cleaning porcelain

[JR Doffin]

    Hey everyone, I just picked up a porcelain skillet at an estate sale. It is a turquoise color inside and out with a heavy grease/carbon build-up on the bottom. Does anyone   have a way to clean this pan?   ??? I read you should not put them into a lye bath. What I can read on the bottom looks like PRIZER WARE   at what would be an upside position. For a $1.  investment I thougth it would a good project.   :P
                      Thanks   JR

[Steve_Stephens]

JR,
I am at a loss on how to clean porcelain safely.  Lye might not hurt your pan but it could.  Seems like there may be porcelains of differing qualities out there.  All I know is that I used to clean some of my porcelain lined Griswold covers and some of them got a porous, lighter grey looking after coming out of the lye bath.  Or were they that way before going in.  Since I do not clean porcelain that way anymore and it was a long time ago I really can't be certain.  Anyone have any suggestions?

If JR is your real name you can omit going back into your "profile" and adding your real first name.  We require full names here so that we all know who we are talking to.  Of course you can always still go by JR.  Thanks.

Steve

[Will Person]

On the porcelain that I do.   I use oven cleaner.   Less aggressive than lye in a tub.   I leave it on for 15-30 minutes.   Clean it off and look at how well it is doing.   Scrap lightly at the build up so there is not as much for the oven cleaner to do.   Then I reapply it for no more than 15 minutes and clean it up again.   Usually that will clean it all off.   But the pans that I start with are not all crusted up bad.   Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Will P. [smiley=smoking.gif]

[JR Doffin]

Thanks for the suggestions Will & Steve. I'll try some oven cleaner on just the bottom and see if there is a color change from the sides, then let you know how it turns out. It has lots of cooked on crud so it will be a good test.            JR

[JR Doffin]

       Well the results are  in. I used the oven cleaner on the pan for 30 minutes at a time. With a little bit of light scraping and a stiff brush, the pan is now clean. There is no color change to the porcelain , still bright. 8)
              Thanks guys.         JR