These baskets sit in the pot all day in boiling water ready to cook pasta to order. By the end of the night there’s a layer of grease that I scrub off successfully, but there’s another layer of mineral deposit (?) that’s just ridiculously hard to remove and I feel like there’s gotta be a trick for it. Especially in the corners.
Is there a chemical or process I can use? I’ve just been doing it manually with the steel scrubby and it’s just on a whole other level than any other cleaning process in the kitchen. The pot and baskets have already been replaced once due to excessive buildup, so I’ve heard.
by SammichParade
26 Comments
have u tried citric acid….or maybe essence of vinegar……
power washer?
Barkeepers friend maybe?
Window cleaner
I use the exact same thing at work.
We have a product against limescale which works ok.
Otherwise with vinegar
just fill up the pot with vinegar and bring it to boil with the baskets inside
Delime your dish machine and throw these in with it
God I hate these things. We’ve got a pot with 4 set up that saute drops and then throws in sauce. They’re a bitch to clean. I wish I had advice but I usually just took a scrubby to them.
Possibly CLR or Lime Away or their industrial-strength counterparts.
Try pieces of a grill brick.
What we dis at my restaurant is have a scratch lad soaked in very hot water, use glives if available, bail this in the machine and as soon as they’re very very hot pull them out and start scrubbing right away.
If it doesn’t work leave them in a heavy duty lime remover.
Last solution, in my kitchen I implemented a de-walt drill with a metal brush bit at the end that we use to remove the carbon build-up from bottom of the pans and stove, you could try that too.
Just read this: “Oxidation with hydrogen peroxide results in higher levels of starch amylose and triggers maximal starch oxidation resulting in higher degradation of starch molecules.”
So, possibly hydrogen peroxide, which is cheap and available in any drug store or supermarket.
Lye works wonders on organic stuff. It removes all the burnt residues from pans/pots too.
Make a strong lye solution using hot water, and immerse the part there. Let affect a few hours. Wash well.
Lye is the stuff also used for opening clogged drains, NaOH water solution.
Note: Lye is dangerous and even a small spill to your eye will make you blind in 30 seconds. Wear safety goggles. Have an eye washing bottle ready. Don’t leave a vessel filled with lye unmarked.
Get one of those wire brushes that are meant for drills.
If you have a rational, you could put them in there during a clean cycle.
Usually at the end of service I fill the boiler with water and vinegar, or in “heavy scum” situations with water and decalcifier product. Boil for 10 min and then wash very well.
Sodium hydroxide/oven cleaner.
Citrus degreaser, soak 12 hours
I would go for the overnight in citrus, safer than the caustic. When diluted, can be dumped down the drain.
Descaler chemical & water 0.5% boil, rinse run through dishwasher.
Hm. Would denture cleaner work here?
There’s a product called Powder Brewery Wash (PBW).
It’s used for removing scale and mineral deposits from brewing equipment and cleaning beer lines. Intended as a cheaper and safer alternative to fully concentrated cleaners.
It can be a little harsh on the hands, but it’s generally perfectly safe to handle. Not too pricey, and will clean just about anything off just about anything without damaging plastics, rubber, or people.
You can probably just soak the thing in it for a bit and scrub off the crud pretty easy.
In terms of getting into corners, I’d get a bottle brush. Or honestly something like a toilet brush.
Vinegar is our go to. Works and is cheap/not dangerous to use like Lye and other chems can be (we have some younger staff who will hurt themselves kneading dough if unsupervised for even a second) it’s okay though I have the patience of a hungry pit Bull.
There are better tips. But as general advice I would often wrap a green scrubbie around steel wool to make it easier on my hands.
I don’t understand how you’re cutting up your arms to wash this
Cutting yourself on pasta baskets is the only way….
We soak ours in CLR every so often. If you spend about twenty seconds with a good pre-rinse hose at the dishwasher every single night, you can keep them looking good, but as soon as it starts to build up, it needs a little help. CLR is essentially industrial-strength de-limer and always takes care of it.
You can order delimer (spellcheck REALLY doesn’t like this word!) in spray bottles -or just pick one up at the store, but it’s never as strong. Wear gloves if you get the good stuff.
EDIT: wear gloves even if you get the grocery store stuff.
That’s history you’re erasing.