1

I have a high-temperature home electric Pizza oven. Despite my best efforts to keep it spotless, There are places (stainless and glass surfaces) where spatters of oil/grease have become hard baked on, to the point where they are shiny and hard.

I am struggling to find a product that will remove this stuff, it's so hard that it could be scraped off with a blade but I don't want to damage the surfaces. I've tried general oven cleaner, which did have a cleaning effect but won't touch this stuff. Tried some harsher stuff like acetone, thinners etc; no effect, baking soda; nothing.

Even tried "Pyrolytic" cleaning (i.e full temperature: 400C) but that's angered it and made it harder!

EDIT: This appears to be "oil polymerization"

Digital Lightcraft
  • 129
  • 1
  • 1
  • 4
  • What's the surface? Raw metal or is it coated? – GdD Apr 04 '23 at 07:36
  • @GdD Raw metal (and glass) - Both polished and brushed. – Digital Lightcraft Apr 04 '23 at 07:41
  • 2
    In general, we have had this topic repeatedly, but I didn't find a question with the exact combination of grease and oven. I found some possible duplicates, whose answers taken together probably cover the total of answers you'll get here: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/55262, https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/15382, https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/105611, https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/55915, https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/22855. I'll leave it to the community to decide whether to VTC as a dupe, or to answer. – rumtscho Apr 04 '23 at 07:50
  • As you discovered, pyrolytic cleaning only works if you have a pyrolytic surface… otherwise you just bake it harder. You need something specifically made for the job, see https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/113877/42066 – Tetsujin Apr 04 '23 at 08:39
  • Pyrolytic cleaning works on all surfaces actually, except on the ones which melt before the grease burns off :) but 400 C are not nearly enough for this stuff to burn off, if you ever had them (400 on the dial doesn't mean that you actually get the oven wall heated to 400 C). – rumtscho Apr 04 '23 at 11:05
  • Also, it doesn't seem that you tried "harsh" stuff. Acetone and thinners are solvents which are only good for a limited class of substances. For this kind of dirt, you need something alkaline (or specialized solvents), and the only thing you tried in that direction is baking soda, which is very slightly alkaline, and in general a very mild cleaner that's not suited for difficult-to-clean things. – rumtscho Apr 04 '23 at 11:08
  • @rumtscho - my oven only goes to about 270°C on the dial - the pyrolytic surfaces burn off just nicely at that, everything just turns to ash. But… it's only half-coated, which means the un-coated surfaces merely burn on harder. – Tetsujin Apr 04 '23 at 15:25

1 Answers1

3

Raw metal and glass are extremely durable at least partly because you can clean them with harsh chemicals if needs be. I had a similar situation, my oven got extremely dirty with baked on grease, the strongest cleaner I could find in the store barely made a dent in it. I tried applying a paste of baking soda and dish soap, which also barely made a dent in it.

In the end what worked for me was to use a razor blade window scraper on the glass and metal parts, and repeated applications of the strongest oven cleaner I could find in the areas I couldn't scrape. There's no magic answer, it just takes elbow grease as my grandfather used to say.

As has been mentioned in comments if you glass is coated then you should think twice before using a razor on it. My ovens don't have a coating, but if you don't know don't do it!

GdD
  • 74,019
  • 3
  • 128
  • 240
  • Cleaners aren't just about strength, but about what's appropriate - can we assume you used a strongly alkaline oven cleaner (sodium or potassium hydroxide)? In gel form is better than the runnier versions – Chris H Apr 04 '23 at 10:49
  • 1
    Yes, I used a gel @ChrisH, the spray liquids did absolutely nothing. – GdD Apr 04 '23 at 11:07
  • 2
    Somebody once used a razor blade 'safety scraper' on the glass door of my oven. *I have never forgiven them.* It was coated glass, now badly scratched. I would really ***not*** recommend this. As an added 'hurt', the scratches now gum up far more than the areas that survived intact. – Tetsujin Apr 04 '23 at 16:41
  • @Tetsujin : they now make ‘plastic razor blades’ that shouldn’t scratch glass, but I suspect that the softer ones might not work to scrape something too hard. (I’ve gotten them twice, and the yellow ones from Ace Hardware were better than the black ones that I got in a bag at another place) – Joe Apr 04 '23 at 21:52