Saturday, October 11, 2008

Cleaning Enamel Pots

I have some wonderful Le Creuset enamel pots, which had a lot of baked-on dirt and grime. I finally hit on the idea of cleaning them with Easy Off Oven Cleaner. Success! With little effort, they are now like new.

Bobby Jay

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the tip on how to clean the Le Creuset pots... I will try it on my pots that have been so difficult to clean! I will let you know how that goes!

Bobby Jay said...

Please let me know how it works out. I am sure your pots were no worse than mine, so I'm very confident that you'll get a great result.

Bobby Jay

Anonymous said...

Cleaning Le Cruset -- oven cleaner seems harsh-- I was told by the Le Cruset folks to use laundry detergent. Put some in the pot, bring to a boil, let cool and then clean the pot as usual. This is particularly effective on iron pots without non-stick coatings

Also did you know that Le Cruset comes with a 101 year warranty and I personally have returned badly damages, aging pots and gotten replacements all for just the cost of postage (here in the US--they are much more difficult in England). In my 35 years of owning them I now am on my second or third (and free) set

Bobby Jay said...

Thanks for your comment.

Perhaps there is a misunderstanding. Le Creuset's approach would not work for the outside of the pots unless you had an enormous vessel to cook them in. The inside of my pots did not need this treatment, only the outsides, where the baked-on mess is really impossible. When I did this, I did not find the oven cleaner -- Easy Off No Fumes Spray -- to be at all harsh.

For the inside of my enamel pots, I use a little dishwasher powder with hot water and let it sit overnight (by the way, I use this method for stainless steel pots, too). But I will try the laundry detergent boiling method suggested by Le Creuset.

Great information about the 101-year warranty!

Bobby Jay