5 Hot Cleaning Tips Your Stove Will Love (You Will Too)

Jump To:

• Broiler Pan Burdens
• Easy Oven Rack Cleaning
• Stove Top Grates Got You Down
• Food Spills And Seasoning To Soften Them
• Dirty Exhaust Fan Filter Cleaning

Let me share with you that I do the cleaning around our home and as some would say, I must be crazy because I confess that I enjoy cleaning!  And when cleaning my home, I follow the same cleaning checklist that our house cleaning service uses when cleaning a client’s home.

That includes kitchen cleaning which implies cleaning the stove and the oven inside. Now even though I enjoy cleaning around our home, I must say that when it comes cleaning the stove, well, if I’m being honest with you, I have to say that this task is one I would rather leave to someone else.

Alas, I fear I’m stuck with our sticky stove since nobody else has ever volunteered to clean it for me. So I’m all about discovering the best and most efficient ways to care for our stove so I can relax and admire my finished work sooner rather than later. If this sounds interesting to you read on to learn a few dos when it comes to cleaning a stove.

1. Broiler Pan Burdens

Let’s tackle what I believe is the most challenging part of cleaning a stove — the broiler.  It’s messy, the food is usually baked on, and it can be hard on the back because it’s near the floor.  A quick tip is to use a garden kneeling pad to soften the abuse on your knees when kneeling to scrape and scrub the broiler.

Begin by heating the pan and then liberally sprinkle laundry detergent over any area where the food is obviously baked on. Cover the area with a damp wet paper towel for 20 minutes. You’ll soon discover that the area you just treated will scrape off much easier with a plastic scraper than if you didn’t treat it.

Next spray the entire area with oven cleaner.  Let the oven cleaner dwell according to the directions on the container and scrub the whole area with a dobie pad before rinsing with clean water and a rag.  Finally, dry it thoroughly with paper towels and relish the fact that you’ve just completed the most challenging part of cleaning a stove.

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2. Easy Oven Rack Cleaning

Dirty oven racks are tedious to clean at best. One way that many people clean oven racks is to submerge them in soapy water in the bathtub.  The only problem with doing this is you have to scrub out the grease in the bathtub.  Would you be interested in an easy way to clean oven racks without the usual messy aftermath?

The solution is in the bag, it literally is!  Place your oven racks in a large heavy-duty plastic trash bag before adding 1/3 cup of dishwashing liquid, 1 cup of white vinegar and filling the bag almost full with hot water.  Seal the bag tightly before placing it in your bathtub with warm water for about an hour.

When you remove the racks from the bag scrub and rinse them as usual before allowing them to air dry.  You can flush the dirty water from the plastic bag down the commode and keep the bathtub for bathing.

3. Stove Top Grates Got You Down

Tough food stains on stove top grates are not much of a problem and not much work to get them looking like new again when you know how.

To start, simply wipe them down with Easy-off oven cleaner.  Next, place them into your oven and turn on the oven to your self-cleaning setting.  When the cleaning cycle is complete and they’ve cooled down remove them and wipe off with a paper towel.

The self-cleaning action should bake the food stuck on the grates to the point that all that’s left is ash and cleaning should be a snap with a quick wipe.

4. Food Spills And Seasoning To Soften Them

It’s going to happen no matter how diligent you’re being — nasty food spills when cooking.  And to add insult to your pride, the spill just gets more difficult to clean because it’s continuously being baked which hardens it.

The solution is to season the spill.  Oh, we’re not planning to scrape it off the oven to eat later. But, if you sprinkle the spill with salt as soon as it happens or soon after it happens, you’ll discover that after your food comes out of the oven the spill will be reduced to a small pile of ash. And as most know ash is easy to wipe up.

So the next time your oven roast or Cornish hens boil out over your roasting pan or your fresh baked cherry or French apple pie has bubbled out from the pie pan, sprinkle some salt on the spilled mess and clean up the leftover ash after baking. Use this tip and there will be no need to scrape and scrub the spills.

5. Dirty Exhaust Fan Filter Cleaning

This last tip is one that promises to save you some money.  When our stove exhaust fan filter got dirty I would just toss it in the trash and replaced it with a new one.  My reasoning was on the order of something that is that greasy just isn’t worth the time and trouble to clean it.

Well, I just recently learned of a way to put that puppy to rest or more specifically a simple and easy way to clean my exhaust fan filter.  On a monthly basis, I recommend removing the filter and then spray it liberally with WD-40.  Let it sit for an hour or so before scrubbing it with an old toothbrush and finally give it a bath in your dishwasher.

The grease will be gone from the filter and the green will stay, that is the green in your wallet when you work your magic with this cleaning tip.

Those are our 5 hot cleaning tips for your stove.  If you have any tips you’d like to share please share them in the comments section below.  Happy cleaning and thank you for reading.

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