Cleaning Your Dutch Oven--Another Method

I have been trying several ways to clean my dutch ovens. I want to find the easiest and most effective way to do it. I have read several D.O. cookbooks and spent a lot of time on the Internet. The last few days I have been using a large scrap of burlap to scrape out my ovens. This actually works pretty well. I was surprised. But it has a definite down side--it leaves little burlap hairs in my ovens that are hard to get out. To be honest, it grosses me out a little bit so I will save this method for the really stuck on stuff.
I have also tried boiling out my ovens. This works well too, but I don't like having to take the extra time to heat more coals and I have been to lazy to get my camp stove out every day. I will save this method for the stuck on stuff as well.
Really, the fastest and easiest way I have tried so far is the plastic scraper and the vinegar/water mixture. If I run across other methods I will review them as well.

Cleaning Your Dutch Oven

I have made it through the first week! HOORAY!! It went by so fast and I have learned so much. I am still a little overwhelmed by what I am doing, but it has been really fun. I hope someone out there is cooking along with me and enjoying my recipes as much as we do.

I have been looking into ways to clean my dutch oven and I wanted to try several different ways, but what I have been doing is so easy that I don't really want to try any other ways. But I will. So far, I have been scraping my warm dutch oven out with a small, square plastic scraper. If anyone has used Pampered Chef's stoneware then you know the scraper I am talking about. It is small with rounded corners that are different sizes and can fit into the corners of almost any pan. With a little bit of elbow grease I can get almost everything out. After it is scraped and I have removed the excess food, I spray the inside of my oven with a mixture of 1 part cider vinegar and 4 parts water and let it sit for just a minute. If the oven is warm, it won't take long. Then I just wipe it out with paper towels. It is that easy. After the oven is clean I put on a light coating of oil. I have found a nifty tool that makes oiling your oven really easy and prevents using too much oil. It is a kitchen spritzer (see the picture below). This one is from Pampered Chef. I fill it with vegetable oil, pump air into it with the special cap and then just spray. It is like using Pam spray, but without the preservatives and propellants that can cause a sticky build up on your oven. It has become one of my favorite tools. I have also seen them at local big box retailers.

One of the other ways I have seen people clean dutch ovens is by boiling them out. I can see needing to do that on rare occasions, like when I char my first batch of biscuits--Ha! Ha!--but overall, it doesn't seem healthy for the oven to do it on a regular basis. Please correct me if I'm wrong. It also seems like a royal pain. I have enough problems with having the coals right to want to mess around making sure I have enough hot coals left to boil out my oven. I think I will skip this method unless I really burn something and it won't scrape out.

My kitchen spritzer My cleaning supplies

If anyone has a method they really like let me know and I will try it. Meanwhile, I will try something different this week.