Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Folks,

"Grust" is the yellow-brown coating of grease, smoke and dust which accumulates on exposed surfaces of kitchens with a gas stove and no ventilation hood.

I noticed in the course of packing up my cookware (2 medium and 1 large box plus an odd-sized box for the cast iron) that several infrequently-used pieces had a rather hefty coating of grust. Any suggestions on an appropriate solvent? Regular dish detergent isn't sufficient, but since several pieces are non-stainless (blue steel, cast iron, copper) I don't want to use bleach or other agents which might cause corrosion.

I've used an industrial degreaser (509 or something) I got at home depot which worked fairly well. Oven cleaner will clean, but it's nasty and will leave a mark on those items.

Fuzzy,
Remember the discussion we had here several years ago about Dawn Power Dissolver?
I've used it successfully before.

My go to for grust is Bar Keepers Friend, but I've had luck with Dawn Power Dissolver as well - although I could not find it the last couple of times I was in the USA. If there's a store that has it please let me know as we'll be in NY in March.
There are copper cleaners that are gritty that would work for the copper pot. The cast iron could be run through the oven self clean and then reseasoned if all else fails. For the non-stick you could try the liquid BKF.

Jean,
Most Walmarts carry Dawn Power Dissolver.

And, if you have bakeware that gets gummed up with non-stick sprays you might try Everbake vegetable oil food release spray, it doesn't cause that gumminess.

I checked in Walmarts in Springfield MA, Niagara Falls and in Amherst with no joy. If you spot it can you let me know what aisle it's in and/or what's around it? Maybe they moved it, although I did a fairly good review of the laundry and kitchen cleaning aisles.

Amazon has it, but you'll have to buy a 6-pack to get a good buy on it.

Nancy, have you seen it at a Walmart recently? I stocked up when I found them there last year but am down to my last bottle and the impression I got from looking online was that it's been discontinued or else is repackaged as a Dawn grill cleaner (which I looked for last summer with no success). I hope that's wrong because absolutely nothing beats it for cleaning cooked-on gunk from pans.

And I definitely have "grust" issues as well, as we've got a light fixture above my island cooktop with zero ventilation. I try not to look above when I'm cooking because it really gets the furry grossness in between when we force ourselves to take the glass shades off and clean it. I've actually not used the Dawn for that before, normally a kitchen degreaser works pretty easily on it.

Emilie

Just saw Dave's reply, thanks so much! And FWIW, at that 6-pack price, the per bottle cost of $10 seems steep if you got it at Walmart for like $2.99. But the Amazon bottles are 3X the volume.

p.s. I just saw that Staples.com has that 6 pack for $56.99 with free shipping.

Edit: Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but I just saw that Staples has a 20% coupon until the 23rd for 20% off cleaning supplies. So that brings the 6-pack down to $45.49. You just need to add a $5 item to your order to take it over $50 for free shipping.