It works!!!
Minimal effort, patience, and cheap. I have a combination stove top, it's ceramic and propane. I don't really love it, but it came with the house. It looks nice when it's clean, it looks beautiful when it's clean. And all I used is baking soda(Part I) and ammonia(Part II)(not together, I'm sure there is some kind of warning about that). I've bought expensive stove top cleaners, eh. My favorite by Scotch was discontinued years ago. I tried baking soda, it's a mild abrasive, but cuts grease, and voila. Just use a damp non-scratch abrasive pad and baking soda. Baking soda costs nothing compared to store cleaners.
I read HERE, about putting your stove top grates into a Ziploc bag with a little ammonia and letting it sit overnight. Her pics were really amazing and I was willing to try anything. Lemishine in the dishwasher helped a lot, but in the past I'd have to use oven cleaner to get the grates clean, and that was still a ho-hum result. Well, the ammonia in the bag worked. I have double grates and they wouldn't fit in a Ziploc bag, so I just used a plain old plastic trash bag, poured a few Tablespoons of ammonia into the bag and then sealed it up by folding the end over and sealing with a clip. Set them out on the porch overnight. The grates do not need to be sprayed with the ammonia, it's the fumes from inside the bag that break down the gunk on the grates. After 24 hours(I got busy), I pulled one out and DO wear gloves for this. I took a sturdy dish brush and scraped off most of the black gunk(boy am I embarrassed for you to see how awful this thing was!). I rinsed it off with hot water and poured a few Tablespoons of baking soda in the corner of the sink. Use a non-scratch abrasive pad and pick up a little baking soda with it's wet corner. It took very little scrubbing power and the rest of the cooked on crud was off in seconds! Really, hardly put any effort at all into it. And baking soda, what a great tool! Baking soda has become my favorite cleaning product now next to Mr. Clean Erasers. Oh, tried the Mr. Clean Erasers too on the stove top and grates, and it took several of them and they never really cleaned them as well as the baking soda and ammonia technique.
Before:
Put your grate into the bag and pour a little ammonia, I poured about 2 Tbls.
Fold the bag over and snap with a clippy. Allow this to set overnight/24 hours or so in a nice warm sunny spot. The fumes will break down nasty baked on food. And don't ask me how, but I somehow got paint on one of mine, instantly came off after months of cooking it in even more.
It does not come out as clean as what it pictured below. Put some gloves on! Get as much off with a scratch proof nylon brush, scrubby, sponge, etc... At this point you will probably remember like me that you need to call to get your roots done. Sprinkle some baking soda on the areas that still need a little TLC and scrub with brush or sponge. Rinse and voila.
After:
Check out that shine! Baking Soda only baby :)
Just like new, back to the day we moved in 4+ years ago.
~Jen
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