Cleaning
This Laundry Staple Is the Key to Cleaning a Burnt Pan
Those pans aren’t ruined—they’re one secret ingredient away from being perfect again.

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I just wish the mavens at Food52, who make more than their fair share of typos, btw, in their prose had an edit feature in their comment sections. But then again, it is far, far easier to spot the mistakes of others than one's own. Thanks for pointing that out.
If Food52 allowed do overs, I would correct that spelling and some other content, misspellings and punctuation issues that caught my eye, when scanning that comment and others over again, viz., "self cleaning oven" instead of "self cleaning off" [sic], etc.
But there was one product that worked very well, and was made by a chemical company Boyle-Midway. And that product was a gel, called Easy-Off. Easy-Off is available today, though no longer a gel, but rather in a spray can.
The Easy-Off in the days of yore was a thick, gloppy. brownish gel made with sodium hydroxide, trisodium phosphate and other nasties. It came in a jar with a brush applicator in the lid. You brushed it on a surface -- any surface -- such as a pot, pan, tray, or oven wall, preferably prewarmed, and waited for about ten minutes. Voilà! Old cross-linked grease, burned on bits, and that peculiar brown film you see on well used pans and utensils would wipe or rinse right off. You had to wear gloves though as that stuff would blister the skin, as my mother once found out when she cleaned the oven one day.
Today, Easy-Off is still available, is more convenient to use, and is reformulated as a spray. It contains sodium carbonate mostly instead of sodium hydroxide as the alkaline agent which hydrolyses those pesky burnt-on grease films by means of a sponification reaction. (If your organic chemistry is rusty or non-existent, you can look up sponification or just take it from me that it chemically breaks up the molecular structure of fats and grease.) Trisodium phosphate was pretty much eliminated in household cleaners in past decades owing to the issue of phosphate run-off pollution.
Easy-Off today comes in a variety of forms, as this has become a brand name. I recommend the Heavy Duty Oven Cleaner formulation for stubborn grease and burnt on items. You WILL NEED TO WEAR GLOVES preferably long ones, and avoid skin and eye contact. This is powerful stuff and can result in chemical burns.
If you have a collection of trays, racks, or pots with brown film, which is nigh impossible to remove, try it. You will be amazed.
I recognize that many readers of this list are probably not conversant with consumer chemicals, nor the companies that produce them. The Boyle-Midway of yesteryear was absorbed by other companies, but its remnants live on in the British Consumer giant, you never heard of, Reckitt Benckiser, known more simply today as RB. You have used other of their products most likely (Air Wick, Brasso, Calgon, Cēpacol, Clearasil, d-CON, Durex, Enfamil, Finish, Gaviscon, Glass Plus, K-Y, Lysol, Mr Sheen, Mucinex, Sani Flush, Vanish, Veet, Woolite to name a few). Easy-Off is one of them too, of course.
I am not now, nor have I ever been associated in any way with this company nor its predecessors.
Even still, I have used it on an aluminum cookie sheets to good effect. While it did react slightly with the surface, after I removed years of baked-on coating, the surface was easily polished smooth again with a bit of Bar-Keeper's Friend.
If one were so inclined, you can still buy TSP (trisodium phosphate) at most hardware stores along with lye and make up your own cleaning powder. But be super careful, WEAR LONG GLOVES AND EYE PROTECTION. On the whole, it is just easier and safer to buy a can of Easy-Off Heavy Duty Oven Cleaner. Use it in a well ventilated space and wear the above protection.
I'll try the dryer sheet!
Thanks, LV Laurrie
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