Can Stains Be Removed From Enameled Cast Iron?

I've acquired two pieces of Griswold enameled cast iron that is stained. One piece seems to have a burned on stain and the other maybe just stained. Doing a search online for how to clean these two pieces I came across seven different methods for getting rid of stains on enameled cast iron. Wanting to clean the two pieces for sale, I don't need these two pieces for my own kitchen and don't see a reason to add them to my "collection".

I thought this might be interesting to see if any of these cleaning methods work. The experiment could be cut short if one of the methods actually work. I'm a bit dubious that any of the cleaning methods that I have found so far will actually work. So here goes, starting with what I thought would be the best way to clean my enameled Griswold.

Denture cleanser made a lot of sense to me as the best method of cleaning enameled cookware. It would seem that dentures and enameled cookware are made from very similar material so why wouldn't it work? Shopping for denture cleanser, a product I've never bought and know nothing about, took much more time then I had anticipated. The different brands, different ingredients, different cleaning times and the obvious different prices.

I decided to go with the store brand denture cleanser, price being the major factor because any of the remaining product will probably never be used. Most of the store brands I have ever purchased have been of high quality, some in fact I prefer to the name brand. I bought the one with baking soda and a 15 minute cleaning time.

The cleaning was done using the directions on the box. The two pots were nested one inside the other, the large pot being about two quarts and the smaller being about 1 1/2 cups, so the small pot easily fit inside the larger. Figuring that my two pots are a little larger than a set of dentures, I used four tablets leaving the pots to clean for the 15 minutes or a little longer.

The result of the cleaning was nothing that I could see. So I tried another cleaning, doubling up the amount of tablets used to 8. In addition to using double the amount of cleanser, I increased the cleaning time to several hours. There was no difference, no cleaning took place that I can see. Would there have been a difference had I used the name brand, doubt it but I'll most likely never know because can't see myself using this method again.

Upon reflection there would seem to be one big obvious difference between enameled cast iron and dentures. Dentures are hardly ever heated to burn food onto them! Six cleaning methods to go unless one happens to work.

Easy to Stop & Hard to Start Again

Wow it has been a long time! What a messed up year I've had for this blog! Almost totally abandoning this thing, but not quite. I've been thinking about this a whole lot and trying to get back to it. Well here I am, back at last? At least I hope I'm back.

I've been working hard the last couple of weeks trying to stock my stores on eCrater, Etsy and Facebook. The stores have run extremely low without me having much chance to get new items listed. Like I said it has been a messed-up year.

We got kicked out of the house we were renting. In April we were notified that we had 90 days to get out. Well, the landlord first raised the rent for June by phone call and then sent us a letter verifying the rent raise. The letter also said, Oh by the way I want you out by July 15. So we went out looking to buy a house even though we had right of first refusal on the house we were renting. The landlord refused to give us a price he wanted to sell the house for.

Well within a week in April we found a house and put in an offer. The homeowners didn't want to move until July 15th. We got them to move their date to July 8th giving us a week to move. We started looking for storage units but none were available until about the 3rd week in May. We filled the first 10 x 15 unit within a week and tried to get another unit.

We had to wait until mid June for the second 10 x 15 unit and we pretty much filled that one in about another week. We tried to get another unit any size but none were available. We finally got a 10 x 15 unit in an air conditioned building toward the end of June, filling that unit by July 5th. All during this time our landlord kept contacting us and telling us we had to be out sooner!

The landlord's sister a real estate agent called yelling at us that her brother was being too nice to us and didn't have to give us that much time to get out. So the landlord tells us he wants to paint while we are still in the house, he would be there on the 6th of July to start painting, so we told him we would be out on the 1st of July. Because of all the problems with getting storage units we didn't quite make it.

Our landlord shows up on July 4th while we were still finishing up and wanted to know why we weren't out. We finished the next day on the 5th of July. We had moved out and into a cabin with a bunch of our stuff, our 2 cats and our houseplants on the 1st of July. By July 5th when we finished our 2 cars were full of odds and ends and things we couldn't get into our 3 storage units.

Part of the move very obviously involved moving my cast iron, cleaned, not cleaned, items for sale, parts of my collection, all kinds of stuff. I don't know how many pieces, but a lot, way too much, way more than I wanted to move. The cast iron probably easily weighed over half-a-ton.

I never shut down my stores and kept selling things all during the move and when we lived in the cabin. There was only one item that I had a lot of trouble finding that I had sold. We ended up living in the cabin for 15 days and not one of them was any fun. We were cramped for space surrounded by piles of our stuff in a one bedroom cabin with 2 adults, 2 kids and 2 cats. A friend or ours took care of our rabbit so we didn't have to worry about him and his cage taking up a lot of room.

We were supposed to close on the house on the 8th and of course that didn't happen. At the last minute our bank brought up issues that weren't issues. Our loan officer was out with 2 ulcers that needed surgery. The loan officer's backup took the day off for personal issues. We were left just hanging in the dark.

We ended up closing on the 15th of July after missing another date of the 13th. The actual owners of the house were traveling back and forth from NY to ME for the closing. The actual owners wanted to cancel the sale on us, blaming us for the delays after we waited for them for over 3 months because they wanted to throw a farewell party in the house. When we finally signed all the papers the owners refused to turn over the keys to us because they didn't want to be held liable if anything happened!

This turned into a nice little row in the lawyers office. There was me and my wife and our real estate agent, their real estate agent who was on our side even though she was friends with the sellers. They were an elderly couple and their daughter and daughter-in-law (who was living in the house). And stuck in the middle was the poor closer, the lawyer was gone for the weekend and couldn't be reached.

The elderly woman wanted her money right then and there or she wouldn't turn over the keys. Our real estate agent came up with drawing up an agreement that absolved the sellers of all responsibility which we signed so we could get the keys. The real estate agents all said it was the absolute worst closing they had ever been involved with.

Now I had to start moving all of our stuff out of storage and into the house! Week and weeks and weeks of moving stuff. I haven't finished yet we have a lot of stuff still in one storage unit and a lot of boxes here at the house yet to unpack. We are trying to decide were to put things in our new home.

Our old landlord kept our security deposit accusing of of all kinds of stuff. It was unbelievable the things he accused us of. He complained because he had to top off the oil tank because it was $17 below full, what is that 5 gallons of oil from a 275 gallon tank! He hasn't sold the house yet and is renting it again after holding out for five months trying to sell!

Then to top it all off, I had a little spot of basal cell carcinoma. The doctor proceeded to cut out a 4 inch strip from my back with 15 stitches, telling me to do nothing for 4 weeks. The doctor's husband is her partner and he removed the stitches, I thought I was all set at that point but my wife asked the doctor if I needed more time and he said to go another 2 weeks without doing anything.

That is about the point the depression really started to set in, 6 weeks with doing nothing! But now I'm finally back at it! I have a lot of ideas for blogs and a lot of things I promised in the past to write about. So there are many, many things to do. I've added a couple of things to my collection that I can write about. More book reviews, more auction reviews are to come! A blog about Griswold in general, maybe some amusing items about buying cast iron.

Our "Quirky Little "L" Shaped Home" my name for it anyway. I have started calling the "L" "The North Wing" to make it sound like we are living in a mansion. Ha, Ha! My store is eventually going to be in the"L" at the white door you can see.

Great Gloves!

I was using Playtex HandSaver gloves to clean my cast iron. I bought them at Wal-Mart (XL size I think). The gloves worked in that they protected my hands from the lye used to clean the cast iron but that is all they were good for. Playtex gloves are not good for protecting hands from hot water and they don't allow for very good grip very slippery. They fit quite tight are are difficult to put on and take off. The one positive is that they are fairly cheap. 

I would probably still be using the Playtex gloves had they not changed the size.  The gloves were made smaller so I could no longer get them on at all. So I cleaned my cast iron for a little while without gloves making my hands extremely sore and raw from the lye. Then I discovered these great gloves made by Towa online.

The GO GREENS™ LP (Liquid Proof) - ActivGrip™ Nitrile Coated 12" Utility Gloves with MicroFinish™ Grip by TOWA Glove are perfect in my opinion. Again I use the XL size and they are easy to put on and take off. These gloves are lined so I can use the hottest water out of my tap and my hands are protected, no more burning. They have a grip surface so they are not slippery at all. Besides these great features, the gloves protect me from the lye and are said to last five times longer than regular rubber gloves.

I have been using the Towa Nitrile gloves for quite a while now and they do seem to last a lot longer than the Playtex gloves. I probably would have gone through 2 or 3 pairs of Playtex gloves by now and the Towa's are still going strong. If there is such a thing as love for a pair of gloves then I think I'm in love. As you can see these have been well used! Here is a link to the gloves on Go Gloves Online where you can get great deals buying multiple pairs. http://www.gloves-online.com/proddetail.php?prod=LCR-566

Griswold #8 Slant Erie Logo Skillet With Wooden Handle

Another magnificent find! A Griswold #8 slant ERIE logo with a wooden handle! This pan was manufactured between 1906 and 1912. It is in great shape with a bit of marking on the inside cooking surface, but that is to be expected with a 100 year old pan. The bottom is marked "8 GRISWOLD ERIE 726 A".

I have this in my collection. But I'm not really a "collector" so I also have it for sale. If someone wants to buy it for the price I have listed in my stores they are welcome to it. I now have four stores, Etsy, eCrater, InstantFinder and Junkables. The price is $249.95 plus $15.95 shipping which includes insurance and tracking.

Quesadilla in Cast Iron Skillet

This technically wouldn't be a quesadilla because I don't fold over the tortilla - I use two tortillas. This is a little spicy version, just like I like it.

Spicy Quesadilla

Heat your #9 cast iron skillet slightly above medium on about a 5 1/2 or 6.

Butter one side of 2 soft taco size tortillas - I generally don't use real butter I use Olivio Light.

Grate about half a cup of cheddar cheese.

When skillet is properly heated place first tortilla in skillet butter side down, sprinkle cheese evenly around the tortilla.

Sprinkle a half a teaspoon each around on top of the cheese of refrigerated crushed red peppers and crushed garlic.

Place the second tortilla on top the cheese, red peppers and garlic with the buttered side up.

When the bottom tortilla is sufficiently browned turn the whole thing over with a spatula so that the top tortilla is now on the bottom.

When the new bottom tortilla is browned to the desired color, place it on a plate and cut into serving size pieces.

Eat and Enjoy!

Updates About a Variety of Stuff

I promised pictures of the Griswold pan I found in the charity shop once cleaned as I subjected you to the dirty pictures in "The Competition Can be Fierce" post. Well the pan turned out to not be worth the time. It is pitted on the bottom and then it turned out to be cracked. I didn't think it was cracked to begin with so maybe I cracked it somehow but I don't think so. I haven't had very good luck with the fully marked Victor pans. This one ended up pitted on the bottom and then cracked while an earlier one which can be seen in post "Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! It's Broken!" came in the mail with the handle broken and it was cracked.

In the post "Seasoning Cast Iron - My Way UPDATE" you can read that I've been doing a bit of experimenting with my seasoning techniques to see if there is a better method. I just want to update about the temperature that I use for seasoning 500 degrees. I have now gotten to as low as 425 degrees but don't care for the results. Even at 475 degrees the cast iron looks wet and greasy, not what I'm looking for so I am working back toward 500 degrees. The lower the temperature the wetter and greasier the cast iron looks. The last batch I did was at 480 degrees and it seemed to be what I'm looking for, so I guess that is the lowest I should go with the temperature.

In my post "Molasses as a Rust Remover" I said molasses works as a rust remover and it does. It does a fantastic job if you have a lot of time. You don't necessarily have to dilute the molasses with water as the post states and I found somewhere online. I took molasses straight out of the bottle and coated my very heavily rusted Favorite Piqua griddle and hung it up down in the basement (cellar) for a couple of months, the molasses was starting to get moldy. I then put the pan into my lye bath because I didn't want to scrub all that molasses off, I took the pan out after a couple of days and washed it good and all of the heavy rust was gone.

Update on the Favorite Piqua griddle that I used for the post "Molasses as a Rust Remover". Where the pan had the heaviest rust it was pitted beyond use. Sad to say but I should have put it back on the shelf where I found it but it has been fun using this pan for experiments and worth the conversation. The surface of the griddle is so ugly that I don't see wasting the time on posting pictures of it.

In my very first post "Wow these were snatched up fast!" I had a couple of Griswold pans that were purchased from my store in what I thought was a very fast amount of time. Well those were kind of slow moving as I posted a Griswold slant logo griddle that I thought was kind of ugly because the nickel coating had worn mostly off. I had this griddle sitting out in the garage for over a year until I decided to clean and season it because I was running out of things to clean and season and I didn't have a griddle in my store because I had sold the one I had. The handle design is rare for Griswold. This griddle didn't last an entire day before it was sold! In my stores I've started using a sold lightning bolt for any sale that is less than a week after posting all others I'm using a sold blue ribbon.

Somewhere I mentioned electrolysis as a rust remover. My first attempt at setting up a tank was a miserable failure. I went with all the advice online for setting up the perfect tank and read and researched and whatnot. Well I fiddled and messed with my setup and couldn't get it to work. The problem turned out to be that there was a short in the battery charger and it didn't work. I returned the charger and there weren't any more on the shelf so I got my money back. In the mean time I've spent the money I had for a charger so I have to save up all over again to attempt getting a tank running.

I think that is all the updates. Hope you enjoy them.

Adventures in Cast Iron

Went to an auction (review later) today that was advertising Griswold and Wagner skillets. They had one of each and four other junk skillets! The Griswold was a small logo #8 late handle and the Wagner was a #10 from the 1960's to 1980's with the size in inches and made in USA on it, nothing special. I was very disappointed having driven for an hour to get there. Deceptive advertising? The one positive for the day was I got to spend time with my youngest daughter (she's 5), we get to go out without mom and big sis and we can act as goofy as we want too.

We left the auction because we didn't like the cast iron and headed back to what we thought was a big yard sale or flea market. All these cars turned down this street and looking down the street we noticed that there were cars parked everywhere along the street. I asked my daughter if she wanted to go to the sale if we had time after the auction and she said she did.

We got to the street and the traffic was horrific. We also noticed it was a church, in fact it was a United Methodist Church. So we were like hey it must be a big church sale going on. We found a parking spot and we headed for the door. We could hear organ music and we thought that was kind of strange for a sale even for a church.

We got to the door and a couple of women came out giving us a strange look. We looked in seeing the minister wearing his long white robe standing by the interior door shaking hands. I said to my daughter this isn't a sale it's a church service, odd for Methodists to have a church service on Saturday. Turning around to leave I saw the hearse and flower vehicle.

We had basically walked right by the hearse to go up to the church door, not noticing it on the way there. I said to my daughter, oh my god lets get out of here this is a funeral. We were both saying hurry up lets get out of here.

When we got back to the parking lot we noticed the two women that had come out of the church giving us the stink eye, they were walking their dog. I'm sure they were giving us the evil eye because of the way I was dressed with my baseball cap, jeans and with my shirt untucked. Who are they to give us a look when they brought their dog to a funeral? I ask you who brings a dog to a funeral? We got out of there as fast as we could blaming each other for ending up at a funeral looking for cast iron.

We ended up at Dunkin' Donuts. On the way home we saw a bald eagle fishing! Bad day for cast iron but fun just the same.