Clean House!

I finally cleaned my gross and smelly oven. Yes, it was about time and just before Thanksgiving. Cleaning my oven is one of my least favorite chores, and I let the gunk buildup before I finally breakdown and get out the oven cleaner.

Yes, I have a self-cleaning oven but my hubby and I detest the electrical smell that comes from the oven while it is self-cleaning at temperature set at “hell” for, I don’t know, something like 5 hours.

About 2 weeks ago, I could no longer look into the oven without feeling a little sick to my stomach so I turned on the self-cleaning function just before I went to bed. I really tried to ignore the smell burying my face into my pillow after turning on every ceiling fan in the house. Then I realized that I had left the racks in and is it okay to leave the racks in or is it bad? I jumped out of bed and hit “cancel” like 20 times before the damn thing would shut off. Meanwhile, I have my hubby yelling from the bedroom, “What’s that smell?” Ugh, I give up.

Rack in the bag

A few days later, I’m having lunch with the English ladies when we were talking about cleaning people and does yours ever clean the oven, when I related my hatred of the self-cleaning oven smell. They looked startled and said, “Well, don’t you use Oven Pride?”

Before

Oven Pride? What? I’ve never heard of it. They said that it was the best product to use to clean your oven. Hmmm, must be an England thing.

Later that day I looked it up on Amazon and ordered Oven Pride from the UK. In about a week, my package arrived. Examining the package I was a little concerned about all the WARNINGS. After I thoroughly read the directions it went like this:

• I put on the rubber gloves that were supplied.
• I placed the rack in the provided jumbo bag and poured 1/2 of the bottle into the bag. I carefully sealed the bag and made sure all of the rack’s surface was covered with the liquid. They I placed it outside on top of the barbecue so that it was far away from pets and humans.
• I poured the rest of the contents into the oven and took a sponge to evenly spread it around. The directions said to NOT get liquid on the glass. It also said NOT to use on self-cleaning ovens but I ignored that part.
• You must be extremely careful to not get any of the liquid on your skin or on clothes. I would recommend wearing some kind of eye protection, too. I wore the eye protectors I wear when I play racquetball.

There are specifics about how to dispose of the bag and bottle when done. I simply rinsed the bottle out and placed it in the recycling bin. (When finished with the bag, I sealed it up and placed it in the trash.) Meanwhile, I let the rack and the oven marinate or soak overnight. The good news is there is absolutely NO SMELL!!

The next morning, I opened the oven door and it was a pool of brown gunk on the bottom of the oven that was easy to sop up with lots of paper towels and sponges. I did throw away the one pair of supplied gloves that came with the kit, but I had extra rubber gloves that I used taking great care not to get any on my arms as I reached way back of the oven to get into the corners.

It did wipe off easily and no scrubbing was involved. Yea!!!

The rack did not come out as sparkling clean as I had hoped. Maybe too much time has passed between cleanings, but it still has a brown sheen and not the sparkling, chrome look it had when it was brand new. I did try scrubbing with Barkeeper’s Friend but I couldn’t get the shine back. A few sponges were ruined trying. Oh well.

End result

As far as the glass in the door went, I used a combination of Barkeeper’s Friend and Mr Clean’s Magic Erasers and a lot of elbow grease to get that clean. Whew!  I burned a few calories on that project.

So, now I have a nice, clean oven and just in time for company and the holidays.

Note: I have two ovens in my Maytag Gemini stove. I only cleaned the smaller and top oven. The bottom oven does not get used as much and is still clean. If I was going to clean both ovens I definitely would have used 2 boxes of Oven Pride.

I give Oven Pride a 4 stars out of 5 only because i liked it but it didn’t get my rack clean. Would I purchase and use it again? Absolutely.

That same day that I cleaned the oven, I used it to bake a casserole. There was no residual smell. Clean oven, life is good!

Happy Thanksgiving and thanks for reading.

Terry Ryan