Cleaning copper apple butter & candy kettles

A. Try immersion in 5% ammonium citrate solution (pH 9 !); dissolve citric acid ⇦ on eBay or Amazon [affil links] in water and then add some ammonia 25 % ⇦ on eBay or Amazon [affil links] pH must be 9! After that you can polish them if you prefer shiny new look...
Hope it helps and good luck!

A. The best way to clean a copper kettle is to use vinegar ⇦in bulk on eBay or Amazon [affil links] and salt with a sponge or rag.

A. Vinegar and salt are likely the least expensive way. To get our copper kettle ready for apple butter making, I first scour the inside with a Brillo ⇦ on eBay or Amazon [affil links] or SOS pad ⇦ on eBay or Amazon [affil links] and rinse well. Then I use hot vinegar and salt or baking soda [in bulk on eBay or Amazon [affil links] . However, one year we discovered that the kettle we thought was clean when we started our apple butter making, suddenly became sparkling on the inside when we heated the cider! So HOT CIDER really cleans it up, but that ruins the cider. Since we cook with ours, I don't worry with the black on the outside.

A. I have a really good cheap recipe for cleaning brass, copper, aluminum, stainless steel, etc.: 1/2 Cup ketchup, 2-3 TBS white vinegar, 1-2 TBS salt; let work 30-45 minutes, rinse off with water. Another for rubbing on or to soak small items is 1-2 Cup vinegar and 4-5 TBS salt; let soak until clean then rinse with water.

Q. Now you need a good sealer which I have yet to find. Suggestions are welcome, prefer something like the easy cleaner, and similar price range. Thanks,

A. Make a paste of juice of one lemon, 30 gm (3 TBSP) of plain flour, 25 g (1 TBSP) fine salt. Apply with soft flexible brush or soft cloth. Leave to soak for a few minutes. Rinse with clean water, then buff to shine with usual copper cleaning product. ( or fresh sorrel leaves and the green leaves of leeks make copper and pewter gleam.
Copper will keep its shine for longer if you finish polishing with a ball of newspaper.
Gleaned from Secrets of good Housekeeping.
Or my favorite. Use a tin of baked beans smothered over all your copper wear, after a minute or two it will have brought it back to new. I have tried this many times by accident when some spilled on the pot as I was pouring beans out.
Also, keep your lemon halves to rub over the copper at washing up time. Applying a few times and rinsing will with patience remove all tarnishing.

A. If your kettle is super dirty and you're going to make apple butter in it is after you peel the apples take rinds and put in kettle with vinegar and start a fire under until it comes to a boil. Make sure to take stir and push rinds up high on sides. Dump rinds and take SOS pad ⇦ on eBay or Amazon [affil links] and clean up. Make sure you wipe dry, or it will tarnish. Any liquid left will make spotty. I own about 10 kettles. Some were pretty bad and used this method to get them clean as a new penny

A. Hi Joe. To each their own, but a safety rule that I personally believe in is to not use anything for food service that wasn't intended for food service.

First, we often don't know for sure what the coating is. Lead, mercury, cadmium in the coating? Even if you get it all off are you sure that the copper/brass wasn't leaded for machinability? And that it similarly is free of selenium, tellurium, or beryllium sometimes used in copper alloys? I don't know enough about fire extinguishers to know if there are further possible toxicities.

Second, no researcher or epidemiologist anywhere is tracking this stuff, correlating possible illnesses to the use of fire extinguishers as kettles, so we have no data to go on and are producing no data for the next person to go on. Finally, copper is only food-safe for limited applications, excluding any acidic foods.

Sorry, too risky for me, but diluted hydrochloric (muriatic) acid ⇦ on eBay or Amazon [affil links] will quickly dissolve zinc without much effect on copper. Good luck.

Regards,

Hi EJ.

The main focus of this site is metal finishing (plating, polishing, painting, powder coating, anodizing), so it attracts mostly people who are skilled, experienced, and interested in metal finishing rather than people with insight into collectibles. Hopefully someone will come by and help you out, but we'd suggest also posting on "collectibles" sites :-)

Luck and Regards,

A. EJ- there is a marked W. Heyser kettle for sale on EBay currently. I just saw it for sale today.

A. Hi William. Try vinegar ⇦in bulk on eBay or Amazon [affil links] plus salt: very gentle to humans, very harsh to copper. If that doesn't do it, you'll need some buffing compound ⇦ on eBay or Amazon [affil links] applied via a buffing pad ⇦ on eBay or Amazon [affil links] in a battery operated drill ⇦ on eBay or Amazon [affil links] . Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi Larry. I'm not sure that it's ever been "safe". To my understanding, copper is not a "food-safe" material for many foods so the kettle should have tin properly hot wiped onto it. Please search the site for "tin plating of copper pots".

Sorry, I don't know who would offer that kind of repair and coating service these days, nor whether apple butter us one of the foods which copper is safe for. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Try strong washing soda ⇦ on eBay or Amazon [affil links] solution. Hope it helps and good luck!