For the past few years I have been buying Vim scouring powder on ebay as it is not available from supermarkets. I mainly use it for cleaning Pyrex dishes that have been in the ovebn.
Just now the price is rediculous, being three times the price I last paid. Ajax is similarly unavailable.
What do others use for cleaning dishes that have been in the oven?
A long soak in water (e.g. overnight) and then a normal nylon scourer.
Vim and Ajax have their place but I don't think they do much good to glass in the long term.
Straight into soak in hot water with squirt of washing up liquid. Half an hour to hour rubbing with fingers/finger nails shifts everything. Rub over with non-scratch washing up sponge. Marks from metal serving utensils removed with Bar Keepers Friend and sponge.
?biological washing 'powder' like Lidl Formil for an overnight soak.
Pretty much the same as the others. But, if needed, I sometimes use some melamine foam "eraser".
I do find that glass and ceramic dishes I use are nothing like as difficult to clean as the ones my mother used. I suspect a major part of the reason is that I don't blast everything at superheat. Right temperature (in my view) for each food. And a bit of radiant heat from the top element to give a golden/brown finish, if needed.
We stick oven glassware in the dishwasher. It usually comes out clean, but occasionally I (as it's a blue job according to SWMBO) need to scour it.
A soak for an hour in water/washing up liquid and then washing liquid soaked stainless steel scouring balls - the soft ones and with two or three squashed and linked together, which makes them a lot easier to handle. The scouring balls last many months.
Have you tried those "birdsnest of stainless steel swarf" type scouring pads?
Google "Stainless Steel Scourer" they'll sort you out with minimal time and effort.
"Dave Liquorice" snipped-for-privacy@howhill.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.individual.net:
I find the scouring pads (not Brillo - the shiney round knitted type) to be actually very kins as thet seem to cut through what is stuck on without scratching the base glass or metal.
Alumina based Cif will get most things and does much less damage to the glaze. You have probably made your dishes extremely prone to stuff burning on and sticky by creating a rough matt surface on them.
Stuff tends to come off a nicely polished surface more easily.
I take the tea kettle, empty it for everything but a small amount of water, and rub the inside hard with a brush or scourer.
The resulting sludge of limescale and water polishes glass and enamel pretty well.
Thomas Prufer
The question really is, why are these not on sale? It could be because they are of little use these days. Brian
Thanks for the replies, I have added some stainless steel scouring balls and pads to my next Tesco order.
You will probably have more success with the soft stainless balls (two or three meshed together to make a larger ball) than any flat stainless steel pad which may/will be less flexible.
Also the non-scratch version of the scourers that have a foam pad to hold onto.
This is what we used in the lab for cleaning Pyrex items in the automatic (high temp) washer. It's pretty good. It's not washing up liquid and you don't leave your hands soaking in this stuff.
The Alconox is silly money, but what do you expect in 2020. Still, it's nice to see the name is still around.
Paul
I soak and use the white scrapy sponge things or if thats no good, stainless steel wire scouring stuff. I used to use the more aggressive green backed scoury pads, but really they just did as much damage as wire and didn't do as good a job of scraping. In the end pans i use this way have a limited life. 20 years is good going before they are opaque (if glass) or all crazed up if porcelain. Just buy new.
Stainless steel handles everything up to fairly coarse wet and dry paper. I sometimes use that on enamelled cast iron as well.
In the end if the coating baked on is as tough as the material its baked onto, you are going to damage the surface unless you can do the job chemically. . Which is why I have utterly given up with 'non stick'
Sometimes soaking in bleach or caustic works.
How come you're clearly rational about cleaning cookware, but completely mad about the EU? ;)
Because dear boy, I have experience of both, in depth, and you have only one.
Decon 90 is what we used in the path labs I worked in
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