Saltbush Bill wrote on Apr 13^th, 2009 at 9:06am:



I had a bit of rust on a pre seasoned L & C.
Left it in long enough and it took the lot off.
Seasoning and all.
It was in about 3 weeks.

Aart

My son just spent all Easter working at Highfields Pioneer Village and says they use straight molasses for their camp ovens and told me off for adding water to my current molasses bath.
Comments welcome!

See:

http://users.tpg.com.au/wagnerbe/hpv/

Just bringing this thread up to top (it was started in 2008) for those that need the instructions re. molassas bath to clean rusty pots....
Cheers Sue
INSTRUCTIONS FROM SALTBUSH BILL

"The way I do this is to put about 2 inches (double that wont hurt) of Molasses into a large plastic garbage bin and half to three quarters fill with water. Give it a good stir around with a stick or what ever is handy.
Places that sell horse feed usually have cheap bulk molasses……take your own container. For anyone from the USA sweet sorghum syrup and water at about a 10:1 ratio water to syrup can be used in place of molasses.

Temperature seems to have some effect on the time it takes for this process to work. In warm weather things happen a lot faster……for this reason I usually try to put the garbage bin in a warm sunny place ……I also paint the bin black with a cheap $2 spray can of flat black paint….. this probably isn’t necessary if your only doing one or two Cos.

Give your rusty camp oven a very quick rub with a wire brush to remove any loose rust also try and remove any grease or oil

Next thing is to dump your pot in …..Put it in right way up …. As the Molasses Mix starts to “work” it releases small bubbles of gas …..if the CO is up the wrong way it may fill with air/gas. (I’ve had things like milk churns float to the top over night and push the lid off for this reason)

Next put a lid on ….(A) to keep rain, kids, dogs, bugs ect out ,,,,,,,,,(B) Because this stuff starts to pong a bit after about 4 days.

After a couple of days…..sometimes as soon as 24 hours,….. depending on conditions, amount of molasses used ect. you will notice two things happening…….one is little bubbles starting to pop to the surface ……the other is a nasty looking scum starting to form on the top. The bubbles I think are from the molasses starting to ferment and this is when the rust starts to get dissolved or softened.

At this stage I probably should say that if anyone is worried about dropping there favorite antique camp oven into this horrible looking mess that a small jar of molasses and some water in an old icecream container or similar might be a good idea. ( Just add a few rusty nuts bolts as a test run)
Once the Molasses has started to froth on top leave your oven  for about four days. As I mentioned earlier this can vary depending on temperature, amount of  Molasses used ect.
Once the oven is ready grab the garden hose and a wire brush , give the pot a quick rub with the brush then wash with water, a very gentle rub should do the job.  If you have to rub hard the oven hasn’t been in the Molasses mix for long enough.
The brush I use is a medium size stainless steel brush….these seem to work better than the bigger ones. More and finer bristles I think. They come in a pack of three from Super Cheap / Auto Barn ect.
Try and keep plenty of water on the job as you work, this stops oxidisation starting to form..
Once the pot is clean you need to dry it thoroughly, and as quickly as possible as oxidisation will soon start. I use a paint stripper gun to dry anything I clean this way.  A good hair drier works ok to, a bit slower but it does the job…….just don’t get caught …….lol.
Once the pot is dry season as soon as possible.
If for some reason the rust doesn’t come off easily or a few patches are stubborn just toss the pot back in the mix for a day or two and try again."

mummsy wrote on Feb 22^nd, 2010 at 8:26pm:


They sure did look funny.  If you want email them to me and I will attach them. 

Great topic on this old thread. I use maolasses in a wheelie bin at any where from 50 to 1 to 10 to 1 mix ratio. It works great. I can't actually figure out how though. Because if it is the sugar that cleans the metal well there should actually be no sugar after a while. The frothing that appears after a few days is from the process of the suagrs in the molasses fermeting. Because the mix is open to the air, not in an airlocked and sterile environment with a yeast introduced to it like in a homebrew set up. Wild yeast quickly moves in to take advantage of all that sugar (its food) When yeast eats sugar it creates 2 byproducts, CO2 and Alchohol. The bubling is from the co2. Usually a yeast will not stop eating the sugar until the supply is deleted or the alchohol content is too strong for it to survive in. Which brings me to my point, if there is no sugar left what cleans the rust. There must be some other magic going on. Anyway, I have been wondering about this for ages. I have a degree in Rumology by the way.