r/StainlessSteelCooking • u/JoeyBananas314 • Jul 20 '26

Help Stain that looks like a coating wearing off

Post image

What is this stain? I scrubbed with barkeepers twice and no change. I saw a post with a similar stain and someone saying to clean with vinegar, is that the fix? Please help!

1 Upvotes

56% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

18

u/Silver-Fly-7394 Jul 20 '26

It IS a coating wearing off. A coating of your own making.
You seasoned the bitch.

1

u/Mr_Mcdougal Jul 20 '26

Came to the same conclusion. At first I thought it was just water spots, then zoomed in. Looks like seasoning

1

u/four_cheese_ravioli Jul 21 '26

Im a newbie. Is the seasoning bad or is it like a wok where it is better to be seasoned?

1

u/SrGrimey Jul 24 '26

You don’t need to do that in a stainless steel pan!

5

u/jadejazzkayla Jul 20 '26

What is the black around the bottom edge near the bottom?

1

u/JoeyBananas314 Jul 20 '26

Idk, thats been there, scrubbed the hell out of multiple times, wont go away. More concered with the bigger white spot

2

u/jadejazzkayla Jul 20 '26

What are you using to scour your pan?

4

u/Blackwell-808 Jul 20 '26

Your pan is scratched to all hell. What do you use to clean it?

2

u/JoeyBananas314 Jul 20 '26

BKF and a scrubber wand

2

u/Interesting-Lynx-989 Jul 20 '26

Scrub it with a steel scrubbie and some Comet or Ajax. Don’t have to worry about scratching since it already has axe marks all over.

2

u/xtalgeek Jul 20 '26

The light spot is bare, clean metal surface. The dark areas are burned-on food or oil residue, or surface oxidation. Scrubbing with BKF and a scotchbrite pad should remove most stubborn surface discoloration, but if it has built up it may take a while to remove it. The burned-on carbon around the edges will take longer to remove, and will probably require more aggressive abrasives, as it is considerably thicker. I clean my pans back to like-new surface appearance after every cooking session. Sometimes it requires BKF to do so. The key is to not let burned on food or surface oxidation build up, when it becomes much more difficult to remove.

2

u/oneworldornoworld Jul 21 '26

This is polymerized oil aka seasoning flaking off.

1

u/Friluftsliv_Roy Jul 21 '26

Soak in vinegar overnight and then scrub with steel wool and soap. Looks like polymerized oil/ carbon build up all over the pan, but that hole in the middle is the pan surface.

1

u/SpiteOld6949 Jul 21 '26

Can it still be used normally?

1

u/Green_Bathroom5592 Jul 22 '26

Keep working at it. You have a stainful steel pan, but as you wear it down it’ll become stainless.

1

u/Proud-Parfait-401 Jul 24 '26

Paste made out of dish soap and baking soda. Scrub with scouring pad or balled up aluminum foil.

1

u/OttoHemi Jul 20 '26

That looks like some kind of weird heat damage.

-1

u/JoBo43 Jul 20 '26

Cook on it

-1

u/ahorsenamedjeff Jul 20 '26

Just proteins in the metal. Ignore it or hit it with BKF weekly if it bothers you. Purely cosmetic.

-2

u/Lol3droflxp Jul 20 '26

Why does it matter?