Hi Ed!
How often and for how long would one need to spray
the baking soda/water mixture on? How do you know
when you're ready to wipe all the grime off?
I'm EXTREMELY pumped to try this. I hate the thought
of cleaning the oven --- and so I haven't really --- in
2 years living here. I've done some wiping but no deep
cleaning. I've just found it too daunting and also haven't
wanted to expose myself/baby to the fumes of traditional
oven cleaners.
Also --- any hints for cleaning the microwave? Would the same
principal work?
What about the elements on the top of an older stove?
Thanks!
Emma
I'll start with the easy question first. How often do
you spray? The answer is as often as you like.
That's the beauty of this cleaning technique. When I
did it, I sprayed the oven each time I walked by it and
happened to think of it.
I'd say once a day should be sufficient. Twice a day is
even better.
How long does it take? About a week. Of course, that all
depends on how wet you keep the baking soda.
Let's say you managed to keep the baking soda wet for 4 hours
a day, after which it dried out. At the end of the week you
would have kept it wet 7 X 4 = 28 hours.
That's 28 hours of chemical reaction causing the hard carbon
material to soften up and turn to dust. That's literally what
happens. You'll see tiny black flecks of carbon hidden inside
the baking soda, if you have really good eyesight and you check
very carefully. You'll find little tiny bits of black buried in
all that white stuff if you look carefully.
Here's the key thing. You are making no progress whatsoever
unless the baking soda is wet. Dry baking soda does not react
with the black carbon at all. The only time you are getting a
chemical reaction is when the baking soda is at least a little
bit wet.
That's OK. With this technique, you make progress in fits
and starts. You start to make progress each time you wet the
baking soda with the spray bottle and you stop making progress
when the baking soda is entirely dried out.
Over time, the little slices of time that you've spent spraying
the inside of your oven start to accummulate. Not only that, but
black carbon dust (well hidden inside the baking soda) starts to
accumulate at the bottom of your oven too.
Again, a week is a good rule of thumb, assuming you work at this
a little bit each day. After a week, you should have made substantial
progress. If anything remains at all, it will be some very very stubborn
spots that you can work on using the same technique all over again.
Eventually, this technique causes all carbon deposits to fall and
crumble --- literally.
As for when to know you are done spraying, try wiping off a
sample spot. If it comes clean, you are getting very close
to being done.
If it doesn't come clean, don't give in to compulsion and start
scrubbing. You don't need to do that. When I say that the black
stuff wipes off, I literally mean it wipes off. It wipes off with
a few swipes of a damp cloth and nothing more. Anything that requires
more work than this means you are not done yet.
As for microwave ovens, I'm hesitant to say anything as I've never
ever tried this technique on a microwave. More and more, I'm
finding that oven technology is changing, and that the words I wrote
10 years ago may no longer apply in quite the same way.
For example, some ovens now have some kind of high tech coating on
the interior surface. I've written about this here:
Two Kinds of Self-Cleaning Oven
In general, I'd be very cautious about dripping water in places in
an oven where water might not be welcome. For example, oven doors
can have vents in them. You don't want to drip water into these
vents. I've written about this here:
Why Is There Streaking
in My Oven Door Glass?
In general, I'd avoid electrically sensitive areas such as oven
light bulbs when spraying a solution in your oven. If you do
get a little water on the light bulb, you may want to wait until
this water dries before risking getting any more water on the bulb.
Water and electricity mix very poorly. I never turned off
the circuit breaker for the oven when I used this technique
10 years ago.
I might do so today. Turning off the circuit breaker is not
a bad idea. Everything is so much more complex these days
that I'm not precisely sure what I'd do other than to exercise
due caution.
Whatever I did, I'd be sure to avoid dripping water into unseen
places and also avoid dripping it on electrical contacts such
as light bulbs.
The one exception to this is the heating elements. I felt
comfortable spraying my heating elements as long as I avoided
spraying the electrical connection where the heating element
plugs into the back oven wall. Again, a little common sense
goes a long way.
Ed Abbott
