What to clean pistons with

Hope this in the right place. I am currently rebuilding my astra engine. the pistons are carboned up what would be the easiest way to clean them up? Thanks for any help in advance cheers Adrian

when i was into engine rebuilds i just used to leave things like that soak in diesel

I used carb cleaner on some valves and piston heads. Just soaked them in the stuff and scraped the gack off with the end of a cable tie, then finished with a cloth. I summised that the cable tie would be soft enough to not damage the metal, but hard enough to scrape the carbon off. It took some time to get perfect but the result was a good one:

for valves i put the in my drill and and use a coarse sand paper then poilsh them with green scourer. doing pistons i soak them and wipe off as much as poss then gently hit them with a scotch brite pad(red)

Well pointed out Gazeddy ... I remember now I used a scotchbrite pad to polish them up with. I did my valves about 2 years ago and memory was a bit fuzzy.

Cheers guys