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I've had enough of the homemaker advice of baking soda or barkeeper's friend products - their advice isn't working. I need a chemist!

Please see the two photos below. This pan isn't quite as clean as I could possibly get them if I scrubbed and scrubbed with a Brillo pad, but it's close - and as clean as I can get it would only last for about one use before it needed more intense scrubbing.

The brand of this pan is Cuisinart which is relevant only for the particular variant of stainless steel they might be known to use, but I don't think my experience with this brand is much different than I've had with, say, Calphalon stainless steel pans.

I refer to these blackened areas as stains because they have no significant dimension to them, as opposed to "baked-on-crud" which has a dimension and is more expected/accepted by me than the stains. The stains are rougher than the shiny parts though, impacting use.

Wide Close

1) Why am I getting these stains? Am I doing something wrong (heating technique or kinds of food chemicals that adhere to SS)? Are these pans inferior and really I need to buy very high-end/expensive pans (for a different grade of stainless steel) for them to be indestructible?

2) With knowledge of the chemistry involved that leads to this visual effect on the stainless steel, is there an industrial chemical (like those in carburetor cleaner or something) that could clean this stuff off without damaging the pan and which I could completely remove (to avoid toxicity in my food)?

Jason Kleban
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  • These might be products of the Maillard reaction. Can steel wool remove it? – aventurin Mar 06 '16 at 20:40
  • Steel wool cannot get all of it off – Jason Kleban Mar 06 '16 at 20:43
  • What were you cooking in the pan? – MaxW Mar 06 '16 at 20:50
  • This is over time. Bacon, eggs, other meats in some kind of oil or butter or cooking spray. And each is single-use. I can't use the pans twice without scrubbing the gunk off the bottom every time. Food never just slides out and I can't flip the eggs over like I used to be able to do. Only time it doesn't do that is if I'm, like, simmering a water-based broth. Makes me sound like a terrible cook, but really I don't think I'm that bad :-) – Jason Kleban Mar 06 '16 at 20:56
  • Are you preheating the pan with the oil/spray over a high burner? It looks to me as if the gunk is burnt on the pan. – MaxW Mar 06 '16 at 21:08
  • Yeah, I also think it's burned onto the pan - or at least burned into the pan. But I don't think I'm using the heat so wrong to cause this. How do I release the burned-on-whatever chemically? Because mechanical force and abrasion isn't working. – Jason Kleban Mar 06 '16 at 21:12
  • First I think there is something wrong with your cooking technique. You shouldn't be getting burnt gunk on the bottom of the pan after every use. // Since the pan is stainless steel it doesn't have a coating like a non-stick pan. So you can be fairly aggressive to get it clean. In order I'd try (1) Some oven cleaner that you can brush on. Don't get it on handle or outside of pan which probably has a chrome finish. (2) Some abrasive cleaner like Ajax with a rag. (3) Some very fine wet grade sandpaper – MaxW Mar 06 '16 at 21:34
  • Does the stain form on the bottom as well? If so is this less hard or just more convenient to scrub off. – KalleMP Mar 07 '16 at 00:03
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    What is ratio (Diameter of burner) / (Diameter of pan) ? It looks to me that you have a small pan on a large burner. The bottom of the pan should have a thick Al layer to distribute heat. But the sidewalls of the pan will be the thin stainless steel. So it seems that then stainless steel pan sides are getting too hot and burning whatever splatters up on them. – MaxW Mar 07 '16 at 06:53

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It could be that metals in your tap water are plating out; i.e. the more active iron in stainless steel is being replaced by a less active metal such as copper. Manganese also tends to precipitate, leaving stain, and these, in particular, are dark colored, but can be removed.

Have your tap water tested, either at a nearby school or with a commercial kit(s) that include copper, manganese and lead tests. If there is a high concentration of anions, you might want to install an ion-exchange water softener.

DrMoishe Pippik
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  • Interesting. This is Washington DC tap water, in case that makes it unlikely. Also, my sink disposal collar looks like stainless steel but it doesn't have any discoloration (though it never gets the kind of heat that a pan does). – Jason Kleban Mar 06 '16 at 20:32
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    Washington, DC may have manganese in the water, particularly where there are older pipes: https://www.dcwater.com/waterquality/faqs.cfm, https://www.dcwater.com/waterquality/household_water_quality.pdf – DrMoishe Pippik Mar 06 '16 at 20:42
  • (I re-piped the whole house with copper - used to be galvanized. Water quality seems much better since then.) – Jason Kleban Mar 06 '16 at 20:58
  • Your "but can be removed" link contains a suggestion of "A mixture of white vinegar and baking soda" which I find suspect - is this a special case? – Jason Kleban Mar 06 '16 at 21:01
  • Also, these stains seems to me to appear during cooking, not during cleaning. – Jason Kleban Mar 06 '16 at 21:04