I have been a "contributing" member of a household for 20 years now. I started doing the dishes at age 10. SOmeone please tell me why it NEVER dawned on me as I was cleaning all these bowls, bags, tips, ect. with all of this wonderfully fattening buttercream icing, that I was putting CRISCO down my drain!?!?!?!?!? It wasn't until my garbage disposal quit and my sink is full of slimy muck that I realized what I was doing
Is all this sugar making me stupid??????

Yeah, it's hard to get all that Crisco into the garbage instead of the sink. It's just like grease...NOT good for your pipes.

so even if you run hot water for a few minutes it will still mess up your pipes? I just bought a house and this would be good information to know.

So THAT is what is wrong with my sink and disposal?????? GROSS!

I have a suggestion. My dad is a maintenance manager in an apartment complex and he gave me this tip , and it works for me. When i work with anything greasy. I take the ice from the icemaker and dump it in the garbage disposal and turn it on. This will harden the greasy stuff and with the cold water running it will clean the garbage disposal then you put a little bit of "Drano" and that should do the rest. I hope this help!!

Earlier this year, my sink stopped up so I bought some off-brand stuff to unclog it-used the whole bottle and it did not work. Then I bought some Drain-O and even that did not work. So I got to thinking, "Maybe I could just boil some water and pour it down the drain." So I did, but I did it right before I went to bed so no one would use it and it would have time to work. I woke up the next morning, turned the water on and let it run for a couple of minutes to see if it was still stopped up and it wasn't. I thought, "Well next time I won't waste my money on something to unclog the drain. I will just pour some boiling water down the drain." I used my tea kettle (about 8 cups) to boil water.

My mom used to do cakes at home for over 20 years and after she had called the same plummer out several times - he told he was going to hate to lose her business but if she would pour a gallon of cheap vinager down the drain once a month she would never have to pay him again. She started doing that and never had another problem. in the kitchen sink. If the bathroom sink would clog she would pour vinegar down that sink and within no time the drain would be clear,

After we moved into our house I had been doing cakes & was not using the vinegar and the drain got clogged. So thru the clog and all I poured a gallon of vinegar and within 1 hour my drain was clear. So I now pour a gallon once a month with no more problems.

Baking soda then pour some vinegar let sit for awhile then flush with boiling water. I forget the amounts to use. I just pour it in. It's suppose to be a different route than chemicals. Maybe it would work good for the criso.

Vinegar to keep your drains clean!!! See, you can learn anything at CC! Thanks for the great tips you guys!

My wonderful hubby came home and I asked him sweetly to please fix it! Guess what else he found in the disposal???? the ring to one of my couplers . It was in many pieces - so many in fact that he thought it was egg shells. Once he got all that mess out it worked beautifully!!!! And he even cleaned the sink too!!!
Lesson learned: buttercream waste goes in the trash - not sink... but just in case vinegar once a month.
Thanks all ... this could have been REALLY EXPENSIVE

My mom and dad built the house I live in 7 years ago, and I moved in 3 years ago. Mom used to pour the grease down the sink everytime she fried anything. She never had a problem out of the pipes..WELLLLLLL one day last year DD turned her sink on in her bathroom upstairs and it stopped up...so we told her to use the half bath downstairs and it too was full of YUCK, but we never use that sink...HMMMMMM Well DH took the snake and plunger to the sink and fixed it ..SO HE THOUGHT..Next day..my kitchen sink clogged on both sides. We did the draino,and the snake, and pretty much any other chemical you could think of and NOTHING!!! So DH got pissed and went downstairs in the basement with the HACKSAW and began cutting away...I thought he had gone mad..LOL

He cut the pipes away from the kitchen sink and it was so clogged you could not fit a pencil in there. IT STUNK SOOOO BAD and it was ALL GREASE..but it had clogged all the way into the bathroom sinks somehow...We had to replace every single pipe in this house...

I REFUSE to put a bit of grease in my sink now. I take a big bowl of hot water and clean everything before it gets cleaned again in the dishwasher...

I always combine vin, baking soda, lemon juice, Dawn dish soap and ice cubes! Clean as a whistle!

Gosh! if buttercream does that to sink pipes, imagine what it does to our own personal plumbing! Double GROSS! Maybe WE should drink a vinegar cocktail once a month!

I've done draino and the vinager/baking soda. Even if you wipe everything out good you still get the crisco down the drain, and after a while it does build up.

I've also heard that running a gallon of bleach down the shower/bath drain helps it. Your shower gel and all that other stuff can build up in it.

Well, from what I've read, it sounds like some of you might pour ALL of the leftover icing down the drain. I'm not trying to blame or criticize anyone, but if you are like me, I save as much leftover icing as I can. If I have to, I squeeze every little bit I can back into the bowl. Even if there is no coupler on the bag, I squeeze every bit out of the tip and believe me tip #1 is the HARDEST. I am a cheap-o so I try to save the icing for my next project. Sometimes I do end up throwing it away because the recipe says it will last for about 3 weeks and I don't make cakes every week, but my husband says his co-workers want another cake at work so I might start doing that more often. Anyway, I always use Dawn dishwashing liquid and the hottest water I have, though I do need to get some gloves because that hot water hurts my hands. I've just learned how to do more flowers in Royal Icing, so I will probably do those in my leftover icing and save them.

I have always used Dawn dishwashing soap. It is great! If I don't save my icing for next time (I do a lot of cakes so I usually save it), I will scrape the remainder in the trash and then rinse and wash out the container, bag, tip, etc... in hot water with Dawn. After I'm finished washing everything, I turn my hot water as hot as it will go and give a good squirt down the drain and let it run for a minute or two. My mother also did this when I was growing up and we've never had a problem with sinks backing up.

Just thought I'd add my two cents...

~Chelle

I've never heard of the vinegar trick, but my plumber told me about the bleach. Living upstairs I don't have many problem with clogs, but that doesn't mean I am innocent should my downstairs neighbor have clogs. I mean, I don't put food down the drain, but my icing can get in the drains when I'm cleaning the tips and such. I do have an agreement with my neighbor.... if her plumbing gets clogged up and the plumber tells her that it is in a common line that we share (and writes it on the bill), I will gladly pay for half of the bill if it is a grease build up. Wall clogs are a different story though.

I have heard that boiling water might damage plastic pipes. I cannot verify this at all, though.

~C