Easy Way to Clean a Stove Top or How to Not Clean a Shower

I have a gas stove. I bought a gas stove on purpose. I seriously considered one of those smooth top stoves because they looked so easy to keep clean but I was afraid one would not hold up to heavy duty cooking, such as canning.

I like my stove but it is a PAIN to clean. If you want to know how to do something the easy way, ask a lazy person. I am lazy. Below, is the easy way to clean a gas stove with heavy grills.

If you have a glass top stove, here is a nice post on how to clean it:

http://firefly5555.blogspot.com/2011/05/glass-stove-top-cleaning.html

I made black beans one night a couple of weeks ago. I obviously wasn't paying attention and let the beans boil over. What a mess!

Bad Mom

Take all the metal pieces, including the grills and pans and place in a garbage bag. Spray each item inside the bag with oven cleaner. Oven cleaner is nasty, be sure to wear gloves, safety glasses and a face mask.  It can literally burn your lungs and intestinal tract.

I use the Wal-Mart brand of oven cleaner, it's cheaper and it works just fine.

Wal-Mart Brand Oven Cleaner

Let the bag containing all the stove parts saturated in oven cleaner sit for several hours. All the crusted on grim will just wipe off fairly easily with just a minimum of light scrubbing required.

Stove parts in Oven cleaner

My husband is constantly telling me, "You just need to learn to focus". I would really like to argue with him about his assessment of me but quit frankly,  I can't concentrate long enough to do so.

Recently I decided to clean my shower. I had purchased some Wal-Mart brand bathroom cleaner in an effort to save a little money. Whatever you do, DO NOT purchase Great Value Bathroom Cleaner. In my opinion, it does not come even close to its Scrubbing Bubbles Competitor. It should be named "Poor Work Ethic Bubbles". Anyway, I wanted to use it up and go get the good stuff. I am a great fan of generic except when it doesn't work.

I started spraying the cleanser and almost couldn't breathe. It seemed like it was greasy and left a dull residue all over the shower.  The stuff was even worse than I remembered. It was right about then I looked down and realized I was using oven cleaner, not foaming bathroom cleaner.

The room was spinning and it was as if I could hear my husband's voice bouncing off the walls. "You need to focus...You need to focus...You need to focus." Forget heroin, I think I was on a really bad oven cleaner trip.

I had to re-clean the shower about three times to remove all the greasy oven cleaner residue. In my defense, they do look eerily similar. If they made Great Value Whipped Cream in a can, I would probably be dead.