How do you clean your heavy aluminum baking pans?

My wife has large heavy baking pans and we are getting some of that carmalized coating on them. How do you clean yours without steel wool or taking off the oxidized layer?

Are you asking about alum 1/2 sheet pans by nordicware etc? If its gunked up beyond easy, heating some water in the pan and a green pad gets most off. I've used wd-40 and green pad on bad skillet gunk when all else has failed. Should do job on baking pans. Wash well after. If Mrs Gene is still not happy, new pans are only 10 bucks each.

i really dont worry so much about the gunk. i do my best at the sink. i'll even take some BKF to it..the alum will oxidize again. after a few years, when they look like total crap, i'll toss them into a recycle bin and buy new ones. they are $11 at my restaurant supply store.

Oven cleaner.

I've put mine through the self-clean cycle in my oven. Works great.

Oven cleaner and WD-40 sounds kinda toxic... I just asked "Mrs. Gene" (heh) these are the quarter sheet commercial pans. Had them a while, about $6 back then from a restaurant supply store. Not as much $$ as I thought, which is a good thing. She doesn't want to take off that smooth finish. Very hot water and a green scrubbie sounds good as long as I can keep from burning myself....cuts are bad enough, I don't want burns..

I don't, my wife does.

And the answer is... a little boiling water and a blue scrubbie sponge w/soap. The trick was keep refreshing the water 'cause it cools and using a small hand brush to push the sponge around w/o burning myself. Worked well enough and didn't remove any oxide or scratch the alu. Also turns out (yep, you were right) these are not really that expensive when purchased from a kitchen supply store.

Thanks folks!