How to Clean a Stove Top
Cooking is an enjoyable task for many people, but cleaning up is something they’d want to avoid. Even so, you can’t avoid a messy stove top all the time. It’s normal to have sauces or grease splashing all over the range whenever you cook, but cleaning up is not a difficult feat at all. Here’s how to do it.
What You’ll Need:
Paper towel
Dustpan
Hot water
Liquid dish soap
All purpose kitchen cleaner
Vinegar
Rag
Steel wool pad
Oven mitt
Procedure:
Wait for your stove top to cool for a few minutes before you begin. If its parts are still hot, you might accidentally burn yourself. Make sure all the knobs are switched to the “off” position before you begin cleaning. It’s also a good idea to turn off the gas (for a gas stove) or electricity (for electric stoves) beforehand, to avoid problems.
Use a paper towel or your hand to remove the debris or loose crumbs from the stove top. If you don’t have some, you can use use one hand. Sweep them from the surface and into the other hand or in a dustpan, making sure nothing falls on the floor.
Disassemble your stove top. You don’t need any special tools for this, as stove tops come apart very easily. For an electric stove, lift the coils up so you can remove the reflector bowls and the surface burners. If you’re using a gas stove, lift the drip pans and burner covers easily, removing them.
If they’re dirtied as well, remove the oven knobs carefully. Make sure you don’t accidentally turn the burners on, though.
Fill your sink with hot water, then put a couple of squirts of dish soap. Let the drip pans, burner cover and other parts to soak in it for 10 to 15 minutes.
Spray the stove top with an all purpose kitchen cleaner, then wipe down the entire surface. You can use a steel wool pad or your fingernail to scrub off rough spots. Never use a sharp object to do this, because you might accidentally scratch the surface. If you ran out of all purpose cleaner, just use a vinegar-water solution.
Soak a clean towel or rag in some water, then rinse the surface off.
Remove the soaked parts from the water. They’ll be cleaned on their own. If not, use your steel wool pad to scrub them, until the debris come off.
Get some paper towels and wipe all the parts of the stove top dry. For the surface burner, put it in the oven for 30 minutes, at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. When it’s dry, take it out. Wear an oven mitt when you do this.
Put back the parts properly.
It feels better to cook on a clean stove top than on a messy one. Follow these steps and bring back your stove’s neat and gleaming look!