My GF bought a kettle with copper finish. Looked really nice until water stains started to leave marks on it. It is now almost entirely covered with those darker gray-ish marks which I assume are some sort of oxidation. Is there a safe way to clean this?
How to clean a copper kettle
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Modern stainless steel pans with clad bottoms can be as good as copper pans. McGee developed a simple technique to test the heat distribution where he fits a piece of paper to the bottom of the pan, placing the pan over a burner and carefully watching how the paper browns. Thick aluminum, clad bottom stainless, and copper all worked equally well.
There are differences that relate to the techniques used in cooking. A thin copper pan is great for melting butter or chocolate straight on the burner. Modern air-gap wall stainless steel pans hold the heat better and work better for simmering or boiling. Copper is harder to upkeep.
Pans will develop hot spots, even copper which is the better conductor. Until we get graphite added to the cladding or some other exotic material to distribute the heat, thickness will matter the most for even heat distribution.
I have read several consumer tests and reviews of pans and they fail to note that thermal conductivity and thickness can both be used in practice to balance the temperature distribution and heat flux in a pan.
I'm somewhat confused by your question, as GE appears to recommend copper-bottom cookware. At least if I've grabbed the right manual, lacking a model number.
Note the word recommended right below "copper bottom". Though they do warn you that you have to be diligent cleaning any residues left and not allowing cookware to overheat. (Though, depending on the thickness of that copper bottom, you may find that stainless with an aluminum disc is actually better cookware, and fairly cheap.)
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Best Answer
Lemon juice or diluted vinegar (say 1:1), a rag and patience. Gentle and light scrubbing. Rinse afterwards and dry thoroughly.
The bad news is that it is not going to last very long. Even if you are not using at all, depending on your ambient humidity and temperature, it will tarnish again, albeit perhaps uniformly. It is still better to remove the oxide spots early. The longer you leave them, the deeper the oxidation goes. Every time you get rid of the oxide, you are actually removing a tiny layer of metal. So, if you have a copper plated kettle, at some point, you will expose the underlying metal. If it is solid copper, that does not matter too much.
Other than greyish black oxide, you can also have greenish carbonates too.
You can meticulously dry off all the water on the the copper surface especially before you heat it, and store it in a dry cool place, you can slow down the oxidation process.
Alternatively, let it tarnish and develop some character.
Is it an electric kettle or a manual one? A manual one on an open flame (electrical stove is fine) will make things harder for you because of water and carbon dioxide from the combustion products.