Investing a self-cleaning oven is a luxury you should no doubt afford – your super cool machine will save you from tedious hours scrubbing burnt-on grease. Let’s be honest, cleaning the oven is one of those chores you never look forward to tackling, which is why food residue and dirt often compromise the perfect taste of your meals.
A Cleaning Guide for your Self-Cleaning Oven
In order to get the most of the self-cleaning setting of the oven, follow these steps and take full advantage of the support you are provided:
Ensure perfect ventilation
Considering the fact that the process of self-cleaning involves some smoke, excellent ventilation should be provided in your kitchen. So before you let your oven clean itself, open the windows or turn the fan on. The smoke, accompanied by tough smells can affect your squeaky clean kitchen walls, which is why proper ventilation is a must. Also, you should expect a high temperature in the premise, so make sure kids, pets or any other member of your family has no access to the kitchen for as long as the process lasts.
Empty the oven
Once you make sure you can count on perfect ventilation, you should empty the oven, as well as surfaces around the machine. If you store pots and pans in the appliance, take them out, otherwise their shiny coating will get damaged by the heat the cleaning process goes with. Don’t forget to remove your oven’s racks as well and clean them by hand with an eco-friendly solution of white vinegar and water. Soak the racks in the mixture, so that you can easily scrub off built up grime.
Address stubborn spills
Surely the self-cleaning function of your oven works magic for a sparkly clean machine, but you can facilitate the procedure by addressing tough grime manually. Keep in mind, however, that this step doesn’t concern a slightly contaminated oven. Use a natural scrubbing paste of baking soda and water or apply a commercial cleanser only if your appliance seems too neglected. This way you will be able to boost the effects the self-cleaning setting ensures.
Let the oven self clean
Now that you have prepared your kitchen and the oven for self cleaning, it’s time to run the cycle. Usually a self-cleaning cycle lasts for a few hours, depending on the type of oven you have. For your own protection oven’s door will stay locked during the process, so don’t worry if the door gets locked once you turn self-cleaning on. You will be able to open the oven as soon as the cleaning process is over and the machine cools down completely. Now all you have to do is to dampen a clean cloth or a towel and wipe your oven’s interior. Address the top and the bottom of your appliance and make sure you collect everything the self-cleaning cycle has loosened up. Tackle that task and return your squeaky clean racks back to the oven.
Check the glass door
While the self-cleaning process lasts, chances are the inside of your oven’s glass door gets affected by dirt and grease. Surely you don’t want to compromise the perfect shape of your machine, so prepare a cleaning paste of baking soda and water. Apply the abrasive mixture to the glass surface and let it sit for at least 1 hour, then wipe with a clean sponge. Baking soda will cut through grease, allowing you to get rid of spills in a flash. Fear not, this solution is mildly abrasive and gentle enough to protect the glass from nasty scratches.
Scrubbing stubborn messes from your oven’s interior could be challenging, so simplify the process with the help of the self-cleaning setting of your appliance. Relying on this function will make oven cleaning really easy, as long as you follow these important steps.
