Making Your Stovetop Shine

I have been working on this entry for a while now, but have been distracted by so many other things that I keep putting it off. I wanted to send out cleaning suggestions for all those different types of stove tops out there.

I clean for people with all kinds of stove tops from the new perennial favorites of the flat, glass top cooking surfaces to gas tops and even a JennAir, which can be a bit of a monster to clean. I have also cleaned the regular electric top stoves as well, but do not currently have any.

This is a before shot of a stove top that was pretty bad one day. I used Ceramabryte to get it to the shiny state you see below.

The after shot of the particularly dirty stove top above.

Let’s start with the glass tops…. The manufacturers of these new stove tops that are flat will tell you that you should only use the cleaners that are specifically made for glass top stove surfaces, such as Ceramabryte, lest you will risk ruining your stove top. While these cleaners do work very well and effectively, I can attest that there are other cleaners you can use without damaging the surface. I have cleaned some of these stove tops for years with Soft Scrub, Comet, Bar Keeper’s Friend, or even good old-fashioned Baking Soda. All of these can work just as effectively on a glass top stove. In fact, a cousin of mine had some really stuck on brown/black stains on her glass top stove, for years, and I used Comet and a lot of elbow grease, meaning I scrubbed it really well for about a half an hour, and eventually got most of the stains off the stove top. When I am finished with the abrasive cleaner, I try to wipe as much of it off with my wet rag, and then I finish up with a little glass cleaner to give it a nice shine. On my own glass top stove, I use glass cleaner almost daily to keep it shiny and sparkly and free of kids’hand prints!

For the gas stove tops, I make sure to take all the pieces off and wipe them all down, usually with grease cutting cleaner first and then a glass cleaner last to make sure they look shiny as well. I have one client who has light gray burners on her gas stove top. They can get burn stains and cooked on food marks on them very easily. I use a Brillo or SOS type of pad to get most of those stains off. I have also used the abrasive side of a regular sponge on other stoves. You just have to be careful that the pad isn’t too abrasive or it will scratch the surface of the stove and then those areas always look burnt or dirty.

For the JennAir, I take it all apart! There are lots of parts that come apart on the JennAir. There are the grill sections that have the grilling plates, the electric element, and the grease catching plates. There is the vent area which has a cover and the vent. And there is the electric burner part with the burners that come out, the drip pans that need to be cleaned and then the whole burner section lifts out so I can clean underneath that area. I usually wash the grilling parts, vent parts, and drip pans in the sink with soap and water and a mildly abrasive sponge. Then I spray grease cutting cleaner, usually a Method cleaner, on the whole stove top and get off all the cooking grease, food, and general grime. Then I use glass cleaner on the front of the oven door, the knobs, the top of the stove and the back splash area to get everything all shiny and sparkly. After all of that, I go to clean the bathrooms in that house, so everything I washed in the sink can drip dry for a while. When I come back to clean the rest of the kitchen, I dry the sink items off the rest of the way with a paper towel, and put the whole thing back together. Like I said, it can be a bit of a monster to clean, but I have been cleaning for this family for a long time, and it is down to a science now!

When I clean the electric tops, it is similar to the electric burner side of the JennAir. I take all the burners off, wash up the drip pans, and clean the area underneath the burners as well as the top of the stove with grease cleaner. I always finish off the cleaning with glass cleaner to make everything look shiny.

I know I have said it over and over again, but the end goal is really to make it shiny and sparkly looking. Of course, that means that it is all clean and free of germs and grime. But the asthetic in me just loves that lovely shiny, sparkly top!