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Clean Your Oven Without Scrubbing

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By Noreen Doll.

A friend moved into a place that was in really bad shape, and she asked for ideas on how to clean it.

Easy Way to Clean Your Oven Without Scrubbing - Crafty Journal

The oven was awful, but she didn’t want to have to spend hours trying to scrub it.

Easy Way to Clean Your Oven Without Scrubbing by Crafty Journal

So we tried a trick that I had done before. And this was the result.

Easy Way to Clean Your Oven Without Scrubbing by Crafty Journal

Look at the window. We had a job ahead of us!

Easy Way to Clean Your Oven Without Scrubbing - Crafty Journal

Supplies.

Whisk Broom with Dust Pan, new

Plastic Scraper, new

Old Bath Towel

Ammonia

Dawn Dish Soap

Glass Bowl

Roll of Paper Towels

How We Cleaned the Oven Without Scrubbing.

1. First, we bought a small dust pan with a whisk broom at the Dollar Store.

Easy Way to Clean Your Oven Without Scrubbing by Crafty Journal

We wanted a dust pan that hadn’t been used on the floor since this one would be used in the oven.

We were able to raise the front of the heating element since it is hinged at the back, and we swept out all the loose crumbs.

We used a hard plastic scraper to loosen whatever crusty stuff that we could.

2. Heat the oven to 300 degrees and turn it off.

3. Wet an old bath towel and wring it out. Place the towel in the microwave for 30 or 40 seconds until it’s good and warm.

4. Place the wet towel on the bottom rack and pour about a cup of ammonia over it.

Easy Way to Clean Your Oven Without Scrubbing by Crafty Journal

5. Place a shallow glass bowl about half full of ammonia on the top rack and close the oven door.

I show the bowl sitting directly on the towel because this was a small top oven with only one rack, so I improvised.

6. With damp rags, block all the places the oven vents air. If the ammonia smells strong, you’ve missed a vent.

7. Leave the oven alone for several hours or overnight.

8. When you’re ready to clean the oven, remove the racks, the towel and the bowl of ammonia. And don’t forget to remove the rags from the vent holes.

Use paper towels to wipe out the worst of the sludge. Have a trash bag handy to receive the used paper towels.

When you’ve removed most of the black, use a wet rag with Dawn dish soap to finish cleaning.

The oven was so bad we had to repeat the process, and we didn’t do the Dawn dish soap until after the second ammonia session.

There were a couple of places that we rubbed lightly with baking soda, but we didn’t scrub at all.

It did take us a bit of time to wipe out all the black stuff after the ammonia did its job, but there was a LOT of stuff to remove!

Can you believe how clean the oven is!? And we did it all without scrubbing.

Easy Way to Clean Your Oven Without Scrubbing by Crafty Journal

Caution: Do NOT combine the ammonia with anything, just use plain ammonia.

Because ammonia has strong fumes, you may want to wear eye protection, a mask, and rubber gloves.

Noreen Doll

Crafty Journal

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Comments

  1. That is an awesome trick I’ve never heard of before. I must pin this for future reference. Up until a year ago I’ve never had a self-cleaning oven so this would have come in handy a few times over the years. Thanks for the awesome tutorial Noreen 🙂

  7. I cook in my oven so much my oven is rivaling your friends. This sounds like the perfect solution–no scrubbing! Motivation right there to finally clean it out…

  8. Lol, Traci! I know what you mean, though. I don’t clean my oven as often as I should even having this much easier way to do it. That’s why I knew the Internet needed this post!

  17. Sounds like a good idea. We actually have a self-cleaning oven BUT I hate using the cleaning deal because it gets so hot and sets off our fire alarm. Found you over at the weekend retreat link party.

  19. Awesome!! Love this. I hate cleaning my oven, but the ammonia looks like it worked beautifully!! Great post and great tips! I should have known this would work, as that soak method is how I clean my microwave. What great stuff!

  20. I have an old gas oven with pilot lights. Will this method work for me or will it blow up my house? I’ve seen similar oven-cleaning methods described but never had the nerve to try it due to the open flame!

  21. I can’t promise it would be safe for you to use the ammonia in gas oven with a pilot light. I’m sorry I don’t know the answer and I can’t recommend it because I don’t know how safe it would be.

  22. This is a perfect idea for my oven, I like the no scrubbing and the towel idea, will try this tonight. I found you on Made From Pinterest Party!! I would like to invite you to my Weekends Are Fun too!!!
    Enjoy your weekend, and thanks for the tip!

  25. Wow, what a difference! I’ve used baking soda and water to get mine clean, but it never sparkled like this. I guess sometimes you’ve got to go for heavy duty chemicals to get it extra clean. Now I’d like to know how to clean the crusty gunk off of my stovetop burner inserts.

  26. Put the burners in a black plastic bag with a cup of ammonia. Close tightly and put it in the sun for several hours. The gunk should come right off.

  28. This looks really wonderful!
    Though, I hate moving into new places and finding a mess, ugh. I once moved into a place and found that the fridge had been emptied of food, but that was it–there was a towel still in the meat drawer, a spoon surrounded by melted ice cream in the freezer, and everything else you’d expect in a fridge with those 2 things.
    I took out all the shelves I could and ran them through the dishwasher, instead of washing by hand. It worked well. The shelves that were too big to fit in the dishwasher I did have to wash by hand.
    I’m glad this trick worked out so well since I’d imagine there were other messes for you to clean up. I will have to use this for routine oven cleaning… and the next time I move again.

  29. This helpful post is being featured on my blog today as part of Tuesdays with a Twist blog hop! If you get a chance please stop by.
    Thanks
    Angie

  32. Once you remove the bowl of ammonia and the ammonia laden towel from the oven, the odor dissipates quickly. And she said there wasn’t any odor the first time she used the oven, either.

  34. Great tip, I can see it’s worked really well. This has been featured as one of the most viewed links over at Sweet and Savoury Sunday. Stop by, grab your button and link up again this week.

  35. Until now I can say I was afraid of cleaning the oven. The scrubbing took a big part in my cleaning. Thanks for helping me clean it much easier. You’re awesome!

  39. Yes, it works on the glass door, too. If there is a bit left on the door, you can use baking soda and a damp paper towel to finish it.

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