Aloma

While cleaning up enameled cast iron from several manufacturers such as, Descoware, Le Creuset, DRU Holland, and Copco previously owned and recycled on EBAY, this is what I have learned.

Le Creuset Customer Service suggests oven cleaner for the outside ONLY and laundry detergent for the inside. Laundry detergent has many enzymes that can safely clean the inside. To do this fill the pot with water and laundry detergent and simmer for fifteen minutes or so and let cool before rinsing.

More recently, Le Creuset has manufactured a cleaner for enameled cast iron as has Sur La Table. Both of these brands I would use on the inside white/cream/grey colored enamel. However, I would test a spot on the outside enamel first before giving the pot a good scrub. It seems to me that the new enamelware cleaners dulled the orange of the bottom of one of my Descoware sauce pots. So for the outside, I stick with the Oven Off fume free oven cleaner. If my memory serves me correctly, both brands of enamelware cleaner have low concentations of sulfuric acid, which removes rust stains. Additionally, there is a common polishing agent within both the enamelware cleaners.

For baked on carbon that collected around the fire ring of a Descoware skillet, I used a dental tool that has a dulled point without scratching the enamel after soaking it in oven cleaner for a day or two.

During my investigation of how best to clean affordable recycled enameled cast iron purchased on Ebay, I noticed manufacturers’ initial experiments of using black or grey enamel for the interior of skillets rather than white. Whereas, now Le Creuset ONLY uses black enamel for the interior of its skillets and grills.

The process of cooking food in cast iron that results in blackening is carbonization. So for browning onions, I use a fry pan with black interior enamel or an unmarked flame chicken fryer with carbonized white interior enamel.

Carbonization is what makes cast iron cooking surfaces so smooth over time. In its care instructions, for skillets and grills Le Creuset refers to carboniztion as a brown patina that should not be removed for the reason that it presence increases the peformance of the cooking vessel.

Oh, for those cooked on browned onions, I find that regular dish detergent and water simmered in the cooking vessel loosens the “kitchen treasures” as Julia Child would say. If the surface is still rough, I use an expired credit card to safely remove the stickons!