Need help cleaning/polishing aluminum cookware

A. I see that a lot of people want to clean their aluminum pieces of cookware and related pieces. If you are cleaning an aluminum pot or other cooking utensil, you should note that the inside should not be cleaned. The natural oils that have been absorbed into the metal act as a barrier against sticking. If you do scrub it off, it should be re-seasoned to protect against cooking on raw aluminum. If the piece is a serving or ornamental piece which is not in contact with food, it can easily be cleaned with some automotive wheel cleaners which will also leave a protective coating to prevent oxidation.

A. The blasting has roughened the surface to the point that a professional polisher with the best equipment will have a hard time restoring it if it can be done at all.

Likely you can buy a new pot cheaper.

A. Hello Laura,
I had a pot like this that had burnt gravy imbedded in the Aluminum. Try putting the pot on the stove with an inch or 2 of water and a teaspoon of table salt. Boil the salt water for 10 minutes, discard and let the pot cool. This will soften the burned area. Take cream of tartar (grocery store brand) and mix up a paste with warm water. You will want to wear gloves or you will have metallic fingernails! With the bottom of the pot still moist, apply the cream of tartar paste on a scotch brite pad and scour. You will notice a grey foam after scrubbing. You will have to remove a thin layer of the aluminum to get down to clean metal. You may have to repeat the scouring process a few times, but it should work.

It worked as you said.

After three 3-oz bottles of cream of tartar and A LOT of elbow grease, I have gotten the pot to a much better place.

Hello Laura,
Glad we could help. Bet your wrist and arms are stronger now!

It was pretty intense! I worked on it over a period of a week or so. I left it on the counter w/ the cream of tartar in it and moistened it w/ water every few days when I was in the mood to scrub...

A. Hi Elaine. Zep Purple is a powerful caustic similar to lye; it's for cleaning steel, and is unsuitable for aluminum per the Zep site's FAQs. You should relate your experience to whoever suggested it for aluminum pots and pans.

I'd suggest following Laura's advice. The only labor saving I'd suggest is to get a soft buff for a battery operated electric drill rather than scrubbing by hand. Today's battery drills are dangerously powerful though. Set the clutch lower and preferably use an old 9 or 12 volt drill.

Regards,

Q. So, just use Cream of Tartar on a little buffing machine? Will this turn it back to shiny?

A. Hi. I don't have Magnalite and haven't encountered the problem personally. But, yes, you'll buff away the aluminum that was oxidized with a buff and cream of tartar. Good luck.

Regards,

Q. I guess the question I should have been asking is "does aluminum Magnalite have a bright shiny finish to it naturally?" If so, then if I continue to buff the pan, it will be the shiny gloss all over, yes? I do not know if there was a shiny finish put on the outside of the pots and pans or if that was the natural finish of the Magnalite aluminum. Thank you.

A. Hi again. "Shiny" is a relative term. Although pure aluminum can be mirror-polished so perfectly that it's used as a telescope mirror; magnesium oxidizes and turns gray quickly, so this cast alloy of aluminum and magnesium probably will never get mirror bright. But Laura posted before-and-after pictures, and I think that's what you can expect from cleaning old Magnalite at home.

"Magnalite" is also a relative term because it's a trademark and includes pots made in America since 1934, and pots made in China in 2014 -- it means whatever the trademark holder decides it means. We are not trademark attorneys and can't comment knowledgeably, but it also appears that there was/is a trademark dispute, with American Culinary Corp. making "Magnalite" here, and World Kitchens making it in China -- rendering it all even more confusing. If anyone can clarify my poor understanding of the trademark situation, I'd appreciate it.

Look at the Magnalite listings from American Culinary Corp. or World Kitchens to see how shiny it looks when new today, and look at the reviews on Amazon where some people feel the "Magnalite" they bought recently is excellent and others hate it as being nothing like the older pieces they have.

Regards,

Q. Appreciate your comments. My question is still "using cream of tartar and polishing with a buffer will bring back the "shiny" polish effect on the outside of the Magnalite pan?" Yes or No. Thank you.

Hi again. It is unlikely that there was ever a shiny coating on that pot, just the aluminum itself -- so again what do you mean by "bring back" the "shiny polish"? Sorry, but my answer remains that shiny is a relative term, not the "yes or no" answer that you keep asking for. Again, please look at the pictures that were suggested and decide for yourself whether they meet your personal interpretation of shiny. Good luck.

Regards,

A. This is it, all you really need to know about getting all that burned on grease from Guardian Service -- or any aluminum for that matter...

I got some Gas Grate Cleaner from Sears. It comes in a little packet and you mix the packet with two gallons of boiling water in your sink or a plastic tub. Then you soak your Guardian Service in it. My pot was okay along the top, but along the bottom, it was awful. The directions say to soak the gas grates overnight. I put my pot in about three hours ago, and the water is now cool and very black. When I lifted it to check just now, all the grease just poured off. The pot does not look like it tarnished at all. Will let it soak a bit longer. But just think how this would work on regular gas grates? Drip bowls? Broiler pans? Wow!

If you don't have a Sears nearby, the name of the product again is Gas Grate Cleaner; the package says Made in U.S.A. by Elco Laboratories, Inc. 2545 Palmer Avenue, University Park, Illinois 60466
Part No. SR-100.

It's a wow!

A. Hi Lucy. Hi Janet. Unfortunately, once it has been through the dishwasher, there is no chemical "undoing" of the etching and pitting that has been created . . .


"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it."
    - The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

All that can be done is mechanically repolishing it to make the surface smooth again. If you can get a buffing attachment for your battery operated drill (Mothers' Powerball [on eBay or Amazon affil links] ), and some Mothers Mag & Aluminum Polish [on eBay or Amazon], though, you should be able to fix it (don't use a plug-in drill or a drill too strong to handle safely & surely). Best of luck and please let us know how you did!

Regards,

A. Hi Susan. We have several long threads on here about the safety of aluminum cookware. My personal opinion is that it is completely safe, while some others feel it is unsafe; but safety is a relative thing, and nobody really knows either :-(

Please start with letter 22551, "Is there a danger in Cast aluminum cookware?", which talks about those dark deposits, and form your own opinion from the weight of evidence. Good luck.

Regards,

Q. Hi, thanks for that suggestion of viewing items under whether aluminium cookware is safe or not. However my question wasn't about that specifically but only about the dark deposits that are on the attachments I put in the dishwasher. I am not asking if the aluminium cookware itself is dangerous itself (I understand that some people think it may be linked to Alzheimers, among other things, but that is not my question). I am really asking what actually are those dark deposits themselves, (not the actual aluminium item), and if these deposits are consumed, could they be harmful? I have read in one of the other posts that they may have copper in them - in which case, I guess they actually are poisonous. Have there been any studies of this? I would really like to know! Thank you for any responses!

A. Hi again Susan. The referenced thread suggests that these dark deposits are probably aluminum oxide dusts formed by the reaction of the caustic dishwasher detergent with aluminum (which is soluble in caustic); and that the deposit is dark because it is a small porous dust (when a surface is sponge-like, it doesn't reflect the light back and looks black).

I strongly doubt that any epidemiologist ever studied this because it is so hard to exactly define and delimit (realistically, how can you do a controlled study?) but if you can rub any of the dust off, it presumably does increase the quantity of aluminum you might ingest. Rather than trying to find a study on it, I think you should rub off what you can with paper towels and, if you're not making real progress (in other words, the paper towels continue to get gray), then either do the cream of tartar hand cleaning/polishing or the "Mother's" mechanical repolishing.

Some aluminum alloys (depending on whether the pot is cast or otherwise manufactured) might contain a small amount of copper (probably under a half of a percent), but while excess copper is not good for you, copper is not poison, in fact it's an essential nutrient. Best of luck.

Regards,