July 19th, 2018 by Chris Chapman

Cleaning your oven is a job that many people forget about until it’s too late. If you let grime and food splatters build up on your oven, you’ll not only notice an unpleasant burning smell when you’re cooking that can transfer over to your food, but your oven’s performance will be reduced. This means it can take longer to heat up and can distribute heat unevenly around the oven, leading to your food not cooking properly. As with many things, regularly cleaning your oven before it ever gets to this point will save you a lot of trouble in the long run. Our guide below will walk you through every step of cleaning every part of your oven.

How to Clean the Surface of Your Oven

Give the exterior of your oven a regular wipe with some anti-bacterial surface cleaner to keep it hygienic and presentable. Over time, tiny spills and splashes will build up on the surface of your oven and all over the hobs. These will attract bacteria, dust, and grime, so it’s best to keep your oven’s surface well-maintained.

How to Clean Your Oven Shelves

Your oven shelves tend to get a lot of abuse, so don’t forget to clean them regularly, too!

Step 1

Pick up some Oven Blitz Oven Cleaner. You’ll find this is far more effective at cleaning off caked-on grime than regular washing up liquid.

Step 2

Oven Blitz comes with some free sealable bags to help you clean your oven shelves more effectively. Place your oven shelves, grill rack, or BBQ shelf into the back. Do this gently to make sure you don’t pierce the bag at all.

Step 3

Add 250ml of Oven Blitz into the bag and squeeze as much air as you can out of the bag before completely sealing it up. It’s best to fold the bag around the shelves inside it to make sure you maximise contact between the oven shelves and the Oven Blitz liquid.

Step 4

Gently tilt the bag so that the Oven Blitz cleaner coats every part of your oven shelves. Make sure it gets in every nook and cranny for best results. Leave the bag alone for 2 hours.

Step 5

After 2 hours have gone by, tilt and rotate the back again to move the liquid. Again, try and make sure you get the Oven Blitz moving a bit around every part of your oven shelves. Leave the bag for at least another 4 hours – it’s best to leave it alone overnight.

Step 6

After this time has passed, remove the oven shelves from the bag and rinse them with hot soapy water – they’ll look brand new once again!

How to Clean Your Oven

Some ovens will have self-cleaning modes. What this does is run the oven at an incredibly high temperature so that any dirt or stains get turned to ash. Once it’s done, you can simply sweep the ash up. Sadly though, not all ovens have this feature, so if you want to clean a non-self-cleaning oven, read on.

Step 1

Take everything out of your oven, including any bits of food or debris that might be sitting in the bottom of it. Take out your oven shelves – now is a good time to clean them using the Oven Blitz method we described earlier!

Step 2

Put around 200g of baking soda into a bowl and gradually add water. Keep adding splashes of water and mixing until you end up with a smooth paste that you can easily spread over your oven, but which isn’t too watery.

Step 3

Spread this paste around your oven, making sure you get it into every crack of the oven interior. Don’t worry if the paste starts to turn a bit lumpy – it’s just binding together with bits of dirt and grease, so this shows it’s working!

Step 4

Leave your magic paste to work overnight. Next morning, use a cloth that’s damp with warm water to wipe off the paste. Scrub it thoroughly, but don’t worry if there’s still a bit of residue there – we’ll get to that next.

Step 5

Put some white vinegar into a spray bottle. You’ll probably know baking soda and vinegar is a miracle cleaning combo, and that’s certainly the case here! Spray the vinegar onto your oven’s interior surfaces and it’ll react with the baking soda residue to create a bubbly foam.

Step 6

Wipe down the foam with a damp cloth. If there’s a bit of residue left after you’re done, keep spraying vinegar and wiping it down until your whole oven is clean.