Melissa Briones, owner of Melissa's House Cleaning in Lawton, Oklahoma, begins by cleaning the stovetop: "Basically, I clean the top of the stove with soap and water. If there is any caked-on or baked-on grease, then I use oven cleaner to get if off." The burners can also be cleaned with soap and water.
Abrasive scrubs should be avoided whenever possible because they can scratch and damage surfaces over time. Abrasives should never be used on glass top stoves. Instead, use soap and water or follow the manufacturer's recommendations as listed in your owner's manual.
Next, wire racks from the oven can be cleaned with soap and water in the kitchen sink, and, if they are terribly stained or greasy, they can be gently scrubbed with an abrasive cleanser or a steel wool pad. Avoid scratching any surfaces, as this will make them more difficult to clean the next time, requiring harder scrubbing, causing further scratching and creating even more difficult stains in the future. Use the minimum amount of pressure needed to remove the grease and burnt-on food.
Briones cleans the inside of ovens with the spray-on oven cleaners found in most retail stores. As far as the cleaning process goes, she says, "I go by what the can says." Typically that means spraying the cleaner on the surfaces and wiping them down about an hour later. "If there is still too much baked-on gunk left, then I will spray it a second time, let it sit for another hour, and then wipe it down again," she says.
Be sure the oven is cool before spraying any chemicals. To prevent damage to floors and surrounding cabinets, place newspaper or cloth coverings over these areas for protection. Also, protect your hands by wearing gloves. Briones also warns, "When you use oven cleaner, make sure to open up the windows in areas where the fumes might disturb people. These areas need to air out through some kind of ventilation."
Rinse the oven well after cleaning, so that chemicals do not contaminate your food and residual odors do not affect the flavors of your cooking.
Modern continuous-clean ovens should never be cleaned with spray-on products as they can cause clogs and damage the surface.
If the oven has a glass window, it can be cleaned with soap and water or a mild abrasive. If this is not enough, carefully scrape the glass with a razor blade.
The seal around the over door should also be cleaned. Once again, soap and water is best as it will not damage the material. Be sure to rinse well, in order to keep the gasket supple.
Some tips to keep your oven from getting extremely messy in between cleanings include wiping the oven after cooking or baking. "If something spills over," says Briones, "just clean it right after, as soon as the oven cools. If you think that something might spill over, use a cookie sheet or something flat right under what you are baking to catch whatever overflows." It is also important to cook and bake using appropriately sized pots and pans so foods have less tendency to overflow. To do a more general type of cleaning, simply use soap and water or Formula 409, as Briones recommends. She also says, "If you have a glass top or ceramic top stove, you can use a surface protector." These can be found in many stores and protect your stovetops from any sort of grease spill, making them easier to clean up.
To keep messes from getting out of hand, once-a-month cleanings should suffice. The longer you let spills go, the more difficult the next cleaning will be. Each time you cook or bake, burnt-on residue becomes harder and harder.
