Water won’t put out grease fires. Did you know that? If your oven is truly dirty, a grease fire could start at the bottom of it. Most of the time it’ll burn out on its own, but who wants to chance that?
Avoiding a grease fire is the best option and to do that, you need to know how to deep clean an oven. It’s not an easy process, but it will get you results.
Learn what to do once you roll up your sleeves, below.
Step 1: Gather Supplies
If you’re about to clean your oven, you’ll need a few things.
- Rubber gloves
- A scrub brush
- An old toothbrush
- Oven cleaner
- Trash bags
- A sponge
- Elbow grease
Granted, you can’t buy that last one at a store, but depending on the state of your oven, you’re going to need it.
Step 2: Remove Accessories
With your supplies nearby and your oven off and cool, you’ll want to take all the racks and doodads out of your oven. Place them in a bathtub or outside, where you can spray them will grill cleaner.
If nothing else, soak them in an old kids pool, which is great to store in the garage for big cleaning tasks. The longer that your racks soak, the easier things will be.
For the first soak, try adding dawn blue dish soap to the water. It’s pretty good at breaking down grease.
Step 3: Decide Your Method
You can clean your oven one of two ways now – you can spray a product or you can set your oven to “self-cleaning” mode.
Self-cleaning will heat the oven up higher than it usually goes and it will lock the door until the process is over.
Spray cleaning is what it sounds like. You spray a heavy foam like cleanser (available at most stores) in and all around the oven.
You then close the oven and let the chemicals sit for as long as the back of the can says.
Step 4: Removing Grime
You’re still going to have to wipe down the inside, no matter the method you chose. If you chose self-cleaning, you’ll have to wait for the oven to cool before moving on.
When it’s cool and ready/ you’ve waited the allotted amount of time, get your sponge and some trash bags ready.
Open the oven and reach your arm to the back. Using the sponge, push the dirt and grease towards the door of the oven.
Cover the door in a trash bag, so you can easily clean up later.
Keep doing this until there’s no more foam or burnt pieces in the oven.
Once it’s all clear, wipe it down with mild soap and water. You don’t want those oven cleaner chemicals to get in your food.
Step 5: Attack the Racks
Your racks should have been soaking now for a couple of hours. You can even leave them overnight, just make sure they’re 100% covered with water, or you risk them rusting.
Take a scrub brush or an old toothbrush and rub them down. Then given them a rinse and put them back in.
How to Deep Clean an Oven
After you put all this work into cleaning your oven, you’ll likely be a lot more careful about how you use it in the future. Always make sure you put things on trays and that there’s something there (like tin foil) if you suspect it might boil over.
Now that you know how to deep clean an oven, you’re one step closer to a clean house. Want to be even closer without doing the work? Give us a call.