a Pinterest success. cleaning the cookstove grates

[Blackdog Lin]

Mine are (soon to be were!) dull and caked with years of crud. And no cleaner in the world - that I could find - ever so much as touched the grossness. Since I'm not all that great a housekeeper anyway I learned to ignore them.

Saw this on Pinterest and it sounded so easy and I had the ammonia on hand anyway I thought why not give it a try. (1) place grate in gallon ziplock; (2) pour in 1/4 c. ammonia; (3) seal; and (4) place on cookie sheet or similar and let set somewhere out of the way overnight.

It's the fumes from the ammonia that dissolves the crud (which is why you're not to use more than the 1/4 c.) and you use the cookie sheet and place it out of the way just in case you spring any little leaks (which did happen on one of mine). The fumes, you know?!

I'll be darned if it didn't work! I've done 3 so far. In the morning I just remove the grate from the bag and gave it a scrubbing to wipe off gunk that was dissolved but still clinging. They're not perfectly clean (think I'm gonna re-do one of them) but they are amazingly cleaner. I am VERY happy with the results. You might like to try it.

[Gardenarian]

Hey, I was thinking of trying that pin! Glad it worked - now I've got to get some ammonia.
Thanks for posting!

[awakenedsoul]

That's good news! Good for you. Sometimes I clean things with boiling hot water and white vinegar. It's probably not as strong as ammonia, but good for caked on grease.

[Blackdog Lin]

awakenedsoul: my stovetop "wells" under where the grates are are also caked and coated with crud. But the stovetop is all one piece, so no removing them for an ammonia treatment alas.

Do you think your boiling water/white vinegar solution would dissolve this crud? Thinking maybe I could pour it into the wells and let it set like overnight. Proportions? Other ideas?

[awakenedsoul]

Hi Blackdog Lin,
It's worth a try. I've used it on pots and pans when I burnt and forgot something like yogi tea. It loosened the black stuff so that I could lift it out of the pot. I think I use about a third vinegar and the rest boiling water. The heat really makes a difference. Hope it works!

[kib]

Put some rags or papertowels over the wet mess overnight to keep it from drying out. I've had some good results with that just using dish detergent, maybe next time I'll try the hot water/vinegar approach.

[lessisbest]

For parts that can't be removed, try a coat of DAWN Direct Foam and cover it with plastic wrap or a plastic produce bag to keep it from drying out, and let sit (it probably won't take very long - maybe check after an hour).

If you need to clean copper (bottoms of pans) coat the copper with ketchup and let it sit several hours (or overnight), the acid in the ketchup will clean the copper. Rinse off and wash in hot soapy water.

[SteveinMN]

I once moved into an apartment with a wonderful turquoise cooktop (gives you an idea of how old it was). The crumb trays under the (open) burners were caked with grease. Years worth, I'm sure. Scrubbing did nothing. Simple Green did. Spray it on, let it sit for a while, voila! Turned out there were cooking instructions in white lettering on the enamel. Bet it had been years since anyone saw those...

We have gray burners on our stove which look really spiffy when they're clean, but they're seldom clean, especially the burner I use most. I find that a paste of Bon Ami and a scrubbie sponge remove pretty much every grease mark and metal abrasion on the burner. Works very well for the "well", too. Maybe a little more elbow grease than the other techniques here, but it takes me less time in the long run.

[Miss Cellane]

Echoing SteveinMN, my very first apartment had a very, very old gas stove. There were folding lids that folded down over the burners to create more counter space, which was nice. But the metal/enamel surface around the burners was this corroded brownish-rusty mess. I'd swipe at it with a sponge and cleaner, and nothing would happen.

Until the day my roommate spilled tomato sauce all over the top of the stove and let it sit for hours until I came home. As I started to really clean the stove top, with a scrubie and Bon Ami, I realized that the top of the stove was not rusted out and corroded.

The top of the stove was covered in layers of grease.

Two hours of scrubbing later, there was a lovely dark blue enamel spattered with white dots stove top. Unchipped, unscratched, unmarred by the passing of decades. I can only assume that the quarter inch of grease protected it all those years.

But I refuse to consider the housekeeping habits of those tenants before who let it get that way in the first place.