Last week I cleaned my oven. About 3/4 of the way through, I realized that I hadn't taken any "before" pictures but that I wanted to blog about it because conventional oven cleaner is such a toxic, caustic, nasty chemical cleaner (check out the chemical safety data sheet here) and I wanted to share my cleaning method so that, if you are like me, once every two years or so the job can be a little easier.
After sweeping out copious amounts of baking soda from the floor of my oven, I lightly spray the oven down with white vinegar. Then I preheat the oven to 200 degrees F. After five minutes or so, I turn the oven off and pour white vinegar into the oven being careful not to get it on the oven's heating elements. When the oven is cool enough to work on, I use a scouring pad to scrub it clean. The mess usually comes up pretty easily no matter how many times it has been baked on. This time I thought it would be best to lay down a layer of tinfoil to save myself the trouble the next time I clean it.
I know I can't really hope to demonstrate an accurate representation of "before" and "after" when I start taking pictures just a few minutes before I finished, but here's a picture I took of the sidewall of the oven before I scrubbed it:
Remember, I'm intrinsically lazy, so this is after a half-hearted attempt at scrubbing:
5 comments:
I can't believe it took me so long to come check out your newest blog. You already have so many posts! I LOVE your blog background.
I hate cleaning the oven. Mine has a self-cleaning thing, but it doesn't get it clean enough. Baking soda and vinegar sounds better than the really gross stuff I've used before. Thanks for the info.
You must have only looked at my oven once on a good day! Do you have any good ideas for the shower surround? I hate cleaning it and it never seems to get really clean without using stuff that makes me feel like I've poisoned myself!
Okay dur to the fact that I am dumb I am confussed on how to do this... Do I dump baking soda on then sweep out all the crap and baking soda, spray with vinger bake, more vinager and scrub. is that right?
Amii - the only reason I have baking soda all over the floor of my oven was because I waited so long to clean it that I had to use baking soda to put out small fires ;D
Spray the oven down with white vinegar. Turn the oven onto 200 degree's for 5 minutes or so. When the oven has cooled enough to work on it, pour more white vinegar into the bottom and, if neccesary, spray the sides (don't get it on the heating elements). Scrub.
If I have an especially tough spot, I pour a little baking soda over the vinegar - the foaming action seems to help loosen things up a bit.
Oh I get it, okay I am going to try this.
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