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Comment by gilrain | Hacker News Reader

Incidentally, if your want your aluminum or stainless steel clean again with almost no effort, use Barkeeper's Friend. It's an oxalic acid product, and it wipes away stains with a sponge that you'd work hard to sand out.

Obviously, do not use on cast iron or carbon steel.

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I don’t know about your experience, but even with BKF, the scrubby side of the sponge, and a lot of elbow grease, it takes ages to get it off an aluminum pan. I did it once and it took two full hours, and gave me blisters on my hands from the sheer amount of scrubbing.

Try oven cleaner! I leave it on sheet pans for about 15 minutes; it’s amazing what wipes away.

I had similar issues with the AllClad pans I bought, so I called them out of frustration. They recommend Dobie sponges in addition to the Barkeeper's Friend. It seems to help.

What also helps is simmering something acidic in the pan for about 10-15 minutes (wine, watered-down vinegar, etc). The base then cleans pretty easily. It's the burnt bits of fat that splatter up the walls of the pan that are murder to get out.

Sponges come in all levels of abrasiveness.

Here in the US at least, there tend to be scratch (yellow/green) and non-scratch (blue/darker-blue). Along with straight scratch pad (pure green) and steel wool (silver metal).

You can grind all day with a non-scratch pad, and all you're really polishing with is the harder bits of gunk you've managed to take off.

Same way you can sand with 220 grit all day and barely make a dent, but hit something with 60 grit and make progress in 5 minutes.

Afaik, Barkeeper's Friend is essentially microgrit in some sort of liquid carrier. If you had the right shaped sand, you could probably add that to something and get a similar effect.

Burnt bits of fat don't come off with acid, they need base. My wife pours ammonia into a baggie and leaves things in it.

There's two versions of barkeeper's friend, a powder one and a liquid one. The powder one is the one to use to remove caked on residue.

Seconding this. Barkeeper’s friend is like magic on aluminum. If you use it regularly you can keep your aluminum pots and pans looking like they’re factory new.

BKF is great on stainless steel, like All-Clad sets. Highly recommended.

> Obviously, do not use on cast iron or carbon steel.

Unless your seasoning is flaking off because you followed OP's instructions and you need to start again.

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