I'm not sure if this is the right forum, but since this is about candy I thought it would be ok to post here.


I tried to make caramel. boiling sweetened condensed milk. Didn't work out for me I left the room for a minute(maybe 5) I started to smell smoke and remembered, MY CARAMEL! Needless to say I got all this black stuff at the bottom of my pot. It's been soaking in everything from baking soda, oxyclean, plain soap with water. Nothing has worked. It can not be scraped off it's just too hard. I have also tried boiling all three of these things but nothing. I wouldn't make such a big deal about this but I got my pots and pans as a gift and they are really nice and I can't just throw it out. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.


Just a side note: I did go buy a $5 pot from walmart to try this caramel again just in case I get a brain freeze(again).

TIA

Edited to add: It's been soaking over a week!

I don't know what kind of pan it is, but if it won't ruin the surface, try oven cleaner. Obviously if it's nonstick lined, this won't be the best option. But maybe if it's bare metal?

I'm sorry to hear about your pot, I too have done the same thing but as a result of being on the phone and unfortunately I had to throw out the pot and just replace it. Sorry for not having a solution but I do look foward to seeing anyone's response to save your pot.

I google it and found these possible solutions:

Put a cube of automatic dishwashing detergent and almost fill the pot with water and boil
OR
Sprinkle generously with baking soda, then add 1 cup hot water and 1/3 cup vinegar and let soak

Good luck!!

It's a stainless steel pot no coating. Thanks guys, I'll try the baking soda with vinegar right now and if that doesn't work I'll go get some oven cleaner. I'll let you guys know how it works out.

Can't really help you with the cleaning, but you can actually boil the SC milk in the can - take of the label and put it in simmering water for abt 3 hours (you'll want to boil a lot of water so you don't have to keep adding - you want it to stay submerged). This requires no watching, stirring, etc., and no damage to pots!

My mother in law had caramel stuck to the bottom of her pot and we put in a bounce dryer sheet and hot water and let it sit overnight. The next morning it all fell out!!! Bounce dryer sheets take off alot of baked on and fryed on things.

Not sure if it will work for this but when we have something stick to our stainless cookware we deglaze it. We heat up the pan or pot and then add water. The pot or pan is very hot when we do this so it causes whatever is stuck to it to pull away and it is easier to clean. I normally scrape it with a wooden spoon as soon as I put the water in. I have never had any problems since I was taught this.

I'm curious...were you able to save your pot?

If you have a self-cleaning oven you can put the pan in the oven and run the cleaning cycle.

Just fill the pan with water and bring to boil on med high heat for a few minutes and it will be fine.