Dirty Dish: Burnt on Glassware

This is off topic, but I've noticed you can basically clean anything with baking soda. I have never owned a box of baking soda (Nor has my mom, who is so NOT the cleaning type, I learned everything from my dad, who is a huge slob as well) and I don't really know what to do with it. I use toilet bowl cleaner for my toilets, soap scub gunk for my showers, i scrub my arms off to get crap out of pans, and as a last resort I throw it away. Can you do a post on the many uses of baking soda? It's cheaper than most cleaning products, and might be a *frugal way to clean *:)

I subscribe to your feedburner feed and the last post I received in my reader is from July 7th. Don't know if the problem is on your end or mine?

Method I use is to heat pure (and cheap) vinegar just before it starts to boil, put it in your pan, and leave it for several hours. The acid will dissolve everything but the glass, leaving it sparkling clean (lemon juice would also work, but its weaker and it would mean using a lot of lemons, expensive).

I've had luck using oven cleaner on glass. If that doesn't get it all, the cleaner of last resort I use for burned on carbon marks is Brasso. Yes, even on glass. Use whatever method to remove the majority of the mess until you are down to the black carbon. You can use a razor blade to carefully scrape glass without damage but it will scratch metal no matter how carefully you scrape. Then get a paper towel and some Brasso and polish hard. It takes out everything but may leave an extra-shiny spot. Don't worry, after a couple of uses, the shiny spot will go away. Be sure to wash the dish well with dish soap afterwards.

Is Bar Keeper's Friend really better than Comet? Better than Kroger brand cleanser?

My husband burned cheese onto a stainless pain, and Barkeeper's Friend has not worked for me, even after several passes and letting it sit overnight on two separate nights. I also tried boiling baking soda and water in it and letting THAT sit overnight. I'm going to try the dryer sheet today. If THAT doesn't work, the pan will have to go in the trash...such a bummer!

I usually use dish soap (like dawn) and water and boil it on the stove for about 10-15 minutes. There's typically a little bit of scrubbing but not much more than you would put into a typical dish washing.

The dryer sheet thing works......! I had a pyrex lasagna pan that had an old black burn mark on it from last fall. I tried to scrub it off to absolutely no avail. Left it sitting overnight with a dryer sheet soaking and the next morning I was able to remove the entire stain with very little effort (probably soaked a good 14 hours). I made sure to really rinse, rinse, rinse that pan to get the residue off. And we were using store-brand dryer sheets.

Would Bar Keeper's Friend work on a burnt on something on my glass stovetop?

I always use baking sada too. Fill the pan with boiling water, add soda and stir. Let sit ovenright.

I've often dumped some baking soda in the pan, filled it with water, brought it to boiling, and then let it simmer for...a while. Sorry, it's not an exact science, but I swear it works! (That is, unless you forget about the simmer soda-water and let it boil down to nothing. Then you're kinda back where you started. Not that I've done that. No sir.)

I'd use vinegar and baking soda and let it sit over-night, good luck!

Biological laundry detergent is brilliant on this sort of thing - fill the pan with warm water & a scoop of the detergent, stand for a couple of hours (or overnight, if, like me, you're too lazy to do the dishes after supper) and the burnt gunk usually comes off with minimal scrubbing.

Mel