The best way to wash stubborn dishes?

January 4, 2023 7:18 AM

My wife and I have an ongoing disagreement in the kitchen about the best way to handle tough stains and build-up on dishes and the impact water temperature has on getting cookware clean. Can you help?

Sometimes in the course of preparing, cooking, and eating food, we'll end up with a pot or pan that's in need of a good soak in order to get clean.

My approach is to add a dollop of dish soap to the pot, get the tap water as hot as it will go, fill it up, and let it sit over night. In the morning, it's generally much easier to clean.
My wife takes a similar approach, except that she believes that the temperature of the water has no impact on the efficiency of a good soak. She will often times soak a pot or pan using dish soap and cold water.

I'm convinced that hot water helps lift tough food cruft and other stains more effectively, and she's convinced the temperature of the water makes no difference - that the soap does all the heavy lifting, whether the water is hot or cold.

Who's right?!

posted by kbanas to Home & Garden (22 answers total)

Freely admitting that this is anecdata, but I do the same thing your wife does and have never had an issue cleaning the pot in the morning. There might be a small benefit to having hot water at the beginning and if I was only soaking for a bit I might be more concerned about temperature, but if it's sitting all night then I think it's mainly the water doing the work.
posted by brilliantine at 7:28 AM on January 4, 2023 [5 favorites]

My suspicion is that the hot water works better than the less hot water in the short term but the long soak offsets that difference overnight. I’d also guess that the soap doesn’t make any difference on the tough stuff you’re soaking, it just removes oil and grease.

if you want to do it all more efficiently, simmering water in the pan over the stovetop while gently scraping with a spatula will work well. No soak needed.
posted by vunder at 7:30 AM on January 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

Hot water melts the fats
Soap traps those fats and allows them to be lifted away
Sugars and carbohydrates are going to break down in water over time no matter the temperature, and also maybe even the soap doesn't matter quite so much

If your mess is fatty, hot water helps tremendously. If the mess is crusty, hot water isn't as crucial.
posted by phunniemee at 7:31 AM on January 4, 2023 [37 favorites]

Both heat and soaking help remove tough stains. But if you're going to soak it, then you don't need hot water to start with. (So I'm with your wife on this.)
posted by snarfois at 7:32 AM on January 4, 2023

Probably someone with a more scientific perspective will contribute. But, during the holidays I managed to burn our gløgg into a thick black mass on the bottom of a steel pot, and it took several days to get it out. During those days I tried several approaches. I feel the most succesful solution was to fill water in the pot until the burnt part was covered + an inch, bring this water to the boil, let it boil for a minute, and then add soap, or a tab for the dishwasher. Then let it rest till the next day.
posted by mumimor at 7:34 AM on January 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

If using the “simmer with soap” trick on a metal pan, be aware that it will also strip the seasoning and you will have to re-season.
posted by Pallas Athena at 7:41 AM on January 4, 2023

anecdata, but when I visited a relative who washed all her dishes in cold / lukewarm water, all the dishes were sticky. it was gross.

to reiterate phunniemee above, use hot water if there's fat involved, cold water is fine otherwise. for especially stubborn stuck on crud, try boiling water in that pot as mumimor suggests.
posted by needled at 7:43 AM on January 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

My wife takes a similar approach, except that she believes that the temperature of the water has no impact on the efficiency of a good soak.

My own anecdata. I think if you're looking at a short soak and then a wash, hotter water will be better. If you're looking at a long soak and then a wash in hot water (i.e. so you don't get sticky dishes) then it doesn't matter what he temperature of the water is. I soak my dishes in cold water and no soap (just wash in hot water and soap when I wash them) and it's been fine.
posted by jessamyn at 7:46 AM on January 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

I used to wash dishes in a restaurant - we used to spray all things with cold water, mainly to remove food particles, before it got shoved into the industrial dishwasher. We could set the cycle to between 45 and 90 seconds..very few things needed multiple cycles but then things did not sit around for a long time. We typically had to scrub pots though because they typically had sat around longest. In most domestic settings, the long soak is doing the work for you removing the need for much scrubbing. It doesn't have to be hot water to soak, typically, you don't need to soak things to remove fat but to remove dried starch.

Where something is badly burnt, like in mumimor's example, you basically loosen the top layer repeatedly until it's all gone. Boiling may help a bit because the act of boiling is agitation to a degree but I am sure they also had to apply a lot of elbow grease (repeatedly) to remove the burnt residue fully.
posted by koahiatamadl at 7:53 AM on January 4, 2023

in traditional, tangential Green fashion I will bounce in to say the bigger variable for getting dishes clean is the dish soap you use. The best dish soap is Dawn Platinum.

(ok ok: for a long soak I don't think temperature matters. Hot water does matter if you want to get rid of grease quickly. But again, if you want the most efficient dish soap: Dawn Platinum. I almost never use hot water for dishwashing by hand and there is no film on my dishes. Dawn Platinum.)

(hey at least I'm not telling you you're wrong to want your dishes clean in the first place...)
posted by fingersandtoes at 7:55 AM on January 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

I have no actual data, but I always start with hot water, even for overnight soaks. For truly stubborn stains (including burnt, carbonized residue that's firmly adhered to the bottom of the pan), I would use Gold Medal Heat 'n' Clean with very hot water, and let it soak for a while. It's meant to clean popcorn poppers (in movie theaters and such), and it works remarkably well. Wear gloves if you use it.
posted by alex1965 at 7:56 AM on January 4, 2023

My wife and I have an ongoing disagreement ... Who's right?

Both of you. Each of you has found a method you're happy with. Each of you should just keep doing what works best for you.

Neither of you. There are too many confounding variables and too few shared criteria to rate either method as objectively superior to the other.

Don't make me come around there with a sawzall and cut all your dishes in half.
posted by flabdablet at 8:23 AM on January 4, 2023 [20 favorites]

All of the above assumes that the person who chooses how to soak the pot is the same person who is going to end up cleaning it later. But if that's not the case, then the gracious thing to do would be to set up the soak in the way preferred by whichever of you is going to have to deal with its results.
posted by flabdablet at 8:36 AM on January 4, 2023 [4 favorites]

oh yeah, for the really rough stuff you don't want dish soap at all. I use Barkeeper's Friend, like for enameled cast-iron that gets crusty.
posted by fingersandtoes at 8:48 AM on January 4, 2023

The right temperature also depends on the food...if you were mixing eggs in a bowl, for example, hot water will cook the eggs and make it harder to clean. The same thing happens with oatmeal.
posted by pinochiette at 9:39 AM on January 4, 2023 [6 favorites]

I say whoever is washing up gets to choose. If you're cooking and/or cleaning the kitchen, the hot water is likely in use, and it makes little difference in cost (or fossil fuels to heat water) which you use.
posted by theora55 at 10:38 AM on January 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

Letting dishes soak overnight is gross and bad for some materials, letting things soak in hot water while you do the rest of the dishes should almost always be enough and if that doesn't work you can move on to simmering and/or scouring powder. Agree that you should consider adjusting your cooking technique.
posted by momus_window at 11:08 AM on January 4, 2023

bad for some materials

For example, glazed ceramics with otherwise insignificant crazing in the glaze can end up absorbing enough soak water to force the cracks open further every time they're cooked with, which makes them absorb even more water on the next soak. Ultimately there's a risk of them just falling to bits in the oven.
posted by flabdablet at 11:24 AM on January 4, 2023

I think you're both wrong.

What I do (I mostly cook with cast iron): put water in pot/pan, put on stove burner, turn on full heat for about 2 minutes, remove from heat but leave burner on, in the sink scrub pot/pan with a textured scrubber, rinse it, wipe it clean, turn off the burner and put the pan back on it to dry from residual heat.

No soap, no soaking. The only way I alter it is if there were things burnt/stuck on the pan, while the water is heating on the stove, I will gently scrape them with a metal scraper or a wooden/silicone one if you're not using cast iron.
posted by dobbs at 12:34 PM on January 4, 2023

"I use Barkeeper's Friend…"

I use something that I have found to be better than Barkeeper's Friend: Powdered Brewer's Wash. It needs 140°F or so water to really dissolve and activate. It cleans coffee urns and the like especially well, but is magic for an overnight pan soak.
posted by bz at 2:28 PM on January 4, 2023

I use something that I have found to be better than Barkeeper's Friend: Powdered Brewer's Wash.

I agree, PBW is awesome, but it is also very expensive. A good substitute is OxiClean mixed with phosphate-free TSP.
posted by slogger at 9:25 AM on February 2, 2023

I buy PBW in bulk from the local brewer’s supply store. It comes in a plastic bag rather than the plastic jar and costs about $6–7/lb. It takes me many months to use up a pound’s worth. They sell the 50lb container for $200.
posted by bz at 10:30 AM on February 2, 2023