Removing melted/burned plastic from Stainless Steel Pan

May 20, 2009 8:17 PM

How do I convince my wife- and myself- that I've removed all the melted, burned plastic from the inside of our All-Clad Stainless saucepan? Trying to de-crystallize honey we keep in a plastic squeeze bottle, I inadvertently left it and a couple cups of water in the pan on low overnight. In the morning it was a delightfully bubbling mass of brown goo. I've scrubbed the pan and now there's no tactile or visible residue. Still... is it safe to use this pan?
posted by carterk to home & garden (22 comments total)

My Dad used to drive my Mum nuts by saying "if it doesn't come off in the dish water, it won't come off on the food."

On the other hand, he has a PhD in organic chemistry.

I am sure he would tell you to boil some water with a little vinegar in it for as long as makes you feel good, then toss the water and treat it as clean. Anything that hasn't dissolved at that point isn't going to come off in what you cook either.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 8:22 PM on May 20

Yes, it's safe. It's pretty easy to see something stuck to stainless steel (I know, I just had to deal with that myself today after I, eh, tried to microwave some Italian sausage wrapped in plastic in a stainless steel bowl), and a bit of plastic in your food won't really hurt you anyway.
posted by halogen at 8:22 PM on May 20

That depends!

Do you generally think the chemicals leeched from plastics are going to kill you? Would you (or your wife) think twice about refilling a plastic water bottle? Do you microwave food in tupperware?

I don't personally think plastic chemical off-gassing or leeching is going to kill me. And, I'd also be confident in the mostly non-porous nature of stainless steel.
posted by Mrs_Eep at 8:39 PM on May 20

If you're concerned about a thin sheen of hardened plastic, you could do a sort of seasoning process: turn the oven to, say, 200° and set the pan, upside-down, inside. Theoretically, if there's any sub-visible plastic left on the surface, it could melt off that way.
posted by koeselitz at 9:11 PM on May 20

The other thing you can do to remove all doubt is switch a fan/rangehood on high, fire up the hot plate/gas/whatever onto to high, and put the pan on for a five minutes, anything left will burn off guaranteed.

If you can't smell anything when you do this, it's good anyway.
posted by smoke at 9:17 PM on May 20

If it's truly a matter of convincing your wife, then I personally wouldn't bother. I'd get a new pan and be done with it the whole affair.
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:42 PM on May 20 [9 favorites has favorites]

Most convincing argument(s) I can think of:

Heat the pan up good and hot. Burned plastic is black. You would be able to see it. Burned plastic stinks. You would be able to smell it. Does she see/smell nothing? You're good to go.
posted by madmethods at 10:25 PM on May 20

next time, just microwave the squeeze bottle on medium for 3 - 5 minutes
posted by zippy at 10:42 PM on May 20

the great bonobo has it

What is it about plastics that you want to get rid of? You can't see it? You can't feel it? You can't taste it?

It's gone.

What is it about plastics that you're afraid of? Burn (the imaginary) it off with a propane torch.

I'm unfamiliar with allclad - is it teflon or clean stainless steel? From their website it looks like it's all metal. If you can't see it, it's gone. Scrub it down with fine steal wool if you're worried. It'll decrease any "non-stick" advertising they make about their products but their products are going to be non- non-stick after a small amount of normal use.
posted by porpoise at 10:44 PM on May 20

bonobothegreat, All-Clad pans aren't particularly cheap. Also, am I the only one who that it would be a shame to dispose of a perfectly good dish for no convincing reason?
posted by halogen at 10:56 PM on May 20

I agree with halogen. If the concern is residual plastic chemicals or whatever, AllClad is made of stainless steel, I can't imagine it absorbing anything.
posted by DrGirlfriend at 10:59 PM on May 20

Here's what I've got to contribute (I am just bored and interested and googling around. Ignore this comment if a chemist arrives):
- It's likely to be plastic #1: PET or PETE (Polyethylene terephthalate) (eg)
- If so, it decomposes above 300 °C or 570 °F (wikipedia). At that point, one of its products is acetaldehyde, a colorless liquid with a fruity smell.
- One big plastics health worry, bisphenol A, is not in PETE
- PETE does have phthalates, so that's something to look into more (how they'd react at high temperatures, etc.)
- Antimony (a metal) is used as a catalyst in its formation, so sometimes antimony leaches into bottled water, so that's another concern you could investigate

Also, here is a related thread at Chowhound.
posted by salvia at 11:36 PM on May 20

It's a $185 pan. Thanks for all the helpful responses.
posted by carterk at 11:42 PM on May 20

A little acetone should dissolve any remaining plastics and not affect your pans.
posted by zentrification at 12:27 AM on May 21

I occasionally clean the coffee stains out of my stainless steel pots (I make coffee the old-old-fashioned way) with a little 1000 grit wet-dry sandpaper. It works great, and leaves a nice shiny finish. You can put all the elbow grease into it you want. There's nothing like actually removing a thin layer of material (and seeing the visible residue of it wash away) for convincing yourself you're down to the clean.
posted by bricoleur at 4:10 AM on May 21

And you can finish up with 2000 grit for the extra shiny finish.
posted by bricoleur at 4:10 AM on May 21

I'm with bricoleur. It's not like anything is going to soak into the steel. It's hard to argue that something you've put a mirror finish on is dirty.

I wouldn't trust acetone or acetic acid to dissolve PETE.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 5:05 AM on May 21

I'm with bricoleur. It's not like anything is going to soak into the steel.

I'm with Kid Charlemagne. You can, in fact, dissolve materials into steel (see "alloying".) However, step one of this process involves liquifying the metal.

Unless you have the very bestest stove ever, you didn't do that.
posted by eriko at 6:13 AM on May 21

Disposing of good equipment for specious reasons is environmentally unsound. Boil some water with a handful of baking soda for 15 minutes, then rinse, then boil some water with a cup of vinegar for 15 minutes. Stainless steel is pretty impervious. The environment is fragile, and living wastefully makes it worse. This particular pan is not a big issue, but changing attitudes is.
posted by theora55 at 6:46 AM on May 21

Just as a note to yourself, always pull the pot of hot water off the burner before putting in the honey jar. Unless your honey jar is a 1/2 gallon or larger, the water will be hot enough to bring the honey back to liquid without leaving it on a constant heat source. Additionally, if I remember my reading correctly, you may want to not get the honey above 150 F anyway. I'm at work right now and the book I'm remembering this in is at home on the coffee table. I'll try to remember and reference the source tonight from home. (DH is a beekeeper and he just brought home another book about bees and honey.)
posted by onhazier at 6:57 AM on May 21

Yes, I know it's a big waste (both economically and materially) to throw it away that pan but I think your loved one's peace of mind would make it worth the sacrifice. If it sparks a niggling worry in the back of her mind every time she eats food prepared in it, then I personally it's a false economy to keep using it (like the false economy of using $185 dollar pan to try to reclaim $2 worth of old honey).

Save the pan for your workshop, use it for double boiling, melt pitch in it when you're polishing that telescope mirror. Keep it as a reminder that it's usually bad idea to put plastics on the stovetop.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:34 AM on May 21

Stainless steel, such as the very high quality variety used by All-Clad, is very easy to ensure that it is clean. We use it all the time in a trace organic lab for exactly this purpose (the only other really good, cleanable surface is glass, btw). If you want to be certain, this is how I remove trace organics from labware (with no visible residue):

1. Soak for 1 hr in hot water containing a detergent. Laundry detergent (one with no additives, scents or softeners) or Dawn works fine.

2. Rinse with hot water until no visible soap scum.

3. Rinse a further three times with clean, hot water.

4. Bake in oven at ~350F for 1-2 hrs.

You can now do trace organics analysis using your pan.

This is waaaaaaaaaaaay overkill but cleans your pan to an ISO 17025-certifiable level for cleanliness (assuming you ran a GC proof afterwards).
posted by bonehead at 9:57 AM on May 21 [2 favorites has favorites]