Keeping an newly cleaned oven clean!

  • Thread starter Thread starter LovingHim
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
L

LovingHim

Guest
We have a very basic electric oven that came with our home. It doesn’t even have a self cleaning cycle/feature. We use it frequently, and it starts gettings greasy and blackened after just a week or so, and builds up with time. It has taken my husband (yeah, my scrubbing wasn’t even strong enough 😊 ) half a day to scrub and scrape and clean it, the last time was just before thanksgiving (so two months.) My question is, what is the best way to keep it clean? I’ve heard lining it with foil can help, no? How do you go about doing this? Any other tips? Is there a light weekly cleaning routine I could use to prevent this from happening in the future? Thanks. 🙂
 
How is it getting so greasy and blackened so quickly and frequently? What types of dishes do you make frequently?

Are dishes bubbling over? If so, you may need to use a bigger/deeper pan. Also, putting a cookie tray under your pan will catch spill-overs.

Are dishes splattering on the walls of the ovens? If so, if the dish calls for being uncovered while cooking tent aluminum foil and place it over the pan.

There are oven liners you can get for the bottom of your oven. Just google it and you’ll get lots of hits under $30.
 
LovingHim said:
We have a very basic electric oven that came with our home. It doesn’t even have a self cleaning cycle/feature. We use it frequently, and it starts gettings greasy and blackened after just a week or so, and builds up with time. It has taken my husband (yeah, my scrubbing wasn’t even strong enough 😊 ) half a day to scrub and scrape and clean it, the last time was just before thanksgiving (so two months.) My question is, what is the best way to keep it clean? I’ve heard lining it with foil can help, no? How do you go about doing this? Any other tips? Is there a light weekly cleaning routine I could use to prevent this from happening in the future? Thanks. 🙂
Click to expand...
I wish I could offer some helpful advice. I have never cleaned an oven in my entire life.😊 We have a self cleaning feature on this oven and our last one, and my husband has always done it, because I really don’t understand how to clean ovens. (I might never clean it if he wasn’t around) Then again–it might not get used.😃

But, I think that there are those oven cleaners that you spray on the grease, etc, and it soaks the gunk off? Easy off that’s the name–I remember the commercial. Maybe try that–and do it weekly?
 
Don’t use it. 😉

Seriously, I really don’t know. I need to clean ours but it’s a self cleaning one. I do think they make an Easy Off cleaner that has no smell to it, though. 🤷
 
I have to say that when I saw the title to the thread all I could think of was “don’t ever use it?”:rotfl:

I am not sure I know exactly what you are making though that is getting it so dirty so quickly? I use mine pretty regularly and unless I have a “boil over” I don’t have to clean it that often.

Oh, of course, if I used the broiler feature I would have a royal mess and then I would clean it as soon as it cooled down with a damp sponge w/baking soda on it.

Since this is a problem though, before I used it every time I would wipe down the inside with the damp sponge and baking soda (that way each time I used it it would be clean and cold before I turned it on again) - just make this part of any routine of using the oven.

Brenda V.
 
I am thankful the last two ovens I have had are self cleaning [thought you still need to remove and clean the racks]…

place aluminum foil in the bottom to catch the spills…

One trick that is handy is to leave a bowl of amonia in the oven over night the day before you are going to clean it … the amonia fumes egin loosening the grease …

EasyOff is a fairly harsh cleaner … works great but you need to operate the hood fan and use gloves … if your racks get really grimy … place them in a garbae bag and spray them with the EasyOff [or other oven cleaner] and tie it up … after a day then rinse …

and I would not clean it with EasyOff every two weeks … bad for the environment and the person doing the cleaning :o I would try the amonia in a dish over night followed by a wipe down with a damp rag and sos pad … I used to do that when I had the time … makes the big job a once or twice a year event …

As I said, I am glad that I now have a self cleaning oven 🙂

Also, I do not broil - we use the gas Bar - B - Q outside … something we did not have when I had to clean the oven … broiling is the worst culprit in my memory for making the oven get ‘dirty’…
 
Get an oven liner.
This one is silicone and goes on the bottom of the oven under the element
These are aluminum and are just placed on the lower rack.
 
You won’t need Easy Off and ammonia to clean the oven. Just the cheap bottle of ammonia will do the trick. I learned this as a military dependent who had to make the stove sparkle everytime we moved.

Take out the oven trays, burner drip pans and racks and place them in a plastic trash bag or two. Take it outside or to your garage where you can leave it overnight. Toss in a couple of paper towels and pour enough ammonia on the towels to soak them. Tie the bag shut and forget about them until the next day. You want to have enough space in the bags for the fumes to reach all parts of your items, so more than one bag may be needed if you have a huge mess all at once.

The horrible blackened crud will mostly rinse off with a spray of the hose in the back yard or maybe a little work with the scrub sponge. The fumes are what loosen the stuff, not the liquid of the ammonia. Be careful to do this in a ventilated area because you won’t want to breath the concentrated fumes.

For the oven walls or floor you can actually wipe them down with ammonia on an old rag and shut the door. Go back in several hours or overnight and use a scrub sponge to get the black off with little to no scrubbing. Go back over everything with clean water until you don’t smell anymore ammonia before using the stove again.

If you didn’t get all of the crud the first time, just repeat the ammonia application again. I use this on the drip pans now more than the oven because I got a silicone mat for the bottom of the stove that can go under the electric element. It just wipes clean no matter what spills. I try to keep foil over the top of anything that might spatter the walls of the oven.
 
jc-servant said:
You won’t need Easy Off and ammonia to clean the oven. Just the cheap bottle of ammonia will do the trick. I learned this as a military dependent who had to make the stove sparkle everytime we moved.

Take out the oven trays, burner drip pans and racks and place them in a plastic trash bag or two. Take it outside or to your garage where you can leave it overnight. Toss in a couple of paper towels and pour enough ammonia on the towels to soak them. Tie the bag shut and forget about them until the next day. You want to have enough space in the bags for the fumes to reach all parts of your items, so more than one bag may be needed if you have a huge mess all at once.

The horrible blackened crud will mostly rinse off with a spray of the hose in the back yard or maybe a little work with the scrub sponge. The fumes are what loosen the stuff, not the liquid of the ammonia. Be careful to do this in a ventilated area because you won’t want to breath the concentrated fumes.

For the oven walls or floor you can actually wipe them down with ammonia on an old rag and shut the door. Go back in several hours or overnight and use a scrub sponge to get the black off with little to no scrubbing. Go back over everything with clean water until you don’t smell anymore ammonia before using the stove again.

If you didn’t get all of the crud the first time, just repeat the ammonia application again. I use this on the drip pans now more than the oven because I got a silicone mat for the bottom of the stove that can go under the electric element. It just wipes clean no matter what spills. I try to keep foil over the top of anything that might spatter the walls of the oven.
Click to expand...
I too meant that amonia works [alone]… It is not necessary to use it with the EasyOff … Hoevever, EasyOff does work … but it is a harsh cleaner and has bad fumes …

The amonia trick use best if you start with a clean oven and do not let it get too out of hand… but I agree with you it is a very good method … one I have used to great success in years past…😉

Of course the silcone liners are new … we did not have them years ago … aluminum foil was about the only option … thank God for progress 🙂

I also used amonia in a home made carpet cleaner recipe that worked great too … have not used it in a long time … pretty much now I use an oxy clean solution and clear water … it leaves the carpet cleaner … no soup residue … the carpet is much softer … although in our new house we opted for all hard surfaces and area rugs … even better for cleaning IMHO
 
after ,using your oven, wait until it gets warm, put a bowl which has some h.hold ammonia in it, wait a couple of hours or even o/night, then you should be able to wipe off the grease
 
I’ve never even heard of a self-cleaning oven before, how does that suppose to work?
are you in America by any chance? you always seem to have more gadgets than us, sigh
 
NGC_1569 said:
I’ve never even heard of a self-cleaning oven before, how does that suppose to work?
are you in America by any chance? you always seem to have more gadgets than us, sigh
Click to expand...
A self-cleaning oven has a cycle that heats up to around 900F and it incinerates the grease/food/etc. The oven locks before going into this cycle and you can’t unlock it until it’s cooled below a certain temp. Then, you merely wipe the ash that remains out of the oven.

Yes, self-cleaning ovens are common in the US.
 
I have a self-cleaning overn with a cooktop instead of burners, but as a vet,formermilitary dependent and a cheapskate, I can vouch for the amonia method, including the garbage bags. To make black garbage bags work faster, put them out in direct sunlight.👍
 
These are some really good ideas. Thanks! 🙂 I don’t know what happens in there 😊, like I said it isn’t our stove. It is an older model, way basic, but we rent, so they would have to replace it, and didn’t see it worth replacing yet. Darn! So that’s why I asked for some tips. Thanks again! 😃
 
it was my mom’s idea first but I have adopted it: use the microwave or crockpot most of the time.

seriously I just don’t do the kind of roasting, oven frying or baking that makes for a messy oven any more because we don’t eat that way. If I am going to bake something that might spill over I put a cooky sheet or the broiler pan on the rack beneath, and if something does spill (last thing was baked sweet potatoes “leaking” on the oven floor) I wipe it up as soon as the oven is cool.

there seems to be something wrong with having the oven so hard to clean, I just did MIL’s before she came back–it had never been done since they bought the mobile–and it was pretty bad, but two cycles of heating the oven and easy off worked like a charm.

is it possible it is a self cleaner whose lining has been damaged?

our new one is a self cleaner and I run it once a year, as the manual advises, will do it tonight because it is lowest energy demand, and holiday cooking (as much oven use as the rest of the year) is over.

I would just clean the oven every week with ammonia (use good ventilation and no other cleanser), and wipe clean with water. I would also look at cooking methods. there are plastic bags (Reynolds) intended for roasting meat that keeps the grease from splattering but I imagine Brits who live their Sunday joint might not be happy about using them.
 
LovingHim said:
My question is, what is the best way to keep it clean?
Click to expand...
Order out 🙂 .

I cleaned our oven between Thanksgiving and Chrismas one year. On Christmas, an apple pie slipped off the cookie sheet and made a huge mess.

No more oven cleaning near the holidays. —KCT
 
I was going to say the same thing as a PP, DON’T USE IT!! 😛

Seriously though, ours isn’t self-cleaning either. Had I known that when we built the house I would have upgraded but our builder was a real cheapo and well, that’s all I’ll say there.

But I agree w/ another PP, Wal-Mart has those oven liners for $9.96. Not too pricey in my opinion, however I must admit I haven’t bought them yet:rolleyes:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top