Ack! We were boiling a piece of my wife’s medical equipment, made of plastic, to clean and sterilize it.
It was supposed to boil for five minutes.
But we forgot, until a nasty smell began to emanate from the kitchen–when we discovered that the water was entirely gone and the (stainless steel) pan was full of melted plastic.
The equipment of course has to be replaced. Now I’m wondering about the pan. Much of the bottom is covered by I-don’t-know-what, plastic residue no doubt–something dark and unpleasant-looking.
Is there any good way to get it off? It is not yielding to the actions of an ordinary sponge, not that I expected it would.
If you have any recipes for fixing the problem, I would love to hear them. Screwing up the equipment was bad enough, and if the pan can be salvaged that would be a Good Thing. Thank you!
Depending on the type of plastic, putting the pan in the freezer might make the plastic brittle enough to crack into pieces which may be easier to remove.
Throwing it in the freezer might work. Letting it soak in some acetone or mineral spirits or some other solvent may soften it. You might just end up being best off going outside and hitting it with a blowtorch or putting it on a grill and attempting to burn the rest of it off. Then you can worry about trying to remove the remainder.
First, I’d consider the pan a total loss, that way you don’t feel like you’re ‘ruining it more’ every time something doesn’t work and if something does work it’ll be a bonus.
Just boiling some more water in it might soften the plastic enough to pull some of it up with a wooden spatula. I doubt it, but it’s probably the most innocuous thing you can do.
If it’s a teflon-coated pan, it’s a loss. IF the teflon hasn’t already melted/sloughed off, any sort of heat sufficient to melt the plastic residue certainly will.