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Few things are as rewarding as cooking an amazing meal. Few things are as frustrating as cleaning up after that amazing meal, particularly when it comes to ovens. Below are DIY solutions for cleaning your oven with as little effort as possible.
In pursuit of simplicity
The simplest route to a clean oven is to get somebody else to do it, naturally. There are several dedicated cleaning services that specialise in oven cleaning. However, these services do not come cheap and, for many, seem an unnecessary expense.
One step down on our simplicity map to a clean oven is to clean it frequently. This, however, is not ideal for all as not everyone has the time to clean their oven very often.
For when the going gets tough, though, when you’ve been too busy to give your oven the care it needs, a tough approach is necessary. For this purpose you will need:
1) An oven cleaner – heavy duty, aerosol-based ones are ideal
2) Two cleaning cloths
3) A metal scourer as well as steel wool
4) Rubber gloves for protecting your hands
5) Disposable hand towels
6) Bucket
Step 1: Prepare the oven
Gloves on. It’s likely a very dirty oven will have lots of debris that can be wiped away. Use your hand towels for this. Though this step may seem unnecessary and worth skipping, it will save you valuable time in the long run and make the task of oven cleaning that little bit less unpleasant. Also make sure to open all windows for ventilation.
Step 2: Softening the oven
Grab your oven cleaner and give it a good shake and spray across the entire surface area on the inside of the oven. Some oven cleaners require time to set, while others do not. Read the instructions on your cleaner carefully and act accordingly. What the oven cleaner will do is cut through the hardened grime in your oven and soften it so that cleaning becomes a far less strenuous task.
Step 3: Cleaning out the junk
Fill your bucket with hot water, grab the pot scourer, give it a good dip and start scrubbing away. This is war, so there’s no room to be gentle. You really need to get stuck into the scrubbing! Rinse your scourer frequently to avoid spreading the dirt. Get stuck into every nook and cranny, and pay extra attention to the base of the oven. Once done with the scourer, take a thin layer of steel wool in your hand and scrub the hard to reach corners of your oven.
Step 4: Adding the sparkle
With the hard work done, it’s time to start adding some sparkle. Replace the water in your bucket with clean, lukewarm water, and start wiping away the grime with one of your cloths. Rinse the cloth as needs be and then resume wiping. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Once the inside of the oven looks respectable again, take your other dry cloth and wipe where there may be moisture left over. Your oven should be looking pristine at this point.
PSCS
We call this approach the PSCS method: prepare, soften, clean, sparkle, and it is adaptable to most stubborn, difficult to clean household and heavy-duty appliances. Remember, removing the grates and oven dishes before cleaning is necessary. Wash these separately in a bucket using the same PSPC method outlined above.
Not that bad
Oven care needn’t be a nightmare. Though, in the life of virtually every oven that gets used with any level of frequency, an emergency cleaning is inevitable. This process needn’t be lengthy or strenuous if one prepares carefully and follows the basic steps outlined above. Let the tools at your disposal do the bulk of the work, clean your oven regularly, and hopefully this emergency cleaning can be deferred. This way you can get back to what you enjoy doing: the cooking and eating.
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