clean a copper pan

[safronsue]

There's a large ancient pan in the garden that is obviously copper or part copper. of the kind that my husband's grandmother would carry through the village filled with the day's meal to be baked in the baker's ovens. it's black but with coppery bits and that greeny hue it goes. i'm looking online for advice about whether i should just return it to the garden as a birdbath/dog's bowl or whether i should restore it and use it for cooking but i am just getting conflicting and confusing info. copper poisonous, copper best heat conveyor, copper cleaned with ketchup, copper cleaned with/without salt. can any sage person on here advise?

[marshlander]

I used to display some old copper pans, we're in the era of stripped pine, dried hops on the beams etc, and I used lemon halves dipped in salt to clean them. If it's antique, the patina is desirable so you need to avoid cleaning it too much. To use it again for cooking depends on whether the pan's tin lining is still sound; if in any doubt or unsure what the lining is don't use it.

Pots of herbs in the kitchen look lovely in an old pan. You could also plant with paperwhites or other bulbs.

[Dr.Syn]

If you do want it clean and shiny use a mixture of washing up liquid and lemon juice and apply with a brush wash off with warm water .May need more than one application

[Zech]

Copper is definitely the best conveyor of heat (well, it may be topped by silver and gold, but you probably won't be cooking in those!) and can be cleaned with acid. Ketchup is good because it's sticky, so holds the acid to the surface while it does its thing.

I'm not sure about how safe it is. I've also heard warnings, but at the same time I note that our drinking water is delivered in copper pipes. I'm inclined to be skeptical about the warnings, but I really don't know, so don't take my word for it!

[Skippy]

It sounds like it's a copper or brass pan and I've eaten from one on seveal occasions.
The acid does work but make sure you rinse it out properly. A friend of mine "cleaned" a brass jam pan the lazy way (he thought) by simply soaking it in vinigar for a few days. However, when it came to be used for a custard the resulting mixture was definately green.On a related note some ciders got their colour from being fermented in copper vessels. In some cases there is no alternative to a bit of elbow grease and I've done it with a paste of vinigar and fine sand followed by vinigar and wood ash and if you want a polished surface finish with oil and wood ash A bit time consuming and there are probably quicker products.
I've read somewhere that there is a small possibility of problems with copper, although at the same time it better for getting rid of some strains of bacteria such as e coli which a stainless steel pan doesn't do . Aluminium pans have been linked to alhzeimers, iron pans seem ok although a friend of mine can't use them because the food absorbs iron and she has problems controling her iron levels.
Being a cynical sort of person I can't help but think that whatever you end up cooking in there will be a "hazard " or "risk" that someone has "evidence" for.


Pete