Getting a Jump on Spring Cleaning
My brother has spent his life traveling
the world and collecting interesting things
along the way. One of those collections is
his copper. Since he is a great cook, he uses
the copper all the time and that can lead to
stains and tarnish.
As he cooked, he noticed if something
with a tomato base would drip down the
side, it would make the copper sparkling
clean. He developed this recipe for a
non-toxic copper cleaner.
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 to 1/3 cup table salt
3 to 4 Tabl. vinegar or lemon juice
Mix together with a fork and paint
surface of copper with a paint brush
or piece of steel wool. Let sit for 5
minutes. Rinse with water. Scour
surface lightly with 0 grade steel wool.
So, I put it to the test. Yikes, I'm
embarrassed by the awful condition
of my copper.
After 5 minutes, it looked great.
I found it took the tarnish off very
easily. For areas with grease spots
I used a Brillo pad to remove the spots.
Be careful though, you may spend
the rest of the day cleaning every
piece of copper in your home.
I hope he doesn't come up with a
silver polish!
