How To Clean An Oven
Look, we get it. We don’t all know how to clean an oven. It has been far too long since you dared to open that oven with the intent to clean it out. Same here! It’s effort, it’s scary, and let’s be honest… none of the food you cooked in it has killed you, so do you really even need to?
The answer that none of us want to hear is YES. So we all need to learn how to clean an oven. Let’s do it together.
Equipment
Righty then! The things we are going to need for this kitchen adventure. For that DEEP CLEAN since we are all dirty animals that don’t wipe down regularly we are going to need to use a little more than warm water.
- Bicarbonate of Soda
- Warm Water
- Soaking/Rinsing Tub
- CLEANING GLOVES
You can, if you want, get an oven cleaning kit or set of wipes to help, but you may need something stronger if it gets really caked in, or even something to scrub it with — like a scourer or course sponge.
Method
The dreaded part of the process now. You want to know how to clean an oven? Well, this is the part when you read the steps, and then enact them. Do the things. Yeah, DO IT. Then you might actually have a clean oven and feel really good about yourself.
Step 1
Remove the contents of your Oven. Any trays you have foolishly stored in there long term, the shelving, the lot. Empty it out so that you can get your arms in there! Also, probably make sure it isn’t on too, otherwise it might get a little bit roasty toasty in there for your fingies.
Step 2
Mix your Bicarbonate of Soda and Warm Water together to create your paste as mentioned earlier, and apply it generously to the dirty surfaces of your Oven. Let’s face it, that is probably every surface at this point, so get it all over that baby.
The base, the sides, the back, the inside of the oven door! Easy to miss that part!
Step 3
You want to leave that mixture in there for a good 30 minutes or so. In the meantime, take your oven shelving and contents that you removed earlier, and wash them!
You can do it in your kitchen sink, or in a medium-large tub if that’s better for you. I personally recommend a scourer/goldilocks/whatever you may call it where you come from, and elbow grease. Really scrub it with warm water and soap to remove all that grime hard-coated on the racks.
Here, you are aiming to bring back that sparkly silvery sheen that it came with when it was first freshly installed in your kitchen. Unless it was originally a different colour, then get it back to THAT colour, whatever that may be — though it should really be the sparkly sheening silver metal. No-one wants to cook on paint, that probably won’t end well…
Step 4
Now that you have left the Oven to sizzle under that mixture (figure of speech, do not turn the oven heat on!) it’s time for you to head back to it and clean it out! It may be helpful to have a tub of warm soapy water at this stage to rinse into.
Take your rough sponge/scourer, and start using that elbow grease again! Scrub into the grime that should have started breaking up and lifting off the surface from the mixture we placed on it before. Wipe in small circles to help with that lifting process, and then wipe it out of the oven on your sponge/wipes.
Dry it all off in the Oven and inspect the surfaces! If it looks good, then put your shelving back in, and you are done! If not, then restart from step one and keep going until it looks good!
Top Tips
If you want to make sure this process is as easy as possible, do it regularly! Once a month should keep it fairly simple with very little grime utterly caked into your oven.
If you are up to it, do it more regularly than that!
You can work in wiping down the racks and oven after each use — nothing quite so intense as all this, but just a warm water wipe while it cools down (not while it is stupidly hot! But before it has entirely cooled down.) and you should find there being very little long term build-up that needs cleaning off!
Final Thoughts
I hope that you found this guide on how to clean an oven useful! Feel free to comment on your top methods for cleaning your ovens at home, or how well you got on with following this guide!
For other content here at Showing You the Whey, why not have a look at some Healthy Snacks You can Make at Home? Or perhaps whether or nor you can Water Plants With Coffee?
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