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Comment by foobarian | Hacker News Reader

Sounds enticing for cleaning burned baking dishes! I tried with concentrated NaOH and that didn't work so I need more extreme solutions.

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If you catch it before it's totally incinerated, Tergazyme/Tergajet is the way to go. Otherwise try either Citranox or Alconox (or the 'jet versions for low foaming).

If none of those three will touch it, it's probably not cleanable by anything short of piranha-class terrors. If they can touch it but don't get you all the way there, there's probably some combination of detergents and procedures that will do it, but it may take some serious effort to figure that combination out.

The issue is that ‘any organic residue’ includes any food you might happen to put on it afterwards, if any trace of the solution is left. Or, for that matter, it includes your entire body. This is an exceedingly bad idea unless you enjoy your food bursting into flames, then burning a hole through your stomach if you eat it.

That seems like a terrible idea on many levels. Will definitely make for some fun anecdotes though (assuming nothing goes wrong). Also - I don’t know if I’d want to eat anything cooked on a baking dish exposed to so many toxic chemicals.

I assume you’re not joking, but this was a major whoosh if you were!

Well, I was not. I keep thinking there has got to be a way to dissolve the black, caked on oil resins, and so far I haven't found a solvent that works. I tried the relatively harmless stuff found around a household; the more aggressive being the lye solution, brake cleaner, acetone, citric acid, muriatic acid (i.e. HCl but relatively weak). Sibling has a good point to try more heat, which should be easy to try since the object is stainless steel.

Gotcha! I don’t mean to dunk on you… sounds like a cool project if you take appropriate safety precautions, but the possibility of accidentally creating some poisonous (or carcinogenic) substances seems pretty high. I’m far from and expert though.

I might have a low risk tolerance, but I would toss any cookware touched by, like, half of the chemicals you listed. Don’t want to find out the hard way that some nasty layer of something is slowly leaching into my food.

If you do move forwards with this, definitely write up your findings... "Removing burnt food with piranha solution without dying" will make a great blog post.

If it's on stainless steel, why do you need to remove it chemically? Does a stainless steel scouring pad not work?

Barkeepers friend and elbow grease hasn't failed me yet, but in fairness I may not have hit the same issue as the GP.

Mechanical methods certainly work, but they seem like a copout. I would find a chemical solution more elegant/satisfying just for curiosity's sake.

I would try piranha before trying more heat as the piranha is less likely to warp or discolor the stainless.

If you know what you're doing the equation boils down to determining if the container's worth more than the piranha solution will cost you to make in time/money spent. https://drs.illinois.edu/Page/SafetyLibrary/PiranhaSolutions

I don't know how baked on you're talking here, but we somewhat routinely end up with oily residue that's still in the sticky to moderately hard state.

Baking soda and peroxide cleans that shit off like magic. You should Google the exact procedure and proportions.

Edited to add: a single edge razor scraper is worth a try on stainless. The razor blade is roughly as hard as the substrate, so you won't gouge it too bad. Get the plastic Allway holders. The metal ones are garbage and, incredibly, the generic plastic ones are pretty inferior.

> I don't know how baked on you're talking here

Very :-). I'm talking about a pan accidentally left on the grill or in the oven for too long until it smokes. The residue is pretty much what you end up with when seasoning cast iron cookware, and is very hard and resistant to usual household chemicals. It's far from the oily residue that is removed easily with paint thinner or acetone.

Oven cleaner (Easy-Off heavy duty or similar), in a sealed plastic bag with the item in question, left for 24-48 hours. Rinse thoroughly with tap water, then DI water, then distilled vinegar, then tap water & DI water again. Works to strip cast iron, should work for similar gunk. Obviously wear appropriate PPE (long rubber gloves, follow all warnings on the oven cleaner, work in a well-ventilated area, the MSDS[1] is useful though all instructions should be on the label).

[1] https://www.globalsanitation.com/edit/files/sds/retail/easy_...

If the cookware is metal you can use electrolysis.

Car battery charger clamped with an electrode to sacrificial metal plate and an electrode to cookware; both hanging apart from each other in a bath of electrolyte made of water + sodium carbonate. Let it work for a day or so in a well ventilated area (it will create hydrogen gas).

I have found an abrasive works wonders, and is fine on stainless steel pans https://barkeepersfriend.com/products/

You could try the trash bin and not doing it again method.

Have you tried barkeeper's friend with a nylon scrubbie or steel wool? I've found that to be excellent, if labor-intensive, at returning stainless steel to like-new condition, even when dealing with oily residue that's been baked at 500 degrees.

Ammonia vapor works great on burned on grease if the thing you are cleaning isn't damaged by it. Use it for my burner grates and drip pans, just put them in an enclosed container with some ammonia and let sit for a day or two.

Put it in the over and run the clean cycle. It'll get ashed.

Depending on what the material is, you can potentially clean it by burning it harder. Set your over to 'clean' and find out.

Oven cleaner is a better bet.

My granny salvaged some burned stainless steel cookware from trash by boiling them in vinegar.

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