In a cook from scratch kitchen, like ours, the oven gets used multiple times a day. When an oven is in constant use there will be messes created. From grease and food splatters, to the pie bubbling over and dripping down into the bottom of the oven, along with all the accidental spills, the oven will naturally get very dirty over time.
I have been putting off cleaning our oven for a very long time, over six years to be exact. While this project did take me awhile to complete and I might have complained several times about it during the process, I can’t tell you how happy I am to have a clean almost new looking oven.
I know this project would have taken way less time if I hadn’t waited so long. But then again the before and after wouldn’t be so satisfying either I guess.
A close of picture of the oven door and all the grease and grim baked onto it.
Why Use Natural Oven Cleaner
While chemical oven cleaners work very well to clean the oven, there is a reason. They are filled with harsh cleaning agents that contain chemicals like potassium hydroxide, monoethanolamine, sodium hydroxide, and butoxydiglycol. They are very irritating to the respiratory system and can burn your skin, lungs and eyes. (source)
Sometimes the smell of the oven cleaner will linger for a long time and it can become especially noticeable when the oven is turned on. Many people are wary of using such harsh chemicals around themselves and their family, especially in a place where they are going to cook their food!
Not only are chemicals bad for people, they are also bad for the environment. So of course if there is a natural alternative to the harsh chemical one, why not use that instead. Your body will thank you and so will the world around you!
What about Self-Cleaning Ovens
While many ovens are self-cleaning, using the self-cleaning feature will heat up your oven to an extremely high temperature (800-1000°F) to cook off all the grease and stuck food. This uses a lot of energy and will heat up your house. Even the outside of the oven gets really hot. It takes a while to heat up, hours to complete the cleaning cycle and a long time to cool back down.
My neighbor’s oven even caught on fire during the self-cleaning cycle. Because the oven was locked during the cleaning cycle, they weren’t able to open it to put out the fire and thus had to call in the fire department to lug the very hot fire oven out of their house.
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