Mary, Putting liquid soap to ease in cleaning soot is a proven thing. We have been showing our Boy Scouts how to do that for years when camping out. When cooking on a campfire put some soap onto the bottom of the pots (it dosen't take much) and the cleanup is much easier. That also works on pots used on a propane burner (down here we use that to cook crawfish). You would think the soap burns off, and some does but it leaves a film between the soot and the metal.

Just FYI.

Clayton