Has anyone ever used a Knorr Pasta Side or made something similar where you have to boil milk, butter, and water before adding in the final to simmer? Is it just me or does that pot of mixed liquids go from doing nothing to boiling over onto the stove in an instant!!?? Well, I did it one night. But instead of letting the burner cool and immediately cleaning it, I left it! I continued to cook on burner until it was smoking and black and had a really thick layer of yuck burnt on.
I do not have pictures but I got to work furiously cleaning my nasty thing. I did take me good bit of scrubbing. I was able to get about half way through the thickness and had to take a break. I put my burner in the dishwasher and let it run through a cycle of really hot cleaning. In all, it took about 4 times of scrubbing and washing but I was able to get all of the yuck off of my burner.
My advice is just be persistent. For the worse of the worse burners, it may take doing it for 10 minutes a few times through the day to really break through the burnt on gunk but the persistence does pay off in the end.
I know a lot of us, men and women, dislike cleaning the stove. It seems an even more daunting task when you have one of the electric, coil burner stoves. As a military wife, it seems like every base housing house we get ends up having one of these horrible stoves. Now, after a few years of dealing with these types, I have learned it is best to clean the whole burner after every meal...(I know, yeah right, right?!?)
I also know as a mother of 3 that this is sometimes (most often) not always possible. When you have 2 kids screaming because they are tired and ready for bed and 1 ready to take a bath, cleaning the stove gets put on the back burner (no pun intended) and then forgotten as the evening progresses. So tonight I wanted to demonstrate how to effectively clean a stove using nothing but some plain vinegar, baking soda, a towel and my finger. I made sure to take pictures of the my progress to prove the effectiveness.
Step 1: I sat my burner in the sink with some hot water and plain vinegar to soak for about 10 minutes. You can see in the sink a couple tiny black flakes from my burner but the soak was just to help soften up some of the burnt on food.
Step 2: I took my normal dish scrubber brush and gave my burner a quick scrub. I did not exert a lot of energy or muscle. Just scrubbed to break off some of the loose pieces. This is what my burner looked like.
Step 3: I then took my $0.50 box of off brand baking soda and gave it a quick shake throughout the inside of my burner. This is more of a light coating then anything.
Step 4: I then took my finger (yes my finger) and splashed a little bit of vinegar around the inside of the burner creating a paste. It should not be more vinegar then baking soda.
Step 5: I then took the corner of a towel, wrapped around my finger and lightly scrubbed in small circles around the inside of the burner. For the tougher burnt spots, I picked up a little bit more of the paste, and continued my circular scrubbing. It took me about 5 minutes to achieve the results below. And as you can see on my towel, the results of my scrubbing.
I can not believe that it took me a few years of fighting with these stoves to figure out the best way to clean them or keep them clean. I have tried everything, including wrapping my burners in aluminum foil. That is the worst thing I ever did! Not only was I trying to get off burnt on food but also burnt on aluminum foil.
This method also works if you have one of those pretty glass top stoves. If you get the small rings of burnt food particles and can not find anything to clean it off without having to leave the house for a few hours because of the smell, try this method. I have used this on my parents glass top and it came out sparkling. I do recommend a good glass cleaner to give it the reflective shine after a baking soda scrub.
I hope I was able to help other families to conquer their frustrating stoves and burners. It has definitely made my cleaning a bit easier.
13 comments:
I did this last year & it didn't work. My trays were really burned on dirty!
I love this post!! I tried it and had to do 3x throughout cleaning (mine were BAD) and it got up everything. I've been trying things for over a year with little success. So thanks. Love your DIY.
When they are so bad, I throw them out and get a new one on eBay for about $6, my time is way too valuable to save $6...
Apparently your time is not that valuble if yoy are reading a post that you dont apparently need and then taking extra time to post on it lol THANKS for the trick! My burners and my $6 thank you for it.
I agree, if your time is so valuable...why are you online at all?
Can this be used on glass top stoves that are burnt?
Just got finished doing this and it wasn't a big success. Some places that were not as thick as others did come cleaner than the rest but I only did one burner with this method to try it and see if it was worth the time. Well for the next one instead of using vinegar to make the paste I used hydrogen peroxide. Ours is in a spray bottle so I just spritzed enough to make a paste and that helped so much more than the vinegar.
I used to clean rental properties, and have come across my fair share of burnt-on burner covers. What REALLY cuts the crud fast? AMMONIA. Soak in the sink, scrub off, done.
Jajaja love this answer
The "clean" burner looks more like a newly purchased one. Are you sure this post is legit? Sorry, but I've tried this countless times and my burners never came out clean...sigh
Yes--use ammonia. You won't even have to do all that scrubbing. The crusty junk falls right off!!
Use ACV or Apple Cider Vinegar instead. I also heard Ammonia is great.
love this saved me a lot of money it worked wonderful, my two big drip pans were terrible and they are now like brand new
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