How to clean baked on junk from your glass cook top stove!!
Admit it, we’ve all gotten lazy with our glass cooktop. We’ve all thought:
Eh, it’ll be okay if I just heat this pan up on the burner…. I will just clean it up when I’m done!!!
Next thing you know, you’re scrubbing and scrubbing and the junk on the cooktop won’t come off. Am I right people?!? Of course I am. There’s nothing that’s more stubborn to get off than the residue of cooking on your glass top. Now I’ve tried pretty much everything. Everyone swears by Weiman Cook Top Cleaner but that’s for almost daily use. Once it’s stuck on there, Weiman just serves to annoy you and then what….? You get out the scrubby sponge and go to town. Or if you’re really crazy (like *I* am) you’ll try something radical like using a razor blade and gently trying to scrape up the “gunk” (the technical term for it) hoping that you don’t oops and scratch your cook top. Yes, I’ve done that.
I was ALMOST ready to get rid of my electric stove (which is very nice by the way…. you can see it in the picture 🙂 ) and go gas stove. I said I would try to clean it “one more time” and if I didn’t get the results I wanted….. bye bye stove!!
I googled a bunch of sites and came across this article from cleanmyspace.com entitled “Clean Your Glass Stovetop”.
I said to myself “It’s probably as good as any….”
What you need at a minimum are some clean dish rags (they will get dirty so I used ones I could throw away like my old Chicago Bears ones from the ex…!!!) , a bowl half full of piping hot water mixed with 2 TBSP of dish soap, Baking Soda, and paper towels. I’d also suggest you use gloves, but I didn’t and maybe I’ll pay for that tomorrow but I’d suggest gloves. And also wear old clothes in case you get baking soda all over you. I don’t THINK it’ll bleach them…. but I don’t want to chance it.
Here’s the directions from cleanmyspace.com:
PLEASE ONLY DO THIS WHEN TH STOVE IS COOLED.
Never, ever do this on a hot stove.
- Add hot water to the bowl. Pour in dish liquid.
- Place rags in bowl and agitate gently, mixing the soap in the water and getting the cloths fully saturated.
- Sprinkle baking soda over the entire stovetop.
- Wring out the rags half way; you want them to be wett-ish so that they can activate the baking soda and loosen the build up.
4A — This is the part that they didn’t tell you on cleanmyspace.com — you have to put the rags/towels over the entire surface of the stove. Lay them out and cover the baking soda like a warm blanket. That’s what starts the baking soda activation! - Let this sit for 15 minutes. If you have really bad stains, try leaving it for a few hours, adding water to the stovetop as it dries out. You want to keep the baking soda moistened.
5A – (i also found that after 45 minutes that I left mine on there, it didn’t dry out at all… it wasn’t warm… but it wasn’t dry either. So i added NO extra water throughout this process) - Remove all but one rag. Begin at the top of the stove and wipe clean in an ‘S’ pattern.
6A – i SCRUBBED HARD at my “junk”!!!) - Take soft part of the sponge and run under cool water. wipe up any debris or work out any tough stains with the sponge. If you encounter something really challenging try using a SKrAPr (we are obsessed with them). Don’t even think about a razor blade, it’s super dangerous and you will almost certainly scratch the stovetop.
- Finally, take the microfiber cloth and buff the stovetop to a dry shine. You may want to add some glass cleaner at this point if you are getting a lot of streaks.
8A – I didn’t use a microfiber cloth, but used a paper towel and a little elbow grease! Got the job done!
And there you have it. I did mine just now, I didn’t use the sponge but rather used the rags to sort of buff the junk off the surface, like “comet cleaner” or something to that effect. I ran the water and washed out the towels as they got loaded up with baking soda. I may even try it a second time at some point but i’m very impressed with the results.
Unfortunately, i’m so impressed that I won’t be buying a new gas stove, which makes me very disappointed. In the picture, there’s glare from the range hood, etc. but I assure you… it looks good in person!
So if anyone has any buildup on their glass cooktop stove… Follow these instructions for a clean and beautiful stove top!!!
Dennis, I love this so much, I have the same stove so I am excited to try this! Question though, what was your level of gunkiness?
It was awful. No really, awful. The rings around the outside edge of the burners were so bad that sometimes it would smoke because of all the crusty stuff on them. Seriously, this method works. It got probably 90% of it off and looks great now. I’ll probably do it one more time just to see if I can get the little tiny crusties here and there … but looks 10X BETTER. This is a proven method. Absolutely 100%!!!!
Yay! I am so excited, I know what I’m doing tomorrow! I’m at the end of my rope with the Weiman and a scrubby. I can’t keep this stove clean for nothing lol.. thank you so much for posting this!
You’re so welcome!!! I had it and today was the day it was either try one last time, or get a new stove. And luckily, it got clean enough for me to be satisfied!!!