Kitchen Garden Forum

I did a stupid thing tonight: I left an empty heavy aluminium pan (a Stella steamer) on the lit gas ring and did not realise it until there was a rather unpleasant burning smell. It is now completely black inside. Any tricks of how I could save it? At the moment it is being soaked in warm water.

Funnily I saw something just tonight about cutting a spud in half & dipping it in course salt to clear off after soaking. I only stopped at that pic btw as the picture was not clear & couldn't figure out what it was as supposed to be as it is a cooking site!

Brillo pad?

I guess you've already tried the acid based solutions that Google offers, otherwise no idea I'm afraid.

Sympathies Monika as I've been there and got the Tee shirt on that one. I found that soaking in a very heavy dose of dissolved Sterodent false teeth cleaning tablets did shift some of the burnt stuff after a prolonged soak, but that and other heavy rubbings with a steel Brillo pad were not enough to clean it up to bring back into use.

I 've seen it read that a good dose of Pepsi Cola is supposed to be effective at cleaning up stained toilet bowls. I haven't tried it so don't knoe know whether it would work. Again it seems that the effervescent effect generally may be what helps to shift the burnt grime. Good luck anyway

We use coca coala to clean the engine on the boat I know if you drop a dirty coin in a glass of it and leave overnight it will be bright and shiny next day

robo wrote:We use coca coala to clean the engine on the boat I know if you drop a dirty coin in a glass of it and leave overnight it will be bright and shiny next day

One must wonder what it do's to your stomach.

Thank you very much for all your advice! Panic over! The pan soaked overnight in hot water with just a hint of bleach (no Coca cola or Pepsi cola in the house). This morning I used a brush on it, then a plastic/nylon pan scrubber with some 'Astonish' and it has come up as good as new! Phew!

Well done Monika, It,a upsetting if you think you,ve damaged a favourite piece of kitchen equipment beyond repair so glad your efforts have paid off. We,ll have to wait now for somebody else's mishap to discover whether Coca Cola or Pepsi Cola actually works!

Cola works on quite a lot of things, including dissolving teeth! It contains a reasonably high level of phosphoric acid. If you buy some new jeans and want to soften them up, put them on a wash with an added can of cola poured in - works a treat!

In my youth I spent a lot of time trying to clean the black stuff off a frying pan.... only to be told it was a non stick.

A working friend had her foreign mother in law from from somewhere overseas to stay. She returned from work one day to discover her m-I-l,who didn,t know non stick pans existed, had spent all day scouring her non pan with a Brillo pad "to remove the black burnt coating" and completely wrecked it. To add insult to injury, she was given a verbal lashing for letting her pans get in such a dirty state !

I like cast iron griddle and similar pans which will withstand all kinds of cruel treatment and clean up afterwards but but as I,ve got older I simply can,t cope with the weight of them , especially the heavy weight Le Creuset type jumbo size casserole pans.