Caring for Your Clay Cookware

2026-06-18

Every Kanaskraft pot is unglazed earthenware, fired to cone 05 — a low-temperature firing that leaves the clay deliberately porous. That porosity is the entire point. It is what lets a water pot breathe and keeps water naturally cool, and what gives curd its thick, sweet set. It also explains every rule below. Once you think of the pot as a breathing material rather than a sealed one, the care stops feeling like a list and starts making sense. Before first use: the starch soak A new pot is thirsty. Fill it with starch water — the cloudy water poured off cooked rice works perfectly — and leave it a full day. The starch settles into the open pores and tempers the surface, so your first batch doesn't pick up a raw-earth taste. Rinse with plain water and let it dry completely before use. → Full guide: the starch-water soak On the stove: always use a heat diffuser On a stove, thermal shock comes from direct burner heat. A gas flame delivers intense heat to a small patch of the base almost instantly, and clay cannot carry it sideways the way metal does — that patch expands while the clay around it stays cool, and the tension cracks the pot. A heat diffuser removes the direct contact: the flame heats a metal plate, which passes gentle, even heat to the whole base, so the pot never meets the flame. It is the single best habit for making a pot last. - Start from cold. Set the pot on the diffuser before you light the burner, so both warm up together. Never lower a cold pot onto an already-hot diffuser or a lit burner. - Start low and raise gradually. Sudden temperature change is what breaks clay. - Never heat the pot empty. Add liquid, oil or food first. - Never put a hot pot on a cold or wet surface, and never add cold water to a hot pot. - Let it cool on its own. Never quench it under a tap. - Low to medium heat is plenty — clay holds heat well and keeps cooking after you switch off. → Full guide: heat diffusers and thermal shock In the microwave: yes Our pots are microwave safe, and we tested them rather than assuming. Run empty for three minutes, the clay produced no heat at all; with water inside, the water heated normally while the pot stayed cool to the touch. The reason is simple physics: microwaves heat water, not clay. A pot that isn't waterlogged is effectively transparent to them, so the energy goes straight through into your food. One sensible habit: if a pot has just come out of a long soak or is still wet from washing, let it dry before microwaving. Cleaning: never use soap This is the rule that matters most. Porous clay absorbs soap and detergent into its walls and holds onto it, and it comes back out into your next batch of food as a chemical taste. No amount of rinsing fully removes it. Clean instead with rice or starch coarse powder, or with ash powder — both lift residue and grease, and both rinse away completely. → Full guide: cleaning without soap Storing Dry the pot completely before putting it away — upside down, in open air or a little sunlight. A porous pot stored damp, or sealed in a closed cupboard, is what turns musty. Why unglazed matters There is no glaze on these pots, which means there is no glaze to chip, craze or leach. Just clay and fire — the same materials our families have cooked in for generations. Treated this way, clay does something modern cookware never does: it improves with age. Every season of use leaves the pot smoother, darker and better seasoned than the day it arrived.