Cleaning the pan from carbon deposits with glue, soda, soap - the "Middle Ages" or an effective way?

Our grandmothers also used clerical glue from carbon in pots and pans. They had no other choice, for the dark brown soap bars with the numbers “72%” squeezed onto them were the only household chemical products that were sold in stores. One could only dream of specialized gels and powders, but people did not give up and invented effective methods for putting kitchen utensils in order.

Ingredients

According to recipes that have been preserved since the days of the early USSR, the solution for cleaning dishes consisted of only four components:

• silicate glue - you need one large bottle with a volume of 200 ml;
• soda ash (it should not be confused with caustic soda, otherwise disaster can not be avoided, as well as with baking soda, which will not give the desired effect) in an amount of 250 g;
• laundry soap (the same, dark, with an unpleasant smell) - one bar will be enough;
• buckets of water (10 l).

Also in the process, a large metal container was required, preferably not enameled inside. However, as the experience of previous generations shows, the enamel layer is damaged only if the heavy utensils are inaccurately loaded and unloaded.

A stir stick needs a clean stick. You can pick up or break off a branch from a tree or use an unnecessary wooden spoon with a long handle, if it is not a pity to throw it away.

Safety regulations

By themselves, the ingredients used in the recipe are relatively safe for humans and pets, if you do not eat them and inhale. There is soap, glue or soda, of course, no one will, but breathing them in pairs during the cooking of the solution is quite realistic. Therefore, the first and most important rule is to start work only if windows are open in the room. A working hood and forced ventilation will be a plus.

A respirator does not hurt. People who are sensitive to clean air are unlikely to be near a heated solution without additional airway protection.

Just in case, children and animals should be removed from the premises. Inadvertently, they risk being burned with alkaline boiling water.

Solution preparation

The container prepared for cleaning kitchen utensils is placed on the stove and filled with water no more than half. The number of ingredients is recounted in accordance with the used volume of liquid, after which they begin to prepare the solution:

1. The soap is grated and the resulting chips are poured into a container of water. Soda is sent there and poured clerical (silicate) glue.
2. Thoroughly stir everything with a stick until the solution heats up and acquires a uniform consistency.
3. The dishes with a layer of soot are immersed in a container and boiled until the blackness begins to fall off from the sides and the bottom. Depending on how long a carbon deposit has formed, and on its thickness, it will take from half an hour to three hours. During prolonged cooking, periodically add evaporated water.
4. At the end of the process, the stove is turned off, and the dishes are left in the solution until cool.

It happens that even after several hours of digestion in the pan or pan, soot remains. This indicates that he too firmly stuck in the metal surface and now can not do without physical labor. While the layer is softened, you can try to scrape it off with a knife.A metal sponge in this case will not help much, since old dirt is too tough for her; in addition, soot, which is scraped off in thin pieces, gets stuck between the spirals of the scraper and complicates the work.

You can also re-boil the dishes, adding another dose of the ingredients to the already existing solution, i.e. making it more concentrated.

Recipe Options

On the Internet, you can find many variations of the above recipe. Not all of them are equally effective, and some are completely useless:

• A solution consisting only of water and glue dissolves fats worse than the one that contains all the ingredients. And replacing silicate glue with ordinary PVA is completely meaningless and negates the efforts of the hostess to put the dishes in order.
• The exclusion of laundry soap from the solution complicates the cleaning of heavily soiled utensils.
• The use of sodium bicarbonate (ordinary soda, which is used in cooking) instead of sodium carbonate (soda ash) reduces the alkalinity of the solution, which also interferes with the normal softening of soot.
• But the worst mistake arises as a result of the similarity of the names of calcined and caustic soda. The latter is caustic technical soda. The substance belongs to the second hazard class according to GOST 12.1.007. Caustic soda causes chemical burns on skin and severe corrosion of metals with prolonged contact with them.

For what dishes is this method not suitable?

Not all pots and pans can be cleaned by boiling in an adhesive solution.

Look for a different solution for dishes that:

• has fixed handles with wood inserts - it will swell from the water, and the varnish coating will fall off. The situation is similar with the bone knobs on the handles and lids - they will become rough and ugly;
• should be brilliant. After cleaning, you will have to spend a lot of time grinding the metal so that the surface becomes mirrored again;
• coated with a non-stick layer (including Teflon) - digestion in alkali will lead to a loss of its basic qualities, and food will begin to adhere to the bottom intensely, even if you fry in a huge amount of oil.

Aluminum utensils are well tolerated by alkali, but lose the oxide film, which protects the metal from destruction. Over time, it will recover from contact with air, but it is better, without waiting for this, to boil the dishes in clean water for several minutes.

But before you start cleaning the old cast-iron cauldron or pan, it is worth considering. The black layer on them is not a deposit, but a natural non-stick coating that has been forming over the years. The solution will corrode it in a matter of minutes, but it will take at least six months to restore it. In addition, cast iron will rust very much after contact with alkali.

So, to wash the pan, stewpan or any other utensils that, due to the negligence of the hostess, have lost their attractive appearance, it will not be difficult if the correct proportions of the alkaline solution are observed. After the cleaning is completed, the dishes should be rinsed with water and the product used for daily washing of dishes. Those items that it doesn’t hurt should be baked on fire - this will completely eliminate the unpleasant odors that the dishes could absorb during cleaning.