Bring Dull Copper Back To Life With The Jar Of Pickles Sitting In Your Pantry
Copper cookware is well loved because it evenly distributes heat and looks incredible displayed in the kitchen. It tarnishes quickly, though, turning shades of blue and green, and reddish-brown with use and age. While there are commercial copper cleaners available, there's another way to clean the tarnish from your tired and dingy household copper. It'll shine up those well-loved Moscow Mule mugs, take the tarnish off of your secondhand copper cookware, and breathe life back into brass fixtures. It's probably sitting in your pantry now, sandwiched between other versatile ingredients like vinegar and baking soda (mixing those two diminishes their cleaning power unless you time it right — just a pro-tip). The next time you want to bring your copper back to life, you might want to reach for a good old-fashioned jar of pickles – any kind will do.
Pickle juice shines up copper and removes oxidization. It takes off the layer of blue-green patina, revealing the bright, clean copper underneath. But there are one or two catches with this copper-reviving hack. The first caveat has to do with timing: if you leave pickle juice on copper too long, it'll oxidize and recreate the layer of patina you just worked to remove. Pickle juice could also turn your copper and brass pink.
Why pickle juice removes tarnish and gives copper a good shine
Copper's color-changing act is all thanks to its unique reaction to heat, acid, humidity, and even oxygen. And it's copper's relationship with weak acids like vinegar that makes pickle juice a great candidate for creating a good shine. The vinegar in pickle juice contains a weak acetic acid solution, which chemically reacts when it comes into contact with copper, loosening the patina from the metal. The salt in pickle juice amplifies the strength of the acid in the vinegar a bit. It is also abrasive enough to provide some scrubbing power while you're cleaning.
Of course, if the pickle juice is on there too long, the chemical reaction will continue and eventually recreate the layer of patina. It could also turn the copper pink, a sign that zinc has been leached from the copper.
Pickle juice and a soft cloth are all you need to give your copper a good shine — and a little lemon juice if you want to speed up the process. Dip the cloth in the pickle juice (plus lemon, if you want) and then use it to buff all your copper. Be sure to rinse the copper thoroughly to help slow the inevitable oxidization process. If you want to slow oxidization and keep your copper shiny longer, use edible and natural sealants like beeswax, carnauba wax, or boiled linseed oil to create a barrier between the copper and the oxygen in the air.