So I have a 6qt stainless steel saute pan that I may or may not have fucked.
With the plan of “preheating” it, so it would be ready after putting the baby to bed, I put it on the stove with a drizzle of olive oil on med/low heat.
30 minutes later I come downstairs and the pan (which had a lid on thank god) was full of smoke, completely scorched carbon, and some gooey polymerized oil all over the lid and around the scorched portion.
I’ve done two rounds of oven cleaner that sat for 20-30 minutes, which made mincemeat of the gooey oil, but didn’t even touch the carbon.
I’m currently leaving it overnight with more oven cleaner, but if that fails, what are my next steps? Maybe something more abrasive to just mechanically remove it?
Thanks in advance, my wife is very displeased about one of our kitchen mainstays being on the bench right before Thanksgiving.
The oven cleaner cycle was a good idea for the resin - I’m not sure what else would have worked - but it won’t do anything more to what is already basically a form of graphite (which has an extremely high melting point, and a fairly high ignition point).
You need to oxidize the carbon. That would be bleach or hydrogen peroxide + time and, if you can, sunlight (so set it outside to soak for a bit with this stuff). This is gonna take several hours, and it may take more than one round to get all of the scorching off, but it will come off completely if you are patient and persistent enough.
EDIT: Though the method I’ve described is what I’ve done in the past, I read that heat + baking soda + water (+ vigorous scrubbing) can also work.
Get a brillo pad and start scrubbing. It’s stainless steel, it’ll take it.
Once it’s scraped off, barkeepers friend for a bit of cleaner polishing.
It’s borderline impossible to kill a stainless steel pan. Half the stainless steel i own i got at a thrift store because somebody scorched it and got rid of it; little bit of elbow grease and I then had an expensive pan for about 5-10 bucks and some time.
I’m glad to hear my thoughts echoed. While I wasn’t sure how I was going to fix the pan, I knew the pan would survive that’s why I love stainless steel
Sounds like you basically seasoned it like a cast iron, so if all else fails, you can try heating it even hotter and longer til it flakes off, which is the most effective way to strip a cast iron.
Acid and abrasive are your best bets short of that.
How did the cleaning go? What ended up getting the job done?
It’s now our cleanest pan!
After the overnight oven cleaner, which did jack shit to the carbon, I tried simmering 50/50 vinegar and water. It was utterly ineffective at anything besides gassing out the grind floor of my house and trapping my infant and asthmatic wife in the primary bedroom.
While it was simmering, though, I scraped it a bit with a spatula, which was very slightly effective, but scratched the pan. After seeing my success with the spatula, I used a razor blade, which went through the carbon like butter.
For the next hour I used a couple green scrubbies and a fuckton of elbow grease to scour out the discolored area where the carbon was, followed by maybe 30 minutes with a magic eraser to somewhat polish the newly scoured pan.
0/10 would not recommend
Haha I will take your word for it and not try it at home, but will feel a bit more comfortable in general knowing how to fix it if it happens! Thanks and glad it’s been restored to its glory!
