One way or another, everyone has owned stainless steel products. The core reason for that is their fantastic build quality and structural strength that rivals most of the other materials out there.
This is undoubtedly one of the frequently used materials for cookware since the heat conductivity of this is the best. So, if you have concerns about how to clean stainless steel cookware, don’t you worry; we got your back!
How to Clean Stainless Steel Cookware?
Before you go diving into your cleaning adventures, you first need to assess the damage and how hard you need to go. Why do you need to do that? Because judging the condition of the stain, you will be able to speculate what you will need.
One thing we want to get out in the open is that burning your pan or other cookware along with having stains is quite a common phenomenon. So, you need to realize that encountering any of that do not mean your cookware is done.
You can get them into top conditions if you follow some specific steps since while cleaning, there’s a possibility that you might overdo the whole procedure. Therefore, assessing how bad it is, is quite an important step.
You Need a Few Things
Before you begin to clean your cookware, you will need a few things for each of the steps that you are going to carry out. So, you might want to make sure you get everything you will need throughout the whole process.
As we already know for a fact that stainless steel pans and other things are entirely dishwasher safe. But that doesn’t mean you won’t need to get some hardened stains out by hand.
So, you might want to lean towards buying a cleaning brush that can be with bristles or some other stronger material. These will help you break apart some of the stains and loosen some of the oil accumulations.
Hand soap or a proper dishwashing soap is essential since their chemical compositions are designed to make sure they remove some of the harder stains. Therefore, make sure you get that.
Afterward, you might not want to scrub the pan with only a brush since you would want to reduce the number of scratches the pan will suffer from throughout the process. So, try getting a softer sponge to work with.
These all together will help you carry out the cleaning process so that you don’t lack efficiency or consistency, as each of the steps will require different levels of attention.
Step by Step Procedure
Now comes the part where you will clean those persistent stains and make your accessories look sparkly and impressive as they were always intended to be. Let’s dive in with details –
1. Creating the Groundwork
One of the first things that you would want to do is creating a proper situation that will allow you to rinse off all the stains and other things much more efficiently rather than powering through the whole process.
Powering through will only make your work harder; you will feel the pain in your hand afterward since you didn’t lay the groundwork properly. So, the first thing you would want to do is loosening the hardened stains.
You can easily use a spatula to clear out some of the excess oils or maybe just drip them out of the pan without wasting them. Oil is hard to clean since you would need a sufficient amount of soap and tools to clear it out properly.
One of the intelligent things would be to put the pan in hot water since that will make the cleaning process much smoother and loosen the oil particles much more quickly allowing you to wipe it off without the density being too overwhelming.
Now comes the use of a hard-bristled brush that will help you clear out some of the brownish bits or burnt bits from the surface of the pan. The hot water will assist further since it will make the stains a little soft.
After that, you should put a little more force in and try to clear out most of the area that is affected by the brownish stains. This will make the basic cleaning process much easier to handle.
2. Applying a Softer Touch
After you are done cleaning some of the hardened parts and components requiring more energy, let’s move on to the ones where you will clean the remaining bits of the stains left after the above-mentioned process of cleaning.
You can carry out this process using a sponge, or if you fear that that sponge will still scratch your cookware, you can definitely try out a different material that is much softer. But we would like to indicate that it won’t make much of a difference.
Using the sponge, you should try and get the contents that are left behind removed. It will be an easy process, but for some, it might feel like a tedious one. However, you will be satisfied after you are done.
Another factor to keep in mind is that you shouldn’t just go for the surface since there might be hard stains around the handles of the pan or cookware too. You should definitely put some attention on those parts too.
As we are doing this whole process while the item is hot, you should try not to directly submerge the cookware into water. That will cause it to experience thermal shock, which will lead to the warping of the item.
If still some of the components are hard to get off by using traditional cleaning agents, you might want to use baking soda since that is known to be able to clear out some of the stains and return the gleaming feature of the pan.
Sometimes, completely boiling it with baking soda also works magic, so you might want to try out everything before giving up. By doing these accordingly, you will be able to get rid of some of the stains quite easily.
Watch the following video tutorial to learn how to clean stainless steel pots and pans.
3. Attention to The Details: Clean The Crevices & Handles
After you are done cleaning most of the complex parts, you might think that you’re done with the whole process. But think again, how do you think it would look like having cookware that is only clean at the center? It would look pretty bad!
So, now comes cleaning some of the crevices along with the handles; those are quite important since having oil residues around, along with many other issues, would be quite inconvenient when you will use it for an extended time.
It is also quite unhygienic in the long run since that will make other people using the cookware uncomfortable with their state. So, you might want to consider cleaning these up as soon as possible.
One of the ways to clean these hard stains or bits is by applying hot water. Since you have previously done this hot water part, you might want to do this during that part.
Some of the corners of the handles can’t be reached by simple sponges or brushes. You might need something that will reach those corners. But fear not! Because you don’t exactly need to buy anything special.
Here, you can just easily use a toothpick to carry out that procedure since it will be able to reach those corners without any issues, and it will be able to clean every bit of it as quickly as you need it to be.
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Safety Measures
Since throughout the whole process you are dealing with things that might cause some sort of injuries, you might want to take some measure that will reduce the chance of you hurting yourself.
One of the most essential things would be using gloves; some of these cleaning agents are made from components that might not be safe for the skin. You should definitely take measures to keep them safe.
Another thing to notice is that stainless steel has excellent heat conductivity, which means they get pretty hot pretty easily. So, you might want to use gloves that are good with handling heated things.
Lastly, you should look out for thermal shock; this is an extremely dangerous thing to deal with, and you should let the cookware cool first before directly putting it into cold water.
Final Thought
Cleaning can be a very laborious process, but it is definitely worth doing since it is your duty to make sure you maintain everything that you use. It will also play a role in saving you money in the long run.
Now that it’s clear about all the factors you need to consider on how to clean stainless steel cookware, try and maintain this workflow. Making it all a habit will only do good and ensure the longevity of your products.
Most people lean towards stainless components as they are much more resistant towards rusting or forming contaminants too easily. So, to keep up that advantage, better care is definitely necessary.