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A Practical Guide to Hagala: Large Items
by Rabbi Dovid Bendory, II Adar 5765 (April 2005)
OK, so you've followed the hagala directions
and kashered most of your items, but you've got something that's too large to
immerse in another pot. So what do you do?
If a kitchen utensil is too big to fit into the pot of boiling water all at
once, it can be kashered in two or more passes. For example, I have a barbeque
spatula that is some 18 inches (45 centimeters) long. To kasher a utensil like
this, just follow the normal hagala
procedure. When it comes time to immerse the kli in the boiling
water, dip one end of the kli into the boiling water, then turn the
kli around and dip in the other end. Make sure that the two immersions
overlap a little making sure that the entire vessel undergoes hagala.
Finally, rinse the entire kli under cold water. Note that some rinse
the first end under cold water after immersion prior to proceeding to kasher
the other end.
Finally, how do I kasher my biggest pot? It can't fit into any other for
immersion, so what do I do?
-
Clean the pot thoroughly. If it has any cracks or openings that may have food
stuck inside them, these must be thoroughly cleaned out before kashering with
hagala. Areas that cannot be cleaned should be torched before
hagala. You can also use a caustic cleanser such as Easy Off® to
render any forbidden taste like dirt and then proceed to boil in hot water.
- Let the pot sit unused for 24 hours.
-
Place a brick or large stone with the oven turned to its highest temperature.
After the stone gets hot, remove it with a tongs. You can also use a piece of
metal; a large nut or bolt gets hot very quickly and will work fine. A stone
placed on the stovetop flame heats up quickly as well.
- Fill the pot nearly to the top and bring it to a rigorous boil.
-
Drop the hot rock into the pot. BE CAREFUL! When you do this, the pot
will rigorously boil over and overflow.
-
Once it is safe to do so, use another pot to scoop hot water out of the large
pot and pour the water out until the large pot is light enough to lift.
-
Once the large pot is light enough to lift, pour it out into the sink and fill
and rinse it with cold water.
- BE CAREFUL! The rock will still be VERY HOT!
Questions to ponder:
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