Charred Pan Experiment...

The other day, I had some black beans soaking to make a bean salad.  I placed them on the stove and set a timer for one hour. Well, I had a friend over from out of town and I didn't stir and check on the beans as I should have and suddenly I find myself saying,  "What is that awful smell?...My BEANS!"  I run into the kitchen and a quarter of the beans are burned to the bottom of the pot. Here's what the inside of the pan looked like...and this is after soaking all night and getting some of it off with scraping!

To make matters worse, the pot had spilled over and 

burned to the bottom of the pan as well.

Totally disgusted with the look of the pan inside and out, I set out

to do an experiment on what would clean this best.  For the inside,

I tried baking soda with some minor improvement.  Then I tried

baking soda and vinegar.  Same thing.  The stuff was so burnt on, 

I finally had to use a steel wool.  It worked great, even though I hate

using them.  I never think to wear gloves and the little
steel fibers get stuck in my poor little fingers!

And on to the back side...Ugh!  I can't believe I let my pot get

this bad.  I'll admit it...we throw our pots/pans in the dishwasher.

I know we shouldn't, but I've done it my whole life and didn't know

any better until a friend told me (last year) that I shouldn't.

While I'm a little better at it, I do fall back on old habits.
I was born in a barn and raised by goats, what can I say?

Okay, so first I tried baking soda.

It actually took off that big black burnt spot!

Big improvement.  But I wanted better.

So I combined baking soda and vinegar, wondering if it

would create some weird chemical reaction with the copper.  It didn't.

A little better, not much.  So I added some salt, hoping it wouldn't

pit the bottom of my pan. It didn't.

Then I remembered I read somewhere that you can use

a lemon half to scrub it around and the acid will take away the tarnish!

And boy, did it!  Look at the line where the lemon has been and 

where it has not.  Amazing.  No scrubbing needed.  It was instantaneous!

After rinsing and drying, it looked like this.  A great improvement, 

but it still had some dark spots I wanted to get rid of.  The outline

from the burned beans was still there.  We women are never
satisfied, are we?  *wink*

So, I went against all that is good and holy and used steel wool!  Yikes!

This really scared me, but I was determined to see that pot clean!

I was a little worried about scratching, but considering it was already

scratched and stained all over the copper, I figured...why not!?

Look at that baby shine!  Like a new penny!

I was so excited about this, I decided to clean the rest of my

copper-bottom pot collection!  Aren't they purdy?

Notes and what I learned:

Skip all the soaking and get right to the scrubbing, depending on what's burnt on.  Things like this just refuse to be soaked off!  That pot sat all night with a dishwashing tab and water in it and it didn't do any good.  

I've heard people say they use a dryer sheet in a pot of water and it cleans up easily afterward, but I was trying to do it as cheap as possible (after wasting the 25 cent dish tab in it last night, lol).

Of course, salt is dirt cheap, but lemons can be pricey.  The last time I bought lemons, they had 10 of them in a big bag for $2.99, which I thought was way more than I needed, but it was so much cheaper than buying them separately.  The 1/2 lemon to clean this pan cost me .15c.  Then I got to thinking....the lemon half is way more than is needed.  You could probably use less than a quarter of a lemon for this as the inside is essentially wasted because the salt just kind of sits on the surface of it.

While you might say the dryer sheet could be less expensive (depending on the brand), I feel pretty good about doing it in an all natural, non-chemical way.   

I hope no one will write to tell me "How dare you use steel wool on a copper pot, woman!"

I have no regrets.  I will not apologize.  My pots look darn good compared to what they did!

If you have a good tip about cleaning pots/pans, please leave a comment below.  If you have a  tip that doesn't apply to this topic, please click on the "Tips from Readers" link on the right.  Thanks for stopping by!

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