home ec: Bar Keeper's Friend- the cheapest cleaning product that you need in your arsenal

I'm a big fan of making my own cleaning products. Baking soda, vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, and Dawn dish detergent can be combined to clean nearly anything in your house. There are still, though, a few ready made cleaning products that I will spend money. Bar Keeper's Friend is one of them. 

 

 

This is, by far, the best and cheapest off-the-shelf cleaning product in my arsenal. The stuff is amazing.

I first discovered it about 7 years ago. My in-laws had bought us a nice set of pots and pans. After just a couple of uses, they started to get cloudy, filmy, and coated with black residue after sautéing. I tried all kinds if things to get them looking like new again, to no avail. We didn't have Pinterest back then to give us the answers. Olden times they were.

We eventually went to Williams Sonoma and asked what they recommended for their million dollar pots and pans. They handed me a can of Bar Keeper's Friend, and my life has never been the same. Let's see it in action. 

Here's an actual pan from my cabinet, after cleaning with regular dish soap. I didn't doctor this up for the purposes of this blog, unfortunately. It just looked like this. You can see that all too common residue that gets left behind after cooking. Here's how it works. It's very complicated, so try and keep up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Shake the stuff in your pan.

2. Put some water in it. 

3. Use a scour pad (this is a Scotch Brite) and apply some elbow grease. This may just be a few seconds or up to a few minutes depending on your stain/grime level. This pan took about 2 minutes to clean.

 

 

4. Rinse (add some soap if it is something you'll eat off of).

 

Tada! It's like magic powder. 

It's not just for pans either. Here is my sink yesterday morning. Lovely. My dishwasher likes to spit up everything in the garbage disposal that someone (me) forgot to run before letting the dishwasher go before bed. Grody. That's marinara sauce from meatball night. It soaked into my semi-porous sink for 10 hours before I discovered it. Good morning indeed.

 

This took some elbow grease. I shook on the BKF, made a paste, and let it sit for a bit.

 

Then, scrub, scrub, scrub for a few minutes.

 

 

Then rinse.

 

I would have needed to replace this sink out if I didn't know about BKF. So it basically saved me $200. Well, $197 if you count the $3 for the can of the magic stuff.

Spots on chrome bath fixtures? BKF. 

Soap scum? BKF. 

It also comes in a handy dandy gel too. I stick with the powder, though, because it's $1 less and I'm cheap like that. 

You can find it at your grocery store. It will be on the bottom shelf because it's not flashy or expensive. Always the brides maid (or bar maid), never the bride. You can also buy it at Williams Sonoma (more expensive) and World Market (less expensive). 

Of course, follow package instructions and don't try to wash your dog or baby or anything with it. 

Anybody else out there use this? Success stories? Please share!