I have been skimming through a 2025 cookbook by David Nayfeld titled Dad, What’s for Dinner? Lifesaving recipes to avoid meltdowns, have fun in the kitchen, and keep your kids well fed. In the back, starting on page 288, there is a section on Resources. On page 299 under the title BAR KEEPERS FRIEND, BRILLO PAD, AND A GOOD BRUSH he says that:
“A Brillo pad – a soap-impregnated scouring pad – is clutch for stubborn fond and keeping your stainless steel spotless.”
But, as shown above, a Brillo pad is made from ordinary steel wool. It is a bad choice for cleaning stainless steel. You should instead either use stainless steel wool, or something nonmetallic. Why? Back on January 13, 2010 in a post titled How thin is ”extremely thin”? I blogged about that, and said:
“Just rubbing the surface with a steel wire brush or steel wool can embed enough free iron to interfere with passivation.”
There is a 3-page pdf article from the British Stainless Steel Association on March 12, 2001 titled Care and Maintenance of Stainless Steel which discusses this in Note #7,
“Rust marks or staining on stainless steels is unlikely to be the result of corrosion to the stainless steel itself (similar marks may also be found on porcelain and plastic sinks). These marks are likely to result from small particles of ‘ordinary’ (non-stainless) steel from wire wool or scouring pads becoming attached or embedded in the surface.”
As shown above, clean nonmetallic pads like green or blue Scotch Brite could also be used.
Images of a colander pot and Brillo pads came from Wikimedia Commons.
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