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How do you keep your oven glass sparkly clean?

New stove = good intentions on keeping the oven glass clean. What is the best way to do this -- type of product and method.

Comments (51)

  • last year

    Open the door and use glass cleaner and newspaper. Newspaper does an excellent job of absorbing and polishing.

  • last year

    I second the Easy Off blue can. I have a large all gas range without self clean. That stuff really works without scrubbing. I wipe the glass off with a damp cloth anytime I roast or broil things that spatter.

  • last year

    Life is too short to worry about cleaning ovens. Think of it as patina. It has no effect on how well the oven works or on the food cooked in it. (more than I think I might say about corrosive chemicals or superheating the oven to burn the stuff off, converting it into heavens knows what zoo of carninogens)

  • last year

    Don't use the oven

  • last year

    How do we keep the oven glass sparkly clean? We don’t. We cook a lot and there is no way I am going to be cleaning the oven constantly to have sparkly clean glass. I have 48 in gas range and when I do clean it I use Easy Off in the blue can and also use a razor blade on the glass.

  • last year

    Measure how much time you'll invest using glass cleaner and newspaper periodically. Maybe once a week or so takes me less than 60 seconds.

  • last year

    I also use the blue can of oven cleaner. It works perfectly. My oven is anything but new, but, the blue can makes it look new inside.

  • last year
    last modified: last year

    Ours doesn’t see to get very dirty, perhaps because we don’t roast or broil many fatty things. I don’t fret over a few dark spots here and there. However the suggestions offered are good ones.

  • last year

    I don't think working kitchens 'sparkle'. That's fodder for magazines and appliance ads.

    I like to remember that Martha Washington's kitchen was the cookhouse, separate from the house.

  • last year

    I first carefully scrape off the heavy duty crud from the glass with a straight/single edge razor, the type used for scraping paint from windows. Then, I use the cleaning agents.



  • last year

    I do it the other way round - Easy Off No Fumes as shown above, then go after the stubborn bits with a blade.

    Rubbing alcohol is a good degreaser too.

  • last year

    Old words of wisdom: New dirt is easier to clean than old dirt.

    So, since the oven is new and the glass sparkly clean, it shouldn't be hard to keep it that way. I'm going to try to be diligent about a quick wipe-down after each use; it's not difficult -- rather a matter of just doing it.

    Appreciate the recs. I haven't used oven cleaner in years; it's been so long I don't even remember. It seems like maybe teh Easy Off has come a long way since the fume-y stuff. I'll keep that in mind should the interior get all jacked up with gunk. Although, it shouldn't if I actually just wipe it down quickly.

    This Wolf takes a long time to cool down. Which on the one hand is annoying because have to wait a while to get in there for a wipe-down, but on the other hand is a great thing because it means the oven is superbly insulated.

  • last year

    Added Easy Off in the blue can to my Amazon list.

  • last year

    Don't.

    First, avoid ALL chemicals except vinegar or baking soda. If you want to clean with those or a razor blade then go for it (but never use a razor blade on anything but glass and be careful w/ that).

    Something I learned from some chef friends is that they never clean ovens except to wipe them down with wet rags. Anything else will impart unpleasant tastes in food and possibly health problems.

    When they get a new oven they wipe it down well, sometimes with baking soda or vinegar, and then burn a heavily fatted roast in it for several hours. And then another. Once there is a coating roast burned on the interior surfaces they consider it suitable for food.


  • last year

    I think above is ridiculous. Who wants to put any food in a dirty oven. Baking soda and Vinegar isnt the cure all for cleaning. People have been using oven cleaner for years, and some of it was very smelly, but, they used it anyway. The newer ones, like in the blue can, are much safer, and they do a good job. I most certainly would not put food into a filthy oven. My oven is from 1966, and still looks like new, and performs like new.

  • last year

    "When they get a new oven they wipe it down well, sometimes with baking soda or vinegar, and then burn a heavily fatted roast in it for several hours. And then another. Once there is a coating roast burned on the interior surfaces they consider it suitable for food."


    Why? So then their food will smell like a fatty roast? Fatty roasts make me gag. For the longest time I refused to eat any pork except ham and bacon because of the olfactory memory of the wretched smell of fatty pork roasts stinking up the closed-up house on cold winter days when I was a kid. I've finally gotten over that but never want to smell that smell again. Fortunately, lean cuts of pork are now easily available and not cost prohibitive...that I can deal with.

  • last year

    All that vaporized burnt fat is an air pollutant in your home - not good for anyone to breathe.

    and slow cool down means that stuff WILL get burnt on. I have that problem with our glass stovetop.

  • last year

    Stuff burnt onto a glass stovetop is the result of 750 degrees of slow response heat from radiant glass tops. Induction will wipe clean with any simple cleaner of your choice and a paper towel or napkin.

  • last year

    I occasionally do an ammonia treatment -- half cup or so ammonia in a dish, leave inside a closed oven for several hours, open windows then remove. It softens the baked on gunk so it can be cleaned off with soapy water and a brillo pad for the tougher spots.

  • last year

    I've only used the self-cleaning feature on my oven ONCE The oven heated up to burn away the bits-and-pieces, and it wouldn't turn off. I could feel the heat outside the oven and was terrified of a fire. I went to the breaker and flipped off the electricity. Had to have a repairman in -- if memory serves, that cost me about $500. NEVER AGAIN.


    To make cleaning easier, you're aware that you can just lift your door off the front, right? It's large and cumbersome but not heavy.


    Prevention is better than cure: If you don't have a disposable aluminum liner on the bottom of your oven, get to the Dollar Store and buy one now.


    Racks are easy: Spray them with Easy-Off and put them into a black plastic trash bag. Lay them out in the sun for several hours "to bake". Obviously, this is an activity best completed in the summer. When you remove them, the gunk will just fall off.

  • last year

    Most ovens today say to NOT use aluminum trays in the bottom.

  • last year
    last modified: last year

    Based on reading this thread I just bought a can of the ‘new’ Easy Off fume free cleaner. Can says ’great for 30 second spot cleaning & ok for self cleaning ovens but don’t use with self clean feature on. My oven has a steam clean cyle which I have used a couple times & is lower heat than full on self clean - which I’ve never used. What I’m curious about is how to clean the interior of the glass door - between the two panes of glass. You tube shows taking the whole oven door off & then take apart which I cannot imagine ever doing. I’ve cleaned the interior of glass with a Finish dishwasher soap cube but that takes lots of elbow grease & those DW cubes are hard to find since everything’s moving to the plastic pod style. Anyway - I’m hoping for a clean glass door. Admittedly I only see the baked on grease when the oven door is open thanks to the dark black glass exterior but it’s nice to have a deep clean once in awhile. The grease in my oven is from roasting veggies & olive oil - rare that any meat in my oven other than fish burgers

  • last year

    @KW PNW Z8 This thread made me go and look at my ovens yesterday. I was going to just clean the glass and saw how nasty the ovens were(I have a BlueStar 48 inch range-2 ovens). I ended up doing a deep clean. Sprayed down both ovens last night, Took all racks out and brought them out to the garage and sprayed them with Easy Off. Left the Easy Off on everything overnight. This afternoon I took the doors off both ovens so I could get in there and clean easier and figured since I had them off I may as well try to clean the glass in between. I have wanted to do it for a while now. It required taking the doors apart. It really wasn't too difficult. The worst part was getting the doors back on.

  • last year

    Thanks for sharing your experience @vinmarks Truly, the thought of dismantling my oven door makes me want to hide under the blankets!

  • last year

    @KW PNW Z8 I get it. That's why I put it off for so long. It really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Just had to take out some screws and pull the two pieces apart.

  • last year
    last modified: last year

    I used to like the Easy Off paste that came in a jar and that was applied with a brush. No spray to inhale and it could be applied precisely only where it was needed. I don’t think it’s made any longer.


    Wasn’t the active ingredient lye?

  • last year
    last modified: last year

    I bought my double oven about 1.5 years ago. This thread has prompted me to clean it for the first time. Oven glass has bothered me the most.

    User manual recommends ceramic cooktop cleaner for the glass. Didn't do much. I bought the blue Easy Off, sprayed the oven, waited for a bit more than the prescribed 1.25 hours. The porcelain came out quite good, though not perfect around some worse baked-on spills. Barely made a dent on the glass though. Reluctantly running self clean now.

    I'm realizing that while I use both ovens regularly, the top one gets more of the mess. Makes sense because with the exception of pizza for which the baking steel is in the lower oven, I use the upper for more hands on cooking. I'll make a conscious effort to continue this trend so that I primarily have just one oven that gets extra messy.

  • last year
    last modified: last year

    I wipe mine down every time I use it. Same with the entire inside of the oven, after it has cooled. Keeps it clean, and never needs a "deep clean" unless I have a spill over (which I also clean up immediately - but it just takes a bit more than a "wipe" to clean it up.


    I also just got a new range. The oven has a removable bottom tray that is dishwasher-approved.

  • last year

    Self-clean may not clean the window glass appreciably well. GE marketed the first electric self-cleaning ovens, early models didn't have a window in the door. Some also had an extra heating element around the front perimeter of the oven cavity to help clean that area and the door. IIRC some models with a window had a metal shield that the the user pulled up (or down) before starting the cleaning cycle (there may have be an interlock that prevented running the cycle until the shield was engaged).

  • last year

    I have used the cerama bryte i have for my glass top and it works superbly

  • last year

    @foodonastump I left the blue Easy Off oven cleaner on overnight. The glass window cleaned up easily.

  • last year
    last modified: last year

    Ok here’s my report on results. I used the blue Easy Off yesterday afternoon & left it on for more than 2 hours. I was careful to not spray the oven back because there’s an open fan there which I think is for the convection feature. I also removed the racks which look pretty good anyway - they are black not silver. Also sprayed interior glass door but didn’t dismantle actual door to clean inside the glass. Sorry @vinmarks - I just can’t do it! 😊 My oven turned out great. A burned on spot on the bottom came off - the steam clean feature hadn’t completely removed it before. The oven door glass looks 95% better & all the tiny spots might come off with a razor blade but I’m trying to remember where we have them - in DH tool boxes somewhere. Full disclosure - I think my oven was pretty clean as compared to many - I do wipe it often after use & not much in the way of fat is roasted. The annual turkey for DH is in a cooking bag & 95% of my roasting is veggies. But, the @ $5 cost for Easy Off was well worth it. Oven looks very clean, door looks not bad. I also ran a tub clean cycle on my front load washer then emptied the pump filter at bottom & cleaned that space as well as took the dispensing drawer completely out & cleaned it & the opening for it. I’m feeling so virtuous for my start on some deep spring cleaning. 🧽🧼🪥🧹


    ETA - I have previously used the ceramabryte glass cooktop cleaner on the oven inside glass & results were Meh. The Finish DW tablet worked much better but is messy as the tablet disintigrates & it takes some elbow grease to scrub. But, the ceramabryte works great on SS sink!

  • last year

    Sound like the self clean may not work, if not I’ll try overnight EO. Here’s my before picture:



  • last year

    If I recall correctly, the oven spray works besr on warm surfaces. (per directions)


    The ceramic stovetop and the oven racks, walls, glass are not identical surfaces in terms of cleaning.


    our current oven has the heating element covered, so while easier to clean and ”pretty,” it takes significantly longer to heat up the oven.

  • last year

    The fume free EO spray under discussion here has directions stating for both deep cleaning & spot cleaning to ”Spray in COLD oven”, to NOT use in conjunction with the oven’s self cleaning cycle. Says ”ideal for cleaning ovens/oven doors/broilers/broiler pans, and stainless steel surfaces. Says don’t use on pilot light, electrical connections, switches, heating elements, or thermostats. Also don’t use on microwave, convection, or continuous cleaning ovens. CAN be used on self-cleaning ovens provided that the self-cleaning cycle is not used in combination with EO fume free oven cleaner.

  • last year
    last modified: last year

    FWIW, the self cleaning feature on my old wall oven (Frigidaire) worked really well on turning all the spatter into ash that could easily be wiped off, but it eventually wound up frying the control panel, to the tune of around $400 to repair, IIRC. I'd only used it 3-4 times when that happened.

    And sadly, the very first time I used it, I stupidly left the racks inside and ruined their non-stick finish forevermore.

    And yes, old-school oven cleaners had you warm up the oven before applying, but the newer fume-free stuff doesn't require that.

    You might try a second application on stubborn stuff - and a scraper.

  • last year

    Here is my after pics. I wish I took before photos. Before the whole oven was a complete mess. For the racks I sprayed them in the garage and left them there overnight. The next day I pressure washed them. Most stuff came off but there are still areas that are discolored but it is not stuck on stuff. You can see the bottom is etched. The glass came completely clean but it is hard to tell in the photos due to reflections.



  • last year

    Maybe I should reverse course and make my bottom oven the messy one - further from the controls. Mine are Frigidaires, if I continue to clean every 1.5 years then I’ll hopefully sell the house before my fourth (fatal) cleaning. 🙂

  • last year

    Wow @vinmarks —- those doors look brand spanking new! I’ll let you know if I attempt to dismantle the door. I’ll need to round up my reinforcements for help here at home!

  • last year
    last modified: last year

    Interesting, KW. I have not used it in a while. I never sprayed it into a hot oven ;)

    Just on warm items in the ss sink.

  • last year

    The recommendation I've always heard is that chemical oven cleaners (beyond soap-and-water) shouldn't be used on self-cleaning units (unless self-clean then is never run again, or perhaps the interior is thoroughly rinsed) due to chemical residue which may cause dangerous fumes (moreso than the soil incineration process) at the next self-clean cycle.

    Check the user manual (or installation instructions in some instances) for details on how to remove an oven door before attempting to do so. Hinge springs may be very strong and may have a locking mechanism that must be manually actuated when the door is partially open to hold them in a proper position for replacing the door.

  • last year
    last modified: last year

    My ovens’ instructions specifically allow for oven cleaner. I do remember that caution from our first self clean ovens though. Don’t know if the ovens have changed or the chemicals.

    The verdict is in. After the self-clean cycle he glass still looked messy BUT it now cleaned ip easily with cooktop cleaner. Not flawless, there are a bunch of pinhead sized specks that are fighting me, but I say good enough!



  • last year

    Another vote for cooktop cleaner. I use Weiman's when the oven glass gets a bit greasy. I use it frequently to avoid a tough to clean build up. I use steam clean frequently too, washing out with a soapy rag, to avoid a greasy build up in the oven cavity.

  • last year

    FWIW, I can testify that the fume-free Easy Off does not have a strong residual odor - of course you need to rinse it well, but it's nowhere near the choking fumes from the old stuff

  • last year
    last modified: last year

    Agree totally with @carolb_w_fl_coastal_9/10 I have an acute sense of smell too. Often pick up scents before anyone else. Both a curse and a blessing!

  • last year

    KW PNW, see above you were not 100 percent happy with the finish tablets for dishwasher. I wasnt either, but, my daughter bought a house with the nastiest dishwasher I have ever seen, and she used the finish liquid rather than tablets, and her dishwasher looks like they just bought a new one. I bought a bottle from the big A, but, I havent used it yet, and my dw isnt really all that dirty either.

  • last year

    @cat_ky I didn’t mean to say I wasn’t happy with the Finish tablets for DW. I do like them but cannot find them anywhere as they’ve switched to the plastic pods which I don’t like. I’ve found remnants of the plastic in my DW filter - all that plastic cannot be good for either the plumbing or the environment! The Finish tablets did an ok job on cleaning oven door interior glass but it’s messy & a bit of work. My DW has a SS interior & I do use the DW cleaner tablets - probably Affresh tabs like I use for my clothes washer. The tabs make both DW & clothes washer sparkle & I hope clean out residue.

  • last year

    Easy-Off Fume Free is still very caustic/toxic. Just because you can't smell it doesn't mean it's free from harm. There are a number of reasons that it can't be sold in Europe (or many Asian countries?).


    Besides the health risks while actually using it, a good bit of the chemicals likely remain on oven surfaces for a considerable time after cleaning and likely get in to the foods cooked in them. And these are mostly chemicals that cannot be burned off.


    More: https://www.ewg.org/cleaners/products/1059-EASYOFFFumeFreeOvenCleaner/


    ---


    @cat_ky and @porkchop_z5b_MI, the coating that a fatted roast produces in ovens does not impart any flavor, it actually reduces flavor interference from the coatings used for new ovens which is why good chefs so often do it.


    It's fascinating that people are OK with caustic chemicals in their food but not food in their food.





  • last year

    A pumice stick works great to clean an oven! Wet it and lightly rub the residue right off.

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