Need help cleaning/polishing aluminum cookware

A. 5% citric acid ⇦this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] solution?

A. To clean the inside of the pans you could try soaking it with a mixture of Cream of Tartar and water. It won't remove the scratches and pitting but it should remove any discoloring. As for the outside of it you could try a industrial strength orange cleaner. These usually remove grease build ups with a little bit of old fashion elbow grease.

Cream of Tartar

on eBay or

Amazon

(affil links)

Thank you for the advice.

After putting a Kenwood mixer's aluminium 'K' beater in the dishwasher, it came out black. Just handling it turned my fingers black.

I tried washing and scouring it but just made my hands, the scourer and the washing-up bowl black.

Researched online, found this site, and then tried scrubbing it with a nylon scourer in a Cream of Tartar solution. It worked a treat and it has come up all shiny! Excellent!

(My wife reckons that pot of Cream of Tartar had been in the cupboard since at least 1999!)

A. Hi, Rachel.

Never put aluminum in a dishwasher. Most dishwasher detergents ere extremely alkaline and readily pit and discolor aluminum. Please try the cream of tartar suggestion above. Good luck.

Regards,

Hi, Vickie. Thanks for the happy news, and for the feedback. I feel better about what we post here when people come back and tell us what happened when they tried it. Readers may wish to see letter 22551 for more info about the boiling with vinegar approach.

Regards,

A. Look into the citric acid solution, Jean. I think the baking soda is unlikely to help.

Bleach is very highly alkaline (to keep the chlorine in solution), and as a result it rapidly dissolves aluminum. This leaves a disproportionately high concentration of copper or the other alloying materials from the aluminum alloy on the surface, and that's the cause of the black color. Baking soda will not dissolve this copper, but citric acid may (even though citric acid is not usually recommended for cleaning aluminum).

Thank you so much, Ted Mooney! The citric acid worked great on my caked on popcorn grease. I make popcorn in my aluminum pot on the stove and the grease was stubborn.

I reached under the sink and used my Veggie Wash which is organic citric acid that I use to was my fruits and vegetables. Thanks, again, for your advice. It worked.

A. Hi, Brenda. Only ferrous cookware (cast iron and stainless steel) can actually "rust" because rust is the corrosion product of iron. Is this cookware aluminum that is corroded in some similar fashion (pits, white spots, black stains)? There's some good advice on this page for restoring aluminum cookware. But maybe it is cast iron or stainless steel? That would probably benefit from a different approach. Thanks.

A. I've found great results cleaning my mother's 1940 set of aluminum cookware. Her set was entirely black on the outside from daily use for 60 years. I put the pieces in my self cleaning oven and cut in on the three hour cycle. They come out perfectly clean, but a little ashy. I then wash them and season them with oil much like cast iron. I also will leave my pizza stone in the self clean cycle when I want it to look brand new. We also solved the warped bottoms of my mom's cookware by putting the pieces on hot coals of a campfire, heating the pots and them covering the bottoms with a board and hammering with a sledge hammer....each pot is now perfectly flat and can be used on a glass stove top.

A. I clean pots, pans and roasters all the time. I love to go the thrift stores and eBay to buy these items. It appears that I buy the greasiest, most burnt up, baked on gooked up cookware there is. However, it is a joy for me to see just how clean and beautiful these items are once cleaned.

I found a round Guardian Roaster in a thrift store and, get this, for $10.00 with $5.00 off. I was elated. The roaster was as I described above except for the "most burnt up" part. I was afraid to clean it as I normally clean my other cookware such as stainless steel and enamel. So; I tried to clean it with just an SOS pad ⇦this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] since I didn't have any aluminum cleaner. Of course, this had some effect but not much.

I decided I would clean it using Easy Off. Although, on the Easy Off can it doesn't mention aluminum as being one of the products to use it on. I sprayed the Easy Off on the roaster and just let it stay on long enough for me to see the Easy Off turn brown from the grease and gook. Then I used one of those sponges with the scouring pad and scrubbed it all over. Once I got it cleaned with the Easy Off, I used an SOS pad ⇦this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] to scrub the roaster again. You can't imagine how clean and beautiful this item came. Easy Off is not usually used on aluminum. But I have also used it on aluminum skillet and then scrubbed them with a SOS pad.

You can also use comet and if the aluminum has turned dark from the Easy Off the SOS pads, Brillo Pads, and Comet will shine it right up. Try it, I promise you that you won't be disappointed. I certainly don't think so, if fact I know you won't.

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Thanks for the highly detailed help, Joyce!

But readers: please don't extrapolate. While Easy-off cleaned Joyce's heavy cast aluminum cookware to her satisfaction when used judiciously, it's strong stuff that can quite quickly destroy thinner aluminum, or the finish on polished aluminum.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

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Ted, that is why I said let it stay on just long enough to see the brown gook start to dissolve (which is immediately). The only difference I see in my pan is the cleanness. Easy Off didn't harm my pan and it is part of the Guardian collection.

Joyce

Joyce Branch
- Naperville, Illinois, USA

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Hi, Joyce. I wasn't arguing with your advice. There's so much stuff on the internet that I often just quickly then run with something ... and I just wanted to warn other hasty readers to pay careful attention to the details that you offered them. Thanks again.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

A. I severely burned spaghetti sauce with meat into my vintage cast aluminum dutch oven. This 45 year old pot is one of my favorites. Just before throwing it out, I put a dishwasher soap tablet in it and boiled it gently on the stove. All of the burned sauce and meat came off.

Hi Nancy.

Glad that it worked, but I personally wouldn't use a dishwasher tablet on aluminum. Some of them are highly alkaline and will attack aluminum as well as the burned sauce.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
July 2, 2012

A. Hi Carolyn.

As long as the oven cleaner has been completely washed away, it sounds safe to me.

Regards,

A. If you cook tomatoes or rhubarb in the blackened aluminum pans/pots they will be shiny once again.