Tackling this month: The oven!

My cleaning task for the month of October is the oven! For several weeks I've had on my list to clean the oven and I decided that was top priority this month! Since I made a quick trip to Houston, I actually ran short of time this month, but with only a few hours left in the month, I finally had a clean oven!

Just look at all that grease and blackened stuff!

The oven is a self-cleaning oven, but that doesn't mean the cooktop is self-cleaning. And that is the hardest part to clean! I have this love-hate relationship with the smooth cooktop. It's much easier to clean spills and I love the smooth space it provides, but...

But it is much harder to control the heat with the burners. It takes longer to heat, does not keep a consistent temp. and takes longer to cool down. Not only that, but if you spill the littlest thing, even a pan boiling over with just a teaspoon of water, it burns it to the cooktop. And since you can't clean it off until it's cool, you (1) have to wait a while to clean it up and (2) it takes a bit of scrubbing to get it off once it is burned on.

Burned water spot on one of the burners.

It is easier to clean since you don't have the element coils, drip bowls and such as our old oven, but whatever boils over and burns on is no easy task either! You have to be cautious what cleaners are used on the glass cooktop so it is not scratched, but I finally ordered one from GE that after lots of soaking and scrubbing finally gets it off.

It took several times using the Cerama Bryte on the glass top and the glass door inside the oven to finally get it clean. I also soaked it in warm, soapy water to help to loosen the tough spots. And even then I had to scrap some of it off with a small blade to get it clean. But get it clean, I did...completely clean and looking just like the day we brought it home!

I even had Dad pull the oven out from the wall and cabnets so I could clean behind and on the sides. Needless to say I found several of Skittles toys she lost months ago under that oven. As a little kitten (she sometime still is!), she batted her toys under the oven with her paw.

the cooktop clean and ready to use!

The oven is self-cleaning, so the inside pretty much cleans itself. I did brush out the burned parts and just rinse the bottom and sides with water after the cleaning cycle. But the racks and glass door are not included in the self-cleaning - that takes your two hands and lots of elbow grease!

Looking so clean! Feels so nice!

For the racks, I let them soak in hot water in the bathtub for a couple of hours to loosen the tough spots and then started scrubbing them down. Those took quite a while, all the scrubbing and cleaning, but they are virtually spot-free!

clean and looking brand new!