Lady cleaning an oven

How to Clean an Oven

We all know the real job of an oven is to cook your food. But, what a lot of people don't know is that it needs a little bit of TLC to do its job properly! If you take the time to clean your oven from time to time, it will last a lot longer. It's not a complicated process and you don't need any professional cleaning products for this task.

This article will go through everything you need to know about how to clean oven from top to bottom, from how often you should clean it, what tools you'll need and how best to tackle the task.

Required Tools

To effectively clean an oven, we recommend the following tools:

How to Clean the Oven Interior

Empty the contents of the oven and preheat. We know that this sounds like you're preparing to bake your showstopper, but trust us on this! For best results, it is important to preheat your for at least 45 minutes. Once it has heated, turn off the oven and let it cool down. The oven should start to condensate. Once cool enough to touch, you can get started on the hard work. Preheating will help loosen any tough grease and grime that has latched on to the walls and make scrubbing the oven even easier!

When cleaning the oven, first spray down the sides and ceiling of the oven interior. Allow to stand for a few minutes. The dirtier the oven, the longer you'll need to leave it! Wipe down the inside of the oven with a cloth. If there is stubborn soiling, use a sponge scourer to remove baked in food deposits. Make sure your clean in the small crevices in the corner of the oven. If any food residue is left it can burnt on and leave nasty smells in your oven!

Finally, remove any loose dirt and cleaning product residue that has now accumulated in the bottom of the oven. We'd recommend scraping this directly into a bin liner. Be careful not to get any on the floor!

Finally, as per the sides and ceiling, use a cloth of scourer to agitate any food deposits left on the oven floor. Finally, using warm water and soap wipe down the inside of the oven, aiming to remove any remaining oven cleaner residue.

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Cooking on a Hob

Cleaning the Oven Shelves

The oven shelves are always in the dirtiest place of the oven. They collect dirt, spills, and food residue for months, so in order to have a clean oven, you should make sure to clean your oven shelves. Despite this task sounding daunting, it's actually super easy! Using the abrasive side of a sponge scourer, rub up and down the metal supports whilst applying pressure. If it's super diffcult to remove, you can always use a metal pad! Once cleaned, dry with kitchen roll and place back in your oven.

How to Clean an Oven Window

In most ovens, the oven door can be removed by simply sliding it up and out. Once removed, scrub the window in a bucket using a damp cloth with a little bit of washing up liquid on it. As per the oven interior, use a sponge scourer to scrub any hard to remove grease. Once complete, dry and buff with kitchen roll to prevent streaks forming on the glass. Once complete, slide the glass window back into the oven.

Cleaning the Oven Hob

Once you have cleaned the oven, make sure to clean the oven top too. The hob is one of the most difficult areas to clean of a cooker and is often overlooked due to the ease of spilling food from a pan. The food then burns in plan on the hob, gross! If left this can stain the oven top and also cause fumes whilst cooking.

There are five common types of cooker hobs: ceramic, gas, induction and electric plate hobs. Apply your degreaser or oven cleaning paste and simply wipe clean! Again, if there is stubborn dirt that is diffult to remove, use a sponge scourer to agitate the dirt.

Before carrying out this step, check the directions of your cooker hob instructions for the compatability of the cleaning product and whether or not a sponge scourer can be used.

How Often Should I Clean an Oven?

The frequency that you need to clean your oven will depend on the number of times you use it and when it was last cleaned. We always recommend wiping down your oven after every use, as this will reduce the number of times you need to undertake a deep clean.

Given that you follow this advice and wipe down after every use, remove and clean the glass window and oven shelfs every month. If there is food buildup or burnt on food, be sure to get it off, otherwise the oven won't cook properly. Whatever you clean now doesn't have to be cleaned later!

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