The other day I wrote about how embarrassingly dirty our oven has been – since we hadn’t cleaned it in a little over two years (When we bought it!). You can read more about our story here and what we did to clean the oven. I came up with a few really great tips that I realized during or wish I would have thought of before I cleaned the oven. I’m so happy now that I can cook my Holiday meals and not worry about people looking in my dirty oven!
#1) Use Easy-Off
First and foremost – It’s so easy to use oven cleaner like Easy-Off! I highly recommend it. It made the house stink a little – but it took me a little less than 30 minutes (including photographs) to clean my oven to a shine! And I barely used any strength (other than bending crazy directions to get to the top and back of the oven!). #1.5 & Disclaimer) I don’t recommend that people with bad joints attempt to clean their own ovens. In fact – after going through this today, I decided that I’m going to go to my moms house to clean her oven soon – there’s no way either of them could get down there!
#2) Proper ventilation
I noticed after spraying the Easy Off into my oven and walking away while I let the foam set in – that I was having a hard time taking deep breaths without coughing. I opened the windows and it helped quite a bit. By the time I was cleaning the oven, the stink was gone – but I left the windows open just to be sure.
#3) Get others out of the house
Send the Kids, Pets, and anyone else who doesn’t need to be around the stink – out of the house. There is no use in them being there, so why expose them to any unnecessary chemical smells? Our kids went to the neighbors house, and my husband was in the back room playing video games.
#4) Think about what you’re wearing.
So when you’re bending and twisting to get to the odd corners of your oven – your clothing will likely get a little grease stains on it. Be sure you’re not wearing your favorite clothes!
#5) Have Gloves handy
It’s actually in the instructions on the Easy-Off can, but I didn’t think about it when I bought the Easy-Off at the store. Thankfully I had some spare cleaning gloves around to protect my hands (Ew!)
#6) Use Paper Towels
The directions on the can say to use a sponge with water and a bucket to rinse it in. I found this to be unattractive to my mind. Especially considering the mess I had – I didn’t want to be working the sponge to get the grease out and dripping all over the place! I used about 15 or so paper towels – simply wiping the foam and gunk off (with no water added to the towels). This left some dry streak lines behind.
#7)Garbage
Keep a small garbage pail near the oven so when you are throwing away chunks and/or soaked rags/paper towels, you don’t have to throw them across the room, putting your floors at risk for staining.
#8) Cover your Surfaces
They recommend placing newspapers down on the ground. Although I didn’t have any spillage – I’m guessing that if I was a little less careful, I would have.
#9) Vinegar and Water
After you’re finished cleaning, it helps to use 1 cup of a 50/50 mixture of vinegar and water to wipe the oven down one last time. This removes the left-behind residue from the oven cleaner. This also makes the oven SUPER shiny! So nice!
#10) Burn the Residue
When you’re all cleaned up, close the oven and turn it on one last time at 300 for about 15 minutes. This will get rid of the remaining smells so when you go to cook your next meal, you’re not turned off by the stink.
Do you have any more oven cleaning tips? I’d love to hear them!
Thanks for the great tips. I never thought to use vinegar to clean it out afterwards. i need to do this to my oven, I haven’t cleaned it in years.
What a timely post. I was thinking last night that it was time to clean our dirty oven! Great tips!