Difficulty: Intermediate
For those of you who have self cleaning ovens aren’t you lucky. All you have to do is lock the door, flip a switch and walk away. A few hours later your oven is clean. You can skip right past this post and on to the next one. Unfortunately for me and many others we are the lucky owners of ovens without a self cleaning function. Never fear, I will walk you through the steps to clean your oven with a little cleaner and a lot of elbow grease!
Let me get this out of the way right now. You may break a sweat and you will get dirty. If you have visions of yourself in a cocktail dress and pearls, just like in a 1950’s add for oven cleaner, while cleaning your oven guess again. Work clothes, such as those you would wear to paint your house would be good. Wear clothes that you don’t care about and then you don’t have to be careful.
Now that you’ve traded your Sunday best for some coveralls you need to gather your supplies. Once you’re suited up and weapon in hand your ready to tackle the beast.
Supplies
Oven Cleaner or All Purpose Cleaner and Baking Soda
Paper Towels or an old rag
Stainless Steel or Copper Scrubber
Rubber Gloves (notice in these pics that I am not wearing rubber gloves and my nails were totally wrecked)
Screw Driver
Let’s Get to Work
First you need to remove everything from the oven: racks, thermometer, bake ware etc. You don’t want anything in your way so that you can more easily clean the inside of the oven. After you have removed everything from the oven, spray all surfaces with oven cleaner or all purpose cleaner.
If you are using all purpose cleaner you need to sprinkle baking soda over all of the surfaces, except the top, because, well gravity. Let the cleaner sit for awhile, if you have overnight go for it, if not try a half to an hour. You may need to spray all purpose cleaner again partway through to keep the surface wet.
After letting the cleaner sit grab your rubber gloves and scrubber and start scrubbing. Work your way around the oven cleaning from top to bottom and left to right. This way no dirty grime from the top of the oven will fall onto the clean bottom.
Once you’ve scrubbed the entire oven including the window in the door spray with water or more all purpose cleaner and wipe clean with paper towels or an old rag.
Now that the inside of the oven is clean take the scrubber and scrub the racks. Water is probably all that’s necessary to clean the racks, just lightly scrub with water and they should come clean.
Now take a look at the window in the oven door. Does it still have drips even though you scrubbed the glass? Run your fingers over the surface of the glass if it feels smooth that means the drip is inside the door.
Grab your trusty screw driver and remove the screws in the top corners of the door. Set the screws and washers aside and pry the two pieces of the door apart.
Then spray cleaner on the glass from the inside and wipe up the drips. If necessary use a scrubber to remove the grime.
Wipe clean with a wet paper towel. Now that the glass is all clean it’s time to put everything back together. Push the two pieces of the door back together. You may need to force it, so be careful not to pinch your fingers. Replace the screws and washers and tighten the screws. Put the racks back inside and any other things that you removed from the oven.
Step back and take a look at your gleaming oven. Don’t be alarmed if the first time you use your oven it gives off a burning smell. That’s just from knocking all the burned on food loose and the smell sill subside after a few minutes. Now don’t go too long in between cleanings and it won’t be such a chore.
A word of caution: Do not use oven cleaner in a self cleaning oven. There is oven cleaner made for self cleaning ovens that can be used for spot cleaning. Running a self cleaning oven with oven cleaner can damage the oven