Your organization should strive to keep your kitchen area clean to cut down on pests and contamination. Part of that is keeping your ovens as clean as possible, checking them, wiping them down, and removing debris that may have accumulated. Adding these tasks to your janitorial routine is beneficial, as good maintenance and cleaning of your oven will help to keep it from needing to be repaired or replaced, prolonging the life and usefulness of this vital appliance. Cleaning and examining this fixture on a regular basis ensures that small issues can be taken care of before they become big issues, ultimately saving time and money.

Wipe it Down Daily

Daily cleaning of the exterior of your oven should be a part of the janitorial routine of your organization’s kitchen.  The front and top of ovens are areas that are prone to splashes and spills when items are put into the oven. Wiping these daily makes this task easier, as you won’t have as much to do at one time and are catching splashes and spills when they are fresh.

Make sure that you are using the correct type of cleaner for these front and top surfaces, which are most often stainless steel. Stainless steel is a very thin layer of metal that is susceptible to scratches, marring, and even holes from the wrong kinds of cleaners. If your exterior oven surfaces are made from this material, protect them by using a product like Sheila Shine Stainless Steel Cleaner. This cleaner is designed specifically for this surface type and will help to protect your investment and keep your oven exterior clean.

Daily wiping of the interior of your oven, after letting it cool, will help prevent compounding of dirt, grease, and debris in the oven. Oven interiors are an area that can be plagued by splashes and overflowing pan contents. If you are able to clean this area daily with a product designed for the purpose, like our own oven and grill cleaner, you can get to these before they become an issue. This type of product is formulated to easily spray into your oven surfaces—racks, bottom, sides—and release whatever is stuck. When you wipe the spray off, the mess comes off as well, making this task easy.

Remove Any Baked-on Debris Inside Your Oven

Sometimes despite your best efforts of daily cleaning, splashed food and bubbled-over food will get baked onto the inside of your oven.  In these situations, the above oven and grill cleaner will certainly help. But you may find that a cleaner like oven, grill, and fry cleaner, which you can pour directly onto your trouble spots in a higher concentration in one area to be more helpful.  Using this type of product, you can control where the cleaner goes and how much you use, allowing more precision in your cleaning.

Check for Signs of Wear

As part of your cleaning routine, it is a best practice to check your oven for required maintenance. Doing so helps to keep problems small and your kitchen running smoothly since you can schedule needed repairs on your own timetable and not when an emergency has arisen.

1. Check Hinges

If your oven is the type that opens out, make sure that its hinges are not overly sprung from too much weight placed on them. This can happen when people set pans on them before sliding them into the oven. By checking these and getting them repaired when problems arise, you can avoid oven downtime.

Also, make sure that you are not placing your own body weight onto these during your cleaning processes, as that can cause the same kind of problems.

2. Check Seal

Check to make sure that the seal around the oven door that keeps the heat inside the stove is not coming loose anywhere. If it is loose, then heat is escaping the oven and costing your organization money in lost energy—both in cooling a kitchen and overwork of the oven to heat.

3. Check Temperature

About once a month, use an oven thermometer to check and make sure that the temperature that you have set your oven for is actually the oven’s temperature. If it isn’t, you may need to replace a thermostat or recalibrate the oven.

Follow Manufacturer Recommendations

What we have discussed to this point are general cleaning suggestions and ideas for oven cleaning. These recommendations are certainly a good basic place to start planning a cleaning strategy for your ovens, but you and your team want to make sure that you are familiar with suggestions from the manufacturer as well. Be aware of any specific problem areas for cleaning or places to check for maintenance. In doing so, you can be better able to get ahead of cleaning and maintenance problems before they start.

Through cleaning your oven, you can save your organization time and money. If you are using the right kind of products and know what to do, you can be efficient and thorough.  Check our line of oven products here. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. Send us an email. We are happy to help you be successful.