It's an oven cleaner. Yep- our oven needed cleaning. Like I mentioned before, we're clean people... but I never lived somewhere long enough to worry about things like cleaning an oven. Until now. Our apartment is getting a 'pre-moving inspection' tomorrow. Sound scary? I agree. So we are furiously cleaning around the boxes in the hope they will deem the *tiny* finishing nail holes insignificant.
Our oven hasn't been cleaned in TWO years and was pretty darn gross. Andrew and I discussed the best way to clean the oven. We really didn't want to use chemical cleaner.
There is nothing more disgusting than cleaning what you cook or eat your food off of with toxic chemicals. Why would we clean what we bake our food in with nasty chemicals? Um. Yeah.
So, we turned the oven on to 500 and baked the sh*t out of 'er (excuse the language... trucker-yogini is slipping out). Hmm... not exactly the final answer.
I had read in Ecoholic Home that a supposedly effective cleaning method was to put on a paste of baking soda (bicarbonate) and water, let sit for a while and scrub off. We've read about coating baking soda on and leaving it overnight, but honestly who has the time for that?? 30min, 60 TOPS. Honestly, we both didn't really think it was going to work. We had the whole 'resigned to using chemical cleaner' in the back of our minds.
30 minutes later Andrew takes an exploratory scrub... and holy crap it works. Not only does it work, but it actually required minimal scrubbing and seemed to just fall away!! This is TWO YEARS of food, baked on (at 500 degrees hah) easily scrubbing away.
Our disgusting Oven. See that white paste? That's the GUNK coated with baking soda. Where the green sponge is? That's where the gunk (piled high) used to be...Lesson learned. Baking soda as oven cleaner= awesomeness.
Blessings!
article and photograph copyright of EcoYogini at ecoyogini.blogspot.com
I have asthma so my husband has always cleaned the oven for me and I would leave the room or sometimes the house. This has generally been done once a year before Thanksgiving. A couple of years ago I really needed the oven cleaned and he just wasn't finding time. I decided to try baking soda. I was amazed! No more oven cleaner here.
ReplyDeleteI used baking soda on my crockpot the other day, and lo and behold, it's white again! Love me some baking soda.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah,
ReplyDeleteI use baking soda SO much.
It's very good cleaning up my eggy stuck frypan, my sink,tub ,toilets,oven...
it's a miraculous odour fee solution!
Baking soda is the best thing ever. We mix up a big batch of baking soda, salt, and liquid castile soap to form a paste that will pretty much scrub anything clean! YAY clean oven!
ReplyDeleteYea Eco! I can't wait to try this, well I can wait but my oven can not!
ReplyDeleteBaking Soda is the BEST for cleaning tea/coffee stained mugs-they look like brand new inside rather than scummy...esp nice for guests :)
ReplyDeleteI've tried the baking soda oven cleaning method, but it makes such a mess! I can't seem to get all the baking soda out once I'm done cleaning. I did it months ago and there's still white clumps stuck in the cracks and crevices. Even after vacuuming it out, after I use the oven again it reappears! How can I get it all cleaned up once I'm done?
ReplyDeleteJessica and others - baking soda really is brilliant but you're right in saying it can be hard to get off sometimes. My advice is to be as thorough as possible getting it off as fast as you can - leaving it after it's all dried up can be a real pain! good luck :)
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of oven cleaners in the market and you sometime feel cheated.. Hiring commercial Oven Cleaners brisbane and Oven Cleaning gold coast is bit tough so I will try to use your cleaner now.. Hope it works
ReplyDeleteThanks for the advice. I've recently started trying a few green/natural/checmical free techniques, it's been kind of eye opening to see what you can achieve without toxic chemicals! My husband and I spend quite a lot of time away from home at work, but with a few teenage kid yet to leave home the place can get a bit messy, it has to be said! Particularly the cooker... they don't seem to enjoy cleaning that themselves :P Both our home and holiday home are fairly modest in size so we can manage most of it ourselves even with our busy schedules, though we have in the past used professional companies to come in and do the cookers. The two we use are oven cleaning sutton coldfield and oven cleaning medway, and it's nice to know that as well as doing a fantastic job, they don't use harsh chemicals either. But whether you go for that route or the D.I.Y. route, you can always get a decent job done without nasty chemicals! Thanks again for the informative post :)
ReplyDeleteJust a quick comment to say thanks a lot for your post and also ask (including other commenters) if they have ever had to clean a cooker when moving in to a new house and has that made a difference to how they've cleaned it? I don't know what it is but I just can't bring myself to cleaning someone else's grease and grime, especially in the oven! I don't know if I'm weird but it really makes me cringe haha. I usually get my OH to do it, but I have been known to get the professionals in too I won't lie! When we last lived in the area I got oven cleaner sutton coldfield to come and do it. Anyone else?
ReplyDeleteBaking Soda is a great tool for oven cleaning, we use it on a daily basis. Even better if you put lemon juice in the mix.
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