How to Clean a Burned Pan? Help?

I was reheating some gravy on the stove on very low when the dog wanted to go out so I turned the burner off.

Only when we came back in I found that I had turned the heat to high rather than turning it off.

This is my favorite gravy-making pan.

How do I get the burned gravy off?  I have soaked it, scrubbed it and the pan just will not come clean.  Help?

That is so frustrating, especially it being a favorite pan. What kind of pan is it? Cast iron? Stainless? Something else?

I know one of the first things I usually try for stainless pans is to put some soapy water in the pan and put it on the burner on super, super low heat for awhile. Sometimes this will loosen stuff up enough it can be scrubbed. If that doesn't work, ash from the woodstove will usually do it. Often, it'll come off with just scrubbing and if that doesn't do it, I'll sprinkle ashes over the pan, get them just damp and let it sit like that for some hours, then scrub.

If it's cast iron, I usually take a plastic scraper and try to get the worst off. Then, I'll just put some oil and salt in there and scrub. I used to have one of those little chain mail pot scrubbers and that worked nicely.

Hope you're able to get it clean!

heather, thanks for the suggestions.

It is a porcelain pan.  I've gotten all the stuff that would flake off.  It is almost down to the porcelain though it is still black.  Every time I scrub it the water I pour off is black.

I have soaked for several days, then scrubbed and soaked some more.

I don't have any ashes though I tried Bar Keepers Friend which is a scouring powder.

Anne Miller wrote:Every time I scrub it the water I pour off is black.

That shows some promise. I use baking soda for all kinds of things. One thing I noticed with really stubborn stuff like this is to go back and forth between a soak in hot baking soda water and then a soak in hot vinegar. Something about going back an forth in pH seems to shock certain stubborn stains and burnt on gunk. It seems to reduce the time it takes to clean versus just using baking soda.

My totally made up reasoning for why it works is that some of the gunky bits react to high pH and some to low pH, and once you've removed upper layers of one type you need the other end of the pH range to help remove the other type more quickly. It might not work for everything, but if you have the stuff on hand then it's worth a shot. For cast iron I use cream of tartar, I've cleaned pans and engine blocks using it with great success. It's a mild enough acid to work on other types of pans as well.

Baking soda usually works for something like this. Add a couple of tablespoons and a couple cups water to the pan and simmer on low for 20-30 minutes. Most of the gunk should scrape off fairly easily. You can repeat the process if it is really bad.

Thanks, everyone for the suggestions.

what I ended up doing yesterday afternoon was to put a 50/50 vinegar/water in the pan, brought this to a boil, and then added 2 tablespoons of baking soda.  That was way too much baking soda as the solution became a volcano and erupted all over the stovetop.

That solution did help me scrub more off until I felt I could cook in the pan.

I made smothered steak with brown gravy in that pan.

There was no burned taste.

I got that tip from HERE