- 7 weeks ago
Cleaning a dirty oven does not have to mean harsh chemicals or hours of scrubbing. Here, the grease is loosened first with steam, soaking, and a little patience, so burnt-on food and blackened grime can wipe away with far less effort. The method covers the whole oven, including the racks, door, glass, walls, and bottom, using simple household ingredients like vinegar, hot water, dish soap, baking soda, and even foil.
The process starts by taking out the racks to soak, clearing crumbs and loose char, then steaming the oven with a bowl of vinegar and boiling water. For stubborn stains, a baking soda paste is covered with foil so it stays wet and keeps working deep into the buildup before being lifted away gently. A final touch with warmed lemon peel leaves the oven fresh and clean, while the video also explains why mixing vinegar and baking soda together weakens both.
This is practical home cleaning advice for anyone looking for oven cleaning tips, grease removal, baking soda cleaning hacks, steam cleaning methods, and easy kitchen cleaning ideas. It is especially useful for viewers who want a no-scrub oven cleaner approach, natural cleaning methods, and simple household cleaning routines that save time and stress.
The process starts by taking out the racks to soak, clearing crumbs and loose char, then steaming the oven with a bowl of vinegar and boiling water. For stubborn stains, a baking soda paste is covered with foil so it stays wet and keeps working deep into the buildup before being lifted away gently. A final touch with warmed lemon peel leaves the oven fresh and clean, while the video also explains why mixing vinegar and baking soda together weakens both.
This is practical home cleaning advice for anyone looking for oven cleaning tips, grease removal, baking soda cleaning hacks, steam cleaning methods, and easy kitchen cleaning ideas. It is especially useful for viewers who want a no-scrub oven cleaner approach, natural cleaning methods, and simple household cleaning routines that save time and stress.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Of all the jobs in a kitchen, cleaning the oven is the one folk dread the most and put
00:05off the longest, till the grease is baked on black and hard as tar, and the whole thing
00:11seems a lost cause, fit only for the harshest, foulest smelling can of oven cleaner there
00:17is. But I am here to tell you it need not be that battle at all. There is no hard
00:23scrubbing
00:23in what I am about to show you, and no harsh choking chemical either. There is only the
00:29plain old wisdom of loosening the grease and letting it lift itself with steam and a soak
00:35and a little patience, so that it wipes away where it would not scrub away. I showed you
00:41the racks before. Today I will show you the whole oven, the door and the glass and the walls
00:46and the bottom, cleaned gently and easily and made fresh besides. Let me show you. Here
00:54is the thing to understand first. The one idea that runs through the whole of it and
00:59takes the dread right out of the job. Baked on oven grease will not scrub off, no matter
01:05how you labor, for it is cooked hard onto the metal and the glass, but it will soften. Grease
01:12that hardened with heat softens again with warmth and moisture, and a hard baked stain, soaked
01:19or steamed long enough, loosens its grip and lets go, so that it wipes away with a cloth where
01:25an hour of scrubbing would not have touched it. So you never fight the grease. You loosen
01:31it and let it fight itself loose. Steam softens it, a soak softens it, a wet paste held against
01:39it softens it, and then you simply wipe. Loosen first, wipe after, and the scrubbing near vanishes.
01:47That is the whole secret, and every method today is only that same wisdom in a different form.
01:53Now let me take you through it, start to finish. Quick word before we go further. My name is
01:59Esther Yoder, and the old household ways handed down to me, the kind I am sharing today, and
02:05a great many more besides, are far more than I could ever fit into one video. I have gathered
02:12the whole of them into a book, and you will find it at EliasYoder.com. If today's tips serve
02:18you, that is where the rest of what my mother and grandmother taught me lives, all in the one place.
02:24Now, to the oven. My grandmother had a saying I have given you before and will give again,
02:30for it is the very heart of easy cleaning, that patience does the work that force cannot, and does
02:37it while you go about your day. She never once, that I saw, scrubbed at a baked-on thing by
02:43main
02:43strength. She set it to soak or to steam and walked away, and came back to find it near done
02:49for her.
02:50And the oven is the very throne of that wisdom, the place where a little patience saves the most
02:56labor of all. So here is her patient way with the whole oven, step by step. Now, the first thing,
03:03before any cleaning solution touches anything, is to take the racks out and set them to soak,
03:08soak, for they take the longest, so you start them first and let them soak away while you do the
03:14rest
03:14of the oven. I showed you the whole of this before, so I will give you the short of it.
03:20Once the oven
03:20is cool enough not to burn you, slide the racks out, lay them in a tub or a sink lined
03:26with an old towel
03:27to save it, cover them with hot water, and put in a good squirt of dish soap and a scattering
03:32of baking soda,
03:33and leave them there to soak, the whole time you clean the oven and longer, for the hot soapy water
03:39is loosening all that baked grease off them while you work, so that later they wipe clean with hardly
03:45a rub. Now, with the racks out and soaking, you turn to the oven itself, and the first step there
03:52is the
03:52simplest. Clear it out. Before ever you go at the grease, take out all the loose stuff, the crumbs and
03:59the
03:59burnt bits and the char that have collected in the corners, and along the bottom and in the crevices
04:05where you never look. Wipe them out with a bit of paper or your hand, and give any light grease
04:10a quick
04:11wipe while you are at it, no scrubbing, just clearing the loose dirt away, for this makes all that follows
04:17easier and cleaner. You are making a clean surface for the real loosening to work on, so it is not
04:25fighting
04:25through crumbs and char to reach the baked grease. Clear it out first, always. Now the heart of it, and
04:33the
04:33gentlest and best method of all, which is the steam. This one wants the oven still a little warm from
04:41cooking, so it is a fine thing to do right after you have baked. You take a bowl that can
04:47stand the heat,
04:48and pour into it some plain white vinegar, and then some good hot boiling water, and you set that bowl
04:55inside the oven and close the door, and you leave it there 20 minutes or so. And here is the
05:02wonder of
05:02it. That hot vinegar water steams up and fills the whole oven with warm damp steam, and that steam settles
05:11on every surface, the walls and the roof and the door and the glass, and softens and loosens all the
05:18baked grease everywhere at once, in every corner your hand could never reach. When you open the door,
05:25the inside may look cloudy and wet, and that is exactly the good sign you want, for it means the
05:31grease has softened and let go. Then you take a soft cloth, dampened in a little warm vinegar water,
05:38and you simply wipe the surfaces down, and the softened grease comes away easily, wiped not scrubbed.
05:45For a tougher spot, a soft sponge, but no hard scrubbing, and then a dry cloth over it all to
05:52finish. The steam does the loosening, you only wipe. It is the gentlest oven cleaning there is,
05:59and near effortless. Now for the stubborn old stains, the ones baked on hard and dry and black over a
06:06long
06:06time, that even the steam will not fully lift, here is the stronger method, and it uses a clever trick
06:12to keep the cleaner working deep. You make up a cleaning solution, dish soap and baking soda in warm
06:19water, or a thicker paste of baking soda and a little water, and you spread it right onto those stubborn
06:25baked on stains, on the door and the walls, and wherever the worst of it is. And now here is
06:31the trick that
06:32makes the difference, and it is the same one I showed you for the mold. You take pieces of aluminum
06:38foil
06:38and gently press them right over the pasted stains, covering them. Why? Because a paste left open to
06:46the air dries out in an hour and stops working, but a paste sealed under foil stays wet and keeps
06:52soaking
06:53down into that hard baked stain, working deep instead of drying up. So you press the foil over the treated
07:00spots to keep them moist. Close the door and leave it a good couple of hours to soak in deep.
07:06Then peel
07:06off the foil, and here is a satisfying bit of thrift. Roll that same foil up into a loose ball
07:13and use it
07:14as your scrubber, for a ball of foil is just abrasive enough to lift the loosened residue without scratching.
07:21Go over the softened stains with your foil ball, and the burnt on grime that defied you comes away with
07:27hardly any force at all, for the long wet soak under the foil did the hard part. Wipe it clean
07:34after. Patience under foil, then a gentle rub, and the worst stains yield. Now, a word about a thing you
07:42will see done, the fizzing spray, for I will be honest with you as I always am. You will see
07:48folk mix lemon
07:49juice and vinegar and baking soda all together. Watch it fizz up grand and spray it on, and I will
07:56tell you
07:56plainly what is true. The lemon and the vinegar are acids, and the baking soda is their opposite,
08:02an alkali. And when you fizz them all together, they largely cancel each other out in that foaming,
08:08each spending the other's strength. So the grand fizz is mostly show, and leaves you weaker cleaning,
08:14not stronger. So do not be taken in by the bubbling. Here is the truth of those good plain things,
08:20and how to use them rightly, each for its own job. The baking soda, a paste of it, is your
08:27grease
08:27cutter. So use soda for the greasy baked on stains, as I showed you under the foil. And the acid,
08:34the
08:34lemon or the vinegar, is your scale cutter, and freshener, and steamer. So use it for the steam,
08:41and for wiping and freshening, as I showed you with the steam bowl. Soda for the grease, acid for the
08:48freshening, and the steam, each used for what it does, and not all fizz together into a weak muddle.
08:55That way you get the full strength of each. Now once your oven is clean, here is a lovely finishing
09:02touch to leave it smelling sweet, and it uses a thing you would have thrown away. Remember if you
09:09squeezed a lemon to keep the peels. Once the oven is cleaned, lay those peels inside, and turn the oven
09:17on low, very low, and let them warm. As they warm, their fragrant oils gently rise, and fill the oven
09:25with a fresh, clean citrus scent, drifting into every corner, and neutralizing any lingering smell of
09:33grease or of the cleaning. It costs nothing, only a peel you would have tossed, and it makes the whole
09:40job feel finished. A clean oven that smells sweet is a joy to cook in again. And now the best
09:47wisdom of
09:48all, the keeping, so that you scarcely ever face a bad baked on oven again, for you know my grandmother's
09:56rule that keeping is easier than mending. Even an oven that looks clean carries a thin film of grease from
10:04the everyday cooking. And if you never tend it, that film bakes on, layer by layer, until it is the
10:11black tar
10:12you dreaded. So the habit that spares you all of it, every so often, while the oven is only lightly
10:20used,
10:20and no real buildup has formed, spread a light paste of baking soda and a little vinegar and water over
10:28the
10:28bottom and the corners and the edges, no scrubbing, and leave it, or warm the oven low a short while
10:36to
10:36help it work. Then let it cool and wipe it clean. That regular light tending lifts the thin grease before
10:44it ever bakes hard, and your oven simply never reaches the dreadful state, and never wants the hard cleaning
10:51at all. A little tending now and then, instead of a great battle once a year, that is the whole
10:58of
10:58it. And a plain word of safety, as ever, on all of this. Never mix bleach into any of these,
11:06nor use it
11:07with the vinegar, for bleach and acid together make a poison gas. Keep to the soap and soda and vinegar
11:14and lemon, which are all safe together. And this matters double in an oven, for your food is cooked in
11:22there. Be sure the oven is off and cool for your soaking and wiping. And rinse and wipe every surface
11:30well and clean after, so no soap or cleaner is left to bake onto your next meal. And the racks
11:38and any
11:38surface your food touches, rinse them clean and dry them before they go back in. Now think a moment about
11:46why we came to believe an oven wants either a harsh, choking can of spray that warns you off breathing
11:54it, or a whole exhausting afternoon of scrubbing, when a bowl of steam and a soda paste and a little
12:01patience clean it gently for pennies. It is worse than a plot, for no one had to arrange it. There
12:09is money
12:10in the harsh oven cleaner in the can, and in your believing the job is a misery you must buy
12:16your way
12:17out of, and none at all in teaching you that grease only wants loosening, and will lift itself with steam
12:25and patience for the cost of nothing. So the plain old knowing that you loosen a baked thing rather than
12:33fight it, just stopped being handed down, because no one profits by your cleaning your oven with a bowl of
12:40water and a scrap of foil. My grandmother kept a clean sweet oven all her life with plain things and
12:48patience and never a poison can, and somewhere between her day and ours we were taught that a dirty oven
12:57wants a harsh chemical and an aching arm. The mending of it is steam, a soda paste, a scrap of
13:05foil and a
13:06little patience. You set your racks soaking first. You clear out the loose crumbs and char. You steam the
13:14grease loose with a bowl of vinegar and hot water and wipe it away. You press a soda paste under
13:22foil
13:22on the stubborn old stains and let it soak deep, then lift it with a ball of that same foil.
13:30You freshen it
13:31with warmed lemon peel, and you keep it up with a light soda paste tending now and then, so it
13:37never
13:37bakes hard again. And your whole oven is clean and bright and sweet, gently and cheaply, and with never
13:45a scrub nor a fume. That is how it comes home, one steamed oven, one patient soak at a time.
13:54The keeping of
13:55your own kitchen back in your own hands. So here is what I would ask of you. This week, take
14:03that dreaded
14:04oven you have been avoiding and try the steam method the way I showed you. A bowl of vinegar and
14:10hot water
14:11left to soften the grease, and then come back and tell me in the comments how easily it wiped away
14:17and how
14:18little you had to scrub. For I do love to hear of a dreaded job made gentle and easy. And
14:25tell me too,
14:26while you are there, your county and the age of your house. For the old houses have the old ovens
14:32that folks struggle with most. And I learn from every one of you how the keeping goes where you live.
14:39And if your own mother or grandmother had a way with a baked on oven that I have not named
14:44here,
14:45tell me that most of all. For that is how this goes. We share what we were given. I read
14:52every comment,
14:53and I learn from you the way the old women learned from one another across the fence line. One kitchen,
15:00and one season at a time. Next time I will show you how to clean the stove top and the
15:06range the same
15:06gentle way. The burnt on rings, and the greasy hood, and the spattered backsplash. With the same plain
15:14things and the same loosening patience, so that the whole of your cooking place, oven and stove alike,
15:20is kept bright and sweet, with never a harsh chemical. There is a right and an old way to keep
15:27every corner of a kitchen that runs on loosening and patience, rather than scrubbing and harsh cans.
15:34But this week, you start with the oven. You set the rack soaking. You clear it out. You steam the
15:41grease loose,
15:41and wipe it away. You soak the stubborn stains under foil, and lift them gently. And you freshen it with
15:48a warmed lemon peel. And then you keep it up with a little tending, so it never bakes hard again.
15:54And you
15:55will understand, as my grandmother did at her own oven, that patience does the work that force cannot. That
16:02baked on grease is never scrubbed off, but loosened off with steam and a soak and time. And that the
16:09job you
16:10dreaded most in all the kitchen was only ever waiting for you to stop fighting it and let a little
16:16patience do the work. The kitchen kept the plain old way is the one that remembers how the old women
16:23kept
16:23a clean sweet oven with steam, a soda paste, and the patience to let the grease lift itself. And that
16:30is
16:30a thing we are only just starting to remember.