, even if it has been there since 1946, then you can get it out with hot ammonia. If it is actual oxidation or chemical reaction of the metal, then you can't get it out with hot ammonia (but you can get amazing results with X-ray film developer if the metal has chemically reacted--developers are reducing agents...I don't think I'd better go into that, lest somebody post a semi-joking semi-amazed followup saying that you can clean better by using the jelly that comes out of used Polaroid film... [you can't--it's much too caustic]). I do this about once every 3 years. My pots are cleaner than yours. -- Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid Stanford reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA