Oven Cleaning
OK, let’s get this out first.
Professional oven cleaning is always a better idea than doing it yourself. Why? A professional will have the knowledge, experience and equipment to achieve results you simply can’t (no disrespect to your cleaning skills). He will take your oven apart and dip the individual elements into a tank full of special chemicals. Now think, he has been doing this for a living since 2000. You can’t beat that, can you?
The good news is your oven will look brand new, free of grease and grime, and you won’t have to learn a new trade (lol). Just in time for Christmas.
Usually, we can provide services throughout Greater London, with some zone exclusions. Luckily, we’ve been cooperating with Anyclean, a top oven cleaning company that has been our partner for years. Anyclean will service the areas we can’t. So, you are 100% guaranteed a sparkling clean oven, no matter where you are (well, within the boundaries of the M25, that is).
A big chunk of the commercial kitchen cleaning service is centred around the ovens. These appliances seem to be the staple in each kitchen environment. Here is why our cleaning operatives pay special attention to ovens and stoves.
If you go around a circle of typical Londoners who do housework and ask them what their least favourite household chore is, there is a high chance that at least one of them – and probably more of them – will list cleaning the oven as the job that they hate the most.
Ovens always have got grubby and they always will get grubby – even a “self-cleaning” oven will need a touch up from time to time. Cooking is a messy business and even if you don’t spill things or put down a dirty spoon on the top of the range, whatever you’re cooking will splatter, splash, spit and splutter, leaving food particles all over the place – which will then bake on to the surface they have fallen onto and get stuck.
You may wonder why you need to bother cleaning an oven. After all, in the old days of coal ranges, it was less of a bother – the spills and splashes just burnt off before too long. However, in an electric oven or in a gas oven, this can be quite hazardous, as these don’t get the continual heat of a wood-fired or coal-fired cooker so spills don’t get burnt off in small amounts straight away. Instead, whatever has been spilt builds up so that if it does burn, it can possibly catch fire. Even in an Aga or similar, you still get the problem of smoke going everywhere and tainting the taste of what’s cooking inside the range.
So there’s no getting away from it: someone has to clean your stove. It’s especially important to clean ovens when you’re moving out of a property, as this is often required by landlords if you want to get your deposit refunded. London landlords also tend to be pickier than prospective buyers and insist on perfectly clean and gleaming oven racks, range hoods, stovetops, etc. as part of the end of tenancy cleaning.
Why People Don’t Like Messing Around Their Ovens
The main reason why people frequently avoid cleaning the inside of the range is that it’s a hard job. Unless you’re a professional oven cleaner who has a few tricks up their sleeve (like we do here at Cleaning London Town), no matter what method you use to remove grease and burnt on debris from baking trays and the inside of the oven, you’re going to spend ages scrubbing, rubbing and scouring. And who’s got the time to do that, especially if you’re cleaning the cooker as part of a moving out clean.
On top of that, a lot of people in London are put off by commercial oven cleaning products. Take one of the typical oven cleaning sprays that are very popular (Mr Muscle) and read the safety precautions: “wear rubber gloves and protect arms while spraying and cleaning”; “If splashed, wash immediately with plenty of water for at least 20 minutes and seek medical advice.” The active ingredient in many store-bought oven cleaning sprays is sodium hydroxide (NaOH), also known as caustic soda or lye. It’s one of the strongest alkaline substances known, it reacts with water and it’s downright ferocious. Even if you use the spray correctly and protect yourself, it will still give off fumes and smell hideous. Most people have the common sense to minimise their contact with and use such strong chemicals.
The Chemicals Involved
However, using a caustic oven cleaning product is one of the most popular and common methods used to clean stoves throughout London. This is because sodium hydroxide, as horrible as it is, works. It attacks and breaks down grease like nothing else – in fact, it’s sodium hydroxide that gives soap and detergent their grease-dissolving power; in soap, the lye is tamed to something that you can touch with the addition of fats or oils. Most of the unpleasant black baked-on debris inside an oven tends to be quite greasy – after all, spitting hot fat and oil is the culprit that got the oven dirty in the first place! Now you know why you have to clean the griller so often! The sodium hydroxide will dissolve the fats and oils, loosening their grip on the metal or enamel inside your oven so the burnt residues can be wiped away.
Even with the use of one of these caustic oven cleaners, the process still involves time and effort, as the person cleaning the inside of the stove still has to get stuck in with cleaning rags and paper towels, etc. to physically remove the debris. After all, an oven cleaner doesn’t remove the dirt and make it vanish; it only loosens its hold on the inside of the oven.
These strong oven cleaning sprays and foams aren’t recommended for cooktops and stove elements or rings – they should only be used for ovens (i.e. the closed-in box where grilling, baking and roasting takes place).
Environmentally Friendly Cleaning Methods
Lye is strong stuff and many people are concerned about the risks to themselves, their families and the environment when oven cleaning products containing caustic soda are used. This is where they turn to gentler products that are easy on the environment and are less hazardous.
Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate, NaHCO3) is a popular choice, as it has the grease-busting properties of most sodium compounds but isn’t as harsh on the skin as lye. You can get baking soda on your skin or even eat it safely. To use baking soda to clean an oven, it needs to be mixed to a smooth paste with ordinary water, then applied to the inside of the oven. This needs to be left overnight after which, you can rub and scrub the baking soda and the grease it has loosened away with a damp cloth (or, more likely, several damp cloths).
It is possible to make the process of cleaning oven racks with baking soda easier by applying the baking soda paste, wrapping the grilling and baking racks in aluminium foil, then dipping the wrapped racks in hot water. This will cause a reaction that helps the dirt loosen more effectively and will leave the metal nice and shiny.
A second option for environmentally friendly oven cleaning is to use just plain elbow grease. This involves getting stuck in with Brillo pads or other scouring pads, detergent, damp cloths and a lot of energy. If you try this method, it will work, but you certainly won’t need to go to the gym that day and it will take you a long, long time.
Using a Steamer on Ovens
The secret to cleaning any oven is to loosen the baked-on debris. The most environmentally friendly way of doing this and one of the simplest is to use steam. Water is the nearest thing to a universal solvent and if H2O is applied to the grease and bunk inside an oven, grill or rotisserie, it will soften the debris and loosen it from the metal. It’s then simple enough to wipe away the dirt particles with an ordinary cloth – no harsh chemicals needed. Even if stubborn dirt lingers, we’ll make sure that we apply the necessary elbow grease to get rid of it so you don’t have to!
Steam cleaning is so effective that this is the method that we use here at Cleaning London Town. This is why we can offer specialist oven cleaning services in London – from one side of town to the other! Our oven steam cleaning equipment makes the job simple and effective. We can carry out our oven cleaning services as part of a moving out clean or just as a service on its own.
We also know that restaurants, food outlets and the like need to have their ovens and cookers (and grills and rotisseries and toasters, etc.) cleaned thoroughly on a regular basis. This is something else that Cleaning London Town can take care of. Just get in touch with us here and we’ll make sure that your ovens are left beautifully clean!