Question for all you pot cleaners out there!

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Lexee15

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I have some Caphalon (sp?) stainless steel pots, I cannot, for the life of me, get them clean:mad: !!!

I scrub, but I don’t want to scrub too hard cause then I’ll scratch them and they’ll look ugly. I make pasta sauces or chicken soup in them and everytime I use them they seem to get worse. It looks like I don’t know how to wash dishes…oh and they are washed by hand, no dishwasher.

Can anyone tell me how they get their stainless steel pots and pans looking clean and shiney again? I don’t mind going out and buying a product either, if it means they’re going to get clean!!!
 
You’ll never get them back to the original polished/brushed factory finish…

I’d look for a scrub-pad made of stainless steel… not steel wool, or soap-impregnated… just a curly wad of stainless steel.

It’ll get the crud off, and since it’s of a similar material it won’t severely alter the finish.

If you want to go totally crazy, there are “kits” available in the home centers for restoring the finish on your stainless steel kitchen sink. It comprises of multiple sanding pads of varying grits, then a polishing compound.
(My wife wouldn’t give up our old sink… $10K of cabinets, counters & appliances… but the d*mn sink had to stay… 6 hours later with one of these kits and I’ll admit, it looks brand new!.. 6 hours of labor could’ve bought 3 NEW sinks, but… women… gotta love 'em, can’t shoot 'em, gotta deal with 'em…where’s that next sanding pad…)
 
Jay2 said:
(My wife wouldn’t give up our old sink… $10K of cabinets, counters & appliances… but the d*mn sink had to stay… 6 hours later with one of these kits and I’ll admit, it looks brand new!.. 6 hours of labor could’ve bought 3 NEW sinks, but… women… gotta love 'em, can’t shoot 'em, gotta deal with 'em…where’s that next sanding pad…)
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That is just too funny!!! 😃

Hey - if you have the time, can you PM me the name of that kit? I’d love to do my own sink! 🙂
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Lexee15:
Can anyone tell me how they get their stainless steel pots and pans looking clean and shiney again? I don’t mind going out and buying a product either, if it means they’re going to get clean!!!
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I don’t have anything fancy, my cookware is the heavy clad Martha Stewart brand stainless. I use steel wool on mine when it gets dull, I’m just sure that I don’t rub in circles, only back and forth (on the inside and bottom only - the outside is fine). It comes back looking very nice inside.

~Liza
 
Mister Clean Magic Erasers. I swear, they work on everything.
 
Well, I don’t know what Caphalon is, but I do have Wear-Ever stainless steel pots, and they look as nice today as the day I bought them, four years ago. I don’t do anything special to them - they just come clean SO well.

Occasionally there will be a build up or burnt residue on the bottom that I clean up with Cerami-Brite oventop cleaner. That always works… 🤷
 
scour with baking soda and rinse in white vinegar leaving a little of the baking soda to fizz up and ‘boil away’ any residue. rinse in COLD WATER.
 
Barkeeper’s friend is my secret weapon for dealing with tough cleaning issues.

I checked the Calphalon website and it says Bon Ami and Barkeeper’s Friend are OK.

I’d suggest you go to the use and care section at www.calphalon.com because it tells you what you can and can’t use. It also says never to use cooking spray on your Calphalon-- did you use anything like Pam on your pan?
 
Salt worked wonders on my lasagne pan. I’ll never use another abrasive cleaner on cookware. It was amazing.
 
Ravyn_Guiliani said:
scour with baking soda and rinse in white vinegar leaving a little of the baking soda to fizz up and ‘boil away’ any residue. rinse in COLD WATER.
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The Calphalon website specifically lists baking soda in the do not use section. It would void her warranty if she were to use it.
 
1ke said:
The Calphalon website specifically lists baking soda in the do not use section. It would void her warranty if she were to use it.
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oh. well that would leave out salt too. good thing I dont have any Calphalon. I use it because I can’t have the other chemicals!
 
Switch to Caphalon hard annodized commercial - it is fantastic and we’ve never had a problem getting it clean…
 
kage_ar said:
Switch to Caphalon hard annodized commercial - it is fantastic and we’ve never had a problem getting it clean…
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I have several of the hard anodized and I love them! They are SO easy to clean.
 
1ke said:
Barkeeper’s friend is my secret weapon for dealing with tough cleaning issues.
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👍

We use Barkeeper’s Friend on our Calphalon stainless steel, with a Dobe pad (not steel wool), and our pots and pans are so pretty they are hanging up on a pot rack in the middle of our kitchen. 😃 We’ve had them for over 3 years, and they look great.
 
In order to clean a stainless steel pot or pan begin with the plastic fiber scrubbing pads and hot, soapy water. When finished, rinse thoroughly and then (here’s the trick) use copper cleaner. One responder mentioned Barkeeper’s Helper. I use “Twinkle” or something similar. The pot or pan comes back looking like new. You will find that the surface of the pan treated in this fashion is more resistant to sticking. Using “Pam” or another non-stick pretreatment for the pan helps as well.
I live in an area with a lot of mineral content in the municipal water supply and there is always a residue of tiny spots on the bottom of the pasta pot after boiling spaghetti or whatnot. Scrubbing and treating with copper cleaner really helps get that cleaned out as well.

Matthew
 
For my stainless steel pots… I’ll soak them overnight in diluted white vinegar (my favorite household cleanser!)… and scrub in the morning. They SHINE!😃
 
hot lye solution cleans stainless real well. DO NOT use on anodized aluminum Calphalon though, it eats aluminum. (and it eats your copper pipes when you dump it down the drain.) You shouldn’t put anodized aluminum in the dishwasher either. I dilute it a LOT and dump it where I have cast iron drains.

At work I boil the stainless pans and ladles and such in the deep fryers with a lye solution instead of shortening (we never say “grease”) you have to make sure there are no braised joints or non-steel parts though because they’ll fall apart over time. Enamel pots tolerate lye but I’m not about to boil my LeCreuset pots in deep fryer.

At home I use polishing compound. Twinkle, bar keepers, even the automotive stuff.
 
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