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Cleaning the oven, everyone dislikes it, even if only a little bit, right? However, most of the time like with any household chore, it’s more the anticipation of doing something unpleasant, rather than the actual action that causes these feelings.
As such, if your oven needs cleaning, it’s best to just do it instead of constantly putting it off. With that in mind, it’s time to show you how to clean a gas oven.
Table of Contents
- Cleaning a Gas Oven – Things to Consider
- When Do You Need To Clean Your Oven?
- How Often Should You Clean Your Oven?
- Why Do You Even Need To Clean Your Gas Oven?
- Cleaning a Gas Oven Safely
- The Best Way to Clean Gas Oven
- Conclusion: Cleaning A Gas Oven
- FAQ – How Do You Clean A Gas Oven?
Cleaning a Gas Oven – Things to Consider
Before you even begin the process of cleaning your gas oven it’s important to ensure that you’re fully prepared as oven cleaner may have health effects. After all, there’s no point in starting the job if you won’t be able to properly finish it right?
Oven Cleaning Supplies
- Rubber gloves: Helps protect your hands from any irritation caused by your oven cleaner.
- Protective Eyewear: Helps protect your eyes from ant irritation caused by your oven cleaner.
- Damp Cloth/s or Damp Sponge: To wipe away any residual grime once your oven cleaning solution has finished working.
- Newspaper/Paper Towels: These can be placed on the floor around your oven to catch any spills.
- Your oven cleaner of choice: Your choice of either a chemical-based/store-bought cleaner or your home remedy.
- Large Bin Bag: For disposing of any large pieces of grim from your oven. Typically more likely to be used with homemade remedies.
- Metal Scourer: For scrubbing away any particularly stubborn stains or baked-on food.
Commercial Oven Cleaners Vs Homemade Oven Cleaner
When you’re planning on cleaning your oven, whether you use store-bought cleaners or home remedies can change the process somewhat.
Naturally, the benefit of a commercial oven cleaner is that they are very convenient and often more powerful. As such they will likely help you to remove stubborn stains more quickly from gas or electric stoves. However, the reason for this is that they will often contain harsh chemicals that can potentially irritate the skin or release toxic fumes.
With a homemade oven cleaner though, you’re less likely to have to deal with chemicals contained within commercial cleaners. As a result, they will often be safer to use, particularly around children and animals.
Additionally, it will also be better for the environment. The caveat though is that when using a homemade cleaning method such as baking soda paste will likely require much more elbow grease to get rid of stubborn stains.
Homemade Oven Cleaner Solutions
- Baking Soda and Vinegar: An excellent option if you have a lot of built-up grime. Sprinkle baking soda on the surface in question and use a spray bottle to add vinegar (or lemon juice in a pinch). This and a little water will create a paste that will eat through dirt and grime.
- Lemons and Water: Leave lemons to soak in water for a few hours. Then via a spray bottle, this solution can be used to help clean lighter amounts of dirt more quickly.
Protective Gear Whilst Cleaning Your Oven
This may not be all too necessary when using a homemade baking soda solution or some soapy water to clean baked-on food from oven racks. However, when using commercial oven cleaners this can often be necessary. This is because the powerful chemicals contained within can be harmful to handle directly.
In order to adequately protect yourself when working with these chemical cleaners, you need to mainly protect your eyes and hands as they are most likely to be irritated. As such, you are best off wearing rubber gloves and eye goggles or protective safety glasses.
When Do You Need To Clean Your Oven?
As important as it is to keep a clean oven, you may not be aware of when your oven needs cleaning. Now in some situations, it is pretty obvious when you have a dirty oven but in others, it may not be so clear.
Typically, three primary indicators will tell you whether or not your oven needs a cleaning. These are as follows:
- Appearance: Perhaps the most obvious sign is that your oven looks unclean. This can be in multiple places or concentrated in one area. As such it’s important to occasionally inspect your oven to see if there is crustiness or any residue at the bottom or whether the door or any of the hobs splattered with dried food grease stains.
- Smell: If there is an unpleasant and lingering smell whenever the oven door is opened, this is a sign that the inside is dirty and in need of cleaning. Often this odour will be a result of food, grease or dirt within the oven, meaning it will be unclean and therefore unsuitable for cooking in gas stove.
- Smoke: Perhaps the most alarming sign that something is wrong is that when turned on your oven begins to smoulder and smoke. However, this often doesn’t mean that your oven is damaged. In fact, this is often simply a sign that your oven is so dirty it has become somewhat clogged up.
How Often Should You Clean Your Oven?
The answer to this question can vary, mainly depending on how often you cook in the oven. This is because how often the oven is used will ultimately determine how quickly the dirt will accumulate.
As such, if you’re someone who cooks regularly it’s best to clean your oven once every two to three months or so. However, if you only use your oven sporadically then you can probably go about half a year between oven cleans.
That said, if you ever notice the signs mentioned above then you are best cleaning your oven immediately.
Why Do You Even Need To Clean Your Gas Oven?
Whilst cleaning your oven isn’t exactly a pleasant or glamorous job, it is of crucial importance that you do so. Obviously, there’s the matter of hygiene, however, there is another very important reason you’ll want to keep a clean oven.
This is because quite disgustingly, the odours from anything left in your oven, whether it be grease or old food will impact your food. This can be through both the flavour and smell, which obviously no one wants, right?
Cleaning a Gas Oven Safely
Now you’ve got the information necessary of when your oven needs to be cleaned and some homemade solutions, you’re ready to jump in, right?
Well not necessarily. In order to make sure accidents don’t happen and things go as smoothly as they possibly can, it’s important to take the proper preparations. These include tricks for making things much easier for yourself along with ensuring that you keep yourself as safe as possible.
Safety Precautions
Before any cleaning takes place it is of crucial importance to ensure that your oven is safe. Like with an electric oven it is important to ensure that the oven cools fully from its last use before beginning.
This is incredibly important even if it only seems a little bit warm. The reason for this is that you may still end up burning yourself as the heating elements within could still be very hot.
As such, a good recommendation is to allow at least one hour for it cool before you think about cleaning. Obviously, if it is still warm, however, you should wait longer.
With a gas burner oven though, there is another factor that must be considered as well. This is the risk that improper handling of a gas oven may cause a gas leak, which could make you ill or cause a fire.
For most new gas ovens, they should be fine to clean as you would an electric oven. However, if cleaning an older gas oven it’s best to check the manufacturer’s instructions for any advice on how to clean them.
Typically, these types of older gas ovens can be identified by their lift up tops and lack of sealed burners.
Prepping Gas Stove and Oven Surfaces
Before fully going into a deep clean of your oven, a wise idea is to lightly pre-clean the entire thing. This will only be a quick process but will help you to clean many of the easier areas whilst identifying where should concentrate your intense scrubbing later.
When doing this, don your safety ware and grab some damp cloths and a gentle scraper. Following which wipe down and gently scrub the entire oven including any hard to reach crannies.
After which, use the scraper to remove any large but loose pieces of dirt and gunk. When doing so it is typically best to focus on your oven racks, along with the inside of the door and the broiler compartment. However, all over areas with build-up should be checked for loose pieces as well.
Along with helping to identify problem areas, there is another advantage to doing this. If done fairly frequently, a pre-clean process can help to significantly reduce the amount of dirt and gunk that builds up in your oven.
As a result, you will not have to deep clean it nearly as often and doing so will likely be a much easier task.
The Best Way to Clean Gas Oven
Now, you’ve pre-cleaned, got your gear ready and identified the problem areas it is time to start a more thorough cleaning process. To make cleaning each aspect of your oven a less stressful chore it is important to have a solid cleaning strategy in place.
With this in mind below is a guide on how to best tackle cleaning each part of your oven, from the knobs to the stovetop and everything in between.
Cleaning the Stovetop and Burners
Since the stovetop and burners likely see the most use, it is highly likely that they will the part of your oven to accumulate dirt the most quickly.
As such, these will likely need to be cleaned far more often. For this reason, it is particularly important to ensure that you have a quick and efficient cleaning method prepared for such an inevitability.
If wanting to go the homemade kitchen cleaning solution route, there are a few tricks you can use to have your stovetop looking pristine once again. Naturally, the first thing you should always do is don your protective hand and eyewear. Following which though these are the steps you should take:
- For tough stains mix a solution of one cup of baking soda with one cup of water and apply to stains using a a clean cloth. Once the solution has dried you can scrub the stain away with either a soft-bristled brush or an old toothbrush.
- Inspect the holes of your stoves to see if any of them are clogged. If so, you can remove this dirt with toothpicks. Following which they should be thoroughly wiped down with a clean cloth.
- When cleaning drip pans it is often necessary to use ammonia. This is because they may have incredibly stubborn baked-on food and grease stains that will be hard to remove otherwise. To do this soak the pans in water and ammonia and leave for a while. Then when ready scrub them clean.
Cleaning Oven Control Knobs
Your oven control knobs may get overlooked when it comes to cleaning. However, even when the rest of the oven is clean if the knobs are dirty they can really diminish the oven’s appearance.
Additionally, if dirt manages to build up around the knobs themselves, then they may not turn fully. On a gas oven, this can be particularly dangerous as it can lead to gas leaks.
With both of these factors in mind, cleaning the control knobs becomes much more of a priority. Fortunately, they are often quite simple to clean as rinsing with soapy water and gently scrubbing away any remaining dirt is all that’s required.
One thing to keep in mind though is that when scrubbing to not be too aggressive. This is because if too overzealous you may end up scrubbing away the knob’s markings!
Cleaning the Oven Door and Interior
This is the part that most people dread the most. However, when proper cleaning techniques are employed, cleaning the interior and door of your oven isn’t so bad.
On some ovens, the process of cleaning can be simplified greatly if the door is removable. However, even when this is not the case, things won’t be that much more difficult.
If wanting a homemade cleaning solution, soaking the door with water is not advised as water may become trapped between the panes of glass. Instead, you should use a combination of baking soda and white or rice vinegar to clean both the door and the interior of your oven.
First, though you should get your protective gear on. Following which you can follow the steps below to thoroughly clean your oven with relative ease:
- Remove your oven racks and wash them separately. Typically allowing them to soak in warm soapy water should be sufficient.
- Sprinkle roughly half a cup of baking soda across your oven and oven door. Particularly targeting any stains present.
- Using a spray bottle, spray these areas with either vinegar or lemon juice in order to create a thick paste.
- Once the paste has been left to work, scrub the affected areas with a scouring pad. When doing so avoid using a metal one as it will potentially scratch and damage your oven.
- Any debris that has been loosened should be wiped away with a clean but damp cloth.
Don’t Forget to Clean the Trim
Like your oven knobs, the metal trim of your oven can sometimes be overlooked when cleaning. However, for your oven to look truly presentable, it is important to ensure your trim stays clean as well.
Fortunately, doing so can be a quite simple and quick task. To make a simple degreaser spray at home, simply add soapy water to a spray bottle. Following this, spray any oily or grease-stained areas of trim and wipe away with a cloth.
When wiping it down, however, ensure that you wipe away the water properly in order to not leave watermarks.
Conclusion: Cleaning A Gas Oven
With the above steps and strategies taken into consideration, cleaning your oven will become a much less stressful and arduous task. We all dread doing it of course, however, the sooner you do it the sooner you can get back to making something delicious, whether it be roast lamb, rum cake or something else entirely.
FAQ – How Do You Clean A Gas Oven?
Can you use oven cleaner on a gas oven?
Oven cleaners can and often are used in gas ovens without issue. However, with older gas ovens it is probably wise to consult the manufacturer guide before cleaning or performing any other kind of maintenance.
