My stove has porcelain <sp?> burners, and the previous owner of our house must not have cleaned them after use, as they are quite dirty. I have tried scrubbing them with the rough side of Scrubber sponges, but they do not get clean. Does anyone know of anything that will get the cooked on dirt off without hurting the porcelain? I also tried Soft Scrub, and soaking them in ammonia-water (which I am trying again).
Thanks,
Eddie G
I’ve always had good luck with straight ammonia. I put them in a plastic bag, give 'em a shake now and then and just let 'em soak. Oven cleaner works ok too.
What bare said.
Are they removable burners? If they’re removable burners, throw them away and buy some new ones. Life’s too short.
If you’re talking about non-removable burners, are you talking about the round iron rack thingies that hold the pot up off the heat, or are you talking about the circular flat part that surrounds the heat, where when the pot of rice boils over, it goes in there and bakes onto the porcelain?
To get something like this clean, there’s no substitute for plain old elbow grease. However, you have to be VERY CAREFUL, if you’re scrubbing with a steel wool pad (Brillo or S.O.S. pad) and/or Comet cleanser, because you can scratch the porcelain.
Soak some paper towels in straight ammonia, smoosh it down onto the crud, and leave it to soak overnight. Do I need to tell you that the fumes from this will be very intense? Don’t have the baby (or the parakeet) in the kitchen while you’re doing this.
The next morning, rinse all the ammonia off before you start putting other scrubbing stuff on there. Ammonia will combine with bleach (found in both Ajax and Comet Cleanser) to make a VERY TOXIC GAS.
Get the top layer of crud off with a Brillo pad (or plain steel wool) and Comet cleanser, very cautiously, and as soon as you start seeing white porcelain, rinse off the Comet cleanser and switch to baking soda and a plastic scrubber pad of some kind. It will take a lot of baking soda; you want it for its mildly abrasive properties, not its chemical properties, so as soon as it gets wet, it’s pretty much used up and you have to dump some more on there. Fortunately, it’s cheap.
If it’s really bad, you may have to just live with it.
A WHOLE lot easier is naphtha. It’s a really cheap solvent in every hardware store.
Must be used outside or with all windows open, but the odor does not linger when the rags are removed.
Nothing else works as fast and easy.
But BE SURE to remove them from the stove or turn off the gas at a point outside the stove. The fumes are flamable.