Disclosure: Some of the pictures you will see below are horrific. And yes, I let my stove and microwave get that bad. Yes, I am human. And no, I am not a clean freak...obviously :)
We made the mistake of buying all black appliances when we moved into our house. I don't know why no one told us that they would show grease like crazy, but they do. And it's just horrible and half near impossible to get clean. I shared with you my
method of removing grease using baby oil/mineral oil. This still works wonderfully, but I was hesitant to use it on my stove. I don't know why, just oil and fire didn't seem like a great combination for me. So, our stove has remained only touched by dish soap...the cuts grease like no one's business dish soap. Haha...yeah right :) They haven't seen my stove! Over the past years, grease has continually gunked itself onto the range top, particularly bad in one spot, as you can see from the top picture above. That's like 5 years worth of grease caked on there. We scrub and scrub and scrub and nothing would take it off....until now :) Meet my new best friend:
I was doing laundry the other day and the back of the box caught my eye. It said it would clean almost anything in the kitchen. I figured, hey, why not give it a try? What harm could it do?
I can't tell you how impressed I was with this! I just grabbed a dish rag, wet it and poured some baking soda on it.
I then took the rag and started rubbing. The grease was coming off like no one's business. And it doesn't scratch. It was awesome. This part of the stove hasn't looked this nice since the first time we used it. You can see on the left where all the gunk is and the right where it's nice and shiny (minus the knobs). Now, if any of you have yellow labs, you might understand the dog hair on grease deal I'm dealing with here. It's horribly disgusting. I have better pictures of it that would just make you cringe...black and yellow shedding dogs do not mix either with clothes or appliances.
While scrubbing, I noticed that if it stopped working or I was scrubbing harder than before to try to get rid of a spot, I just poured on some more baking soda and started up again. The fresh baking soda does wonders for cutting through the tough grease.
Since it worked so well on my stove, I gave it a try on my microwave. Like magic!
The baking soda does leave a white residue, so after the grease was removed, I shined the surface back up using some window cleaner.
Check out the back of your baking soda next time you get a chance! The uses for it are amazing. It cleans sinks, fridges, counters, stainless steal, showers, toilets, tubs, tile....etc etc. And of course, it has great deodorizing properties.
I wonder how it would do as a concentrated soak for the horrible vent cover at the top of my microwave? That thing is just NASTY, and no amount of scrubbing helps. And dish soap just turns the grease green! EEEWWWW!
ReplyDeleteI hear you about the dogs and grease. We have a choco lab, plus whatever color lab we are fostering at any given time, plus 3 nasty dirty little boys and a big semi-clean adult boy LOL ;) Grease jumps all over the place around here. I'm ready to paint my bannister (which happens to be in the kitchen/dining room) black.
Put them in the dishwasher. Works great.
DeleteDishwasher cleans them nicely, but i generally give it a quick soray of simple green first.
DeleteJust read your post on making your house look clean in 20 minutes. It's nice to see that you are human ;) LOL Too many blogs never show this side of them. I would love to walk into my house after work and see it is spotlessly clean. Unfortunately, although I don't have small children at home, by house is visited by my grandkids and their parents. My hubby, who is retired and a son who thinks our house is his base of his business and as such works on his projects with his father in my kitchen. He has a landscaping business, so I think you get the picture!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, great pointers and I have to say, my mom used to tell me, if you can't do a good cleaning you can do . . . and she would tell me how to make the house look like it was really clean without hours of cleaning. One of them was, as you said, picking up little pieces of things on the rug so you didn't have to vacuum. She called these little pieces "chi-a-dees". It's Italian for something tiny.
Also liked today's post, I'll have to get out my baking soda and start cleaning! Ha, maybe tomorrow!
Its really nice of you to share such helpful ideas. Thanks a ton!
ReplyDeleteIf you have not cleaned the stove vent covers (if you have a hood), take them off, boil a pan of water and slowly add baking soda to it while it is boiling. Then, take a pair of tongs and put in the cover. Let it sit in there about 60 seconds and the grease will just come right off. It is gross looking, but soo easy! Here is where I originally found it. http://theeverydaycinderella.blogspot.com/2013/02/clean-your-stove-vents.html#comment-form
ReplyDeleteYes!!! IT WORKS!!! I've been a long time advocate of this mixture. Thank goodness you copped up to the dog hair thing. You have no idea how relieved to know I'm not the only one. I have a pug mix and I swear he never stops shedding! It doesn't matter how clean you keep the dog or house. Furnace vents, sweep, vacuum, swiffer, it gets everywhere! We've been in our new build a year now and it still blows my mind how much that stuff travels and that was starting out new fresh and staying on top of it.
ReplyDeleteI have one of those industrial sized kitchen ovens that are used in restaurants. Would baking soda work on a surface that large? It is astounding how much grit and grime is on this oven hood. Overall, the last thing I want to do is one waste my time and two wreck my oven. My fingers are crossed and hoping that baking soda does the trick.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fireandsafety.net
Wow, you really make that look so easy. I am going to try this for sure when I get home. When we moved into our rental apartment, there was so much grease on our stove, and we have never been able to get it off. Who would have thought that it would be as simple as putting baking soda on it. http://acegrease.com/cooking-oil-pickup.html
ReplyDeleteBaking soda has such a great cleaning power! My stoves are pretty dirty and I think to try and clean them with soda! Thanks for the post!
ReplyDeleteWill the baking soda work on the grates?? Mine are pretty disgusting! I have used regular Dawn dish soap AND regular white vinegar mixed together on my cooktop.
ReplyDeleteIt does a pretty good job, but the grates just don't come clean.
I put my grates in a large trash bag and set it in a plastic bin. I then poured ammonia to cover the grates. I closed the bag and closed the bin. Left it over night, at least 12 hours, an the next day I just rinsed off all the "gunk". The were perfectly clean and shiny. Really worked great and was so easy to do.
DeleteBaking soda is totally an awesome cleaner! Accept baking soda, ammonia is also an amazing cleaner. I have cleaned my oven with ammonia last week and the results are excellent. My microwave also looks horrible and I need to clean it one of these days. Thanks for sharing your cleaning tips and ideas! Greets!
ReplyDeleteCool! I'll find this one to keep my house clean. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this tutorial. It is a lifesaver. I am tired of trying to soak the vent on the over the counter microwave and this solution is fast, easy and convenient.
ReplyDelete