Life without a P7

[sarahperdue]

Ok, guys,

I’m definitely going to need some advice about cleaning and caring for a non self cleaning oven. I was seduced by the turquoise Frigidaire Custom Imperial and decided I could live without a self cleaning oven. Last night, I ran a cleaning cycle on the P7 in Tuscaloosa house. When I opened the door to a sparkling clean oven this morning, I realized the full implications of my decision.

So, please help. I need to learn the best way to take care of my new beauty.

Thanks,
Sarah

 

[toploader55]

I prefer Manuel Clean Ovens.

Easy Off, wear gloves, and a green Scotch Brite Pad.

The best way to keep your oven clean and not go through the hell most people hate about cleaning a oven is... Don't let it get very soiled. Wipe up and spot clean spalls and when you see it starting to get dirty, clean it.

I believe your bottom oven is "Pull and Clean". I had one of those and it was the best Baking Oven and Range I ever had.

 

[sfh074]

Do not ....

get Easy Off on the heating elements! Cover them with tinfoil so you don't get any on them by accident. Learned that the hard way years ago.

 

[ea56]

I too prefer an manual clean oven. If you keep up on the spills like Eddie said in reply #1 its not so hard to keep an oven clean. When I use Easy Off for a major cleaning I wrap the elements with old newspaper, cheaper than using aluminum foil and just as effective. After I wipe off the Easy Off I just pull off the newspaper and throw it away.

The main reason I don’t like self cleaning ovens is the smoke that they expel during the cleaning process. Plus, I had the electronic controls on a Maytag slide in flat top electric range get fried from using the self cleaning feature and the cost to repair it was going to be over $300.00. I’ll never have either a self cleaning oven or an electronic controlled oven again.

Eddie

 

[sudsmaster]

Manual clean ovens are not that bad. I lived with them for about 45 years before I bought a house with a P*7. Easy Off is no big deal. Just make sure you wipe it all off before heating the oven. I lived in one rental house in the 90's where someone did something horrible to the oven; I figure they used something strong on it and the fired it up. As I recall there are some oven cleaners that advise just that, and I've used such, but whatever they used ate away at the porcelain coating. Maybe they were idiots and used drain cleaner or a strong acid. Probably a strong acid.

 

Anyway, you could always keep the P*7 in storage if you think you want to go back to it. I use mine only rarely... having a stainless propane fired BBQ/rotisserie on the covered patio means most of the cooking that spatters goes out there. And since I went low carb I don't bake much any more. But I must admit the P*7 does great on self-cleaning.

 

 

 

[retro-man]

Easy Off no scent. Spray it on in the evening in a cold oven. Close the door and the next morning wife off with paper towels and then just a wipe over with some dish detergent and water. No smell no mess. Works great.

Jon

 

[chachp]

Hide a self cleaning oven elsewhere in the house....

 

<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: 14pt;">I know this will not be a popular answer, but if it were me and I had the space, I'd have a newer self cleaning convection oven elsewhere in the house like a utility room or something.  You could use that one for the dirty bakes and save the oven in the kitchen for the things that don't dirty the oven much.</span>

 

<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: 14pt;">Some may think I'm kidding but I'm not.  I would hate to live without convection and I don't think I could live without self cleaning.  I would rather have a boil implant than clean an oven.  Do you have any kind of room off the kitchen where you could build in an oven or a place for a stove with a Self Cleaning oven?  We can always use an extra couple of burners especially around the holidays.  With this approach you can kill two birds with one stone.  You can retain the integrity of this beautiful kitchen you're putting together but also have the convenience of a modern oven.</span>

 

[kate1]

I hate the self clean cycle on ovens, I’m not even convinced the fumes produced during it are safe (a friend’s pet bird was killed by the fumes from a self clean cycle and there is some research that says they may be more toxic to humans than we thought). Easy Off works great, definitely protect the element with something, wear gloves, and ventilate the kitchen while you’re doing it. It’s a quick and easy job. The best thing you can do though is to put a baking sheet under everything you bake to prevent the oven from getting super dirty to begin with.

 

[DADoES]

 
There's misinformation out-in-the-wild about self-cleaning ovens.

One info-site I found says the interior of self-cleaners is coated with Teflon.  Teflon melts at 620°F.  Self-clean cycles reach much higher temps than that.

Any odor, fumes, smoke produced is from grease & food residue incinerating.

 

[tomturbomatic]

In my vintage Frigidaire ovens, I use 18 inch wide heavy duty foil on the floor. I confine broiling to the smaller oven and fold two pieces of the 18 inch wide foil into an L shape to sit on the rack on either side of the broiler pan and extend to the top of the oven. Splatters are confined to the back and door of the oven and are easily cleaned with a dish cloth and detergent as the oven cools. I rarely use the self-cleaning feature in ovens that have it because it is hard on the porcelain.

 

[twintubdexter]

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">I have to agree with self-cleaning or not, it makes good sense to clean up spills and splatters shortly after they happen. This house came with Jennair built-ins. Both ovens were self-cleaning and I used the clean feature once on the top unit. The guy I bought the house from was a 70+ year old health nut and broiled chicken religiously. I think it had something to do with the nude hiking group he belonged to 

.  I guess if you do a lot of broiling, roasting or other oven cooking that splatters, a self-cleaning oven, despite it's drawbacks, can be helpful. If you're back's in the same condition as mine and you don't have a wall oven, pushing a button or two or turning a dial can be a whole lot less painful too.</span>

 

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">The Kitchenaid I installed (by myself before old-age set in) to replace the problematic Jennair looks clean doesn't it? Probably because the top oven has been used twice to bake a cake and the bottom one is still a virgin.</span>

 

[chachp]

Fumes....

 

<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: 14pt;">I could be wrong but seems to me if the fumes are bad enough to kill a living anything maybe they need to run the cycle a little more often.  I would err on the side of running it too often vs. not often enough.   Mine does produce a smell but not so much that I have to leave the house.</span>

 

<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: 14pt;">The way I see it is those before us beat clothes on a rock, washed dishes by hand and cleaned ovens with some of the nastiest smelling stuff around.  I use a washing machine and dishwasher because these are modern conveniences we now have, why wouldn't I have a SC oven for the same reason?</span>

 

<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: 14pt;">BTW, I have read the disclaimer about birds in the vicinity of a SC oven.  I'm sorry your friends didn't know about it.  I think it was one of the items listed in the user manual.  In the mid 90s I had two Senegal parrots that I would put in a back bedroom when I ran the cycle just to be on the safe side.</span>

 

[spacepig]

I've had ovens with self-cleaning options before and rarely ever used them due to the smell and length of time. For my vintage GE, I bought some large foil sheets to put under dishes while cooking, which does help keep things off the oven floor. However, there's still some stuff that gets along the side. I typically just use Easy-Off to clean, and as long as I leave it in long enough, it is just a matter of wiping it off, and voila! clean oven. While I'm not a cleaning freak, I love how the chrome lined ovens look when all clean, so that gives me incentive for the task.

 

[combo52]

Self-Cleaning Or Not

A SCO is a great invention, It saves energy, work and money and they usually bake better than NSCOs the fumes put off by the SC cycle are far less dangerous than the chemicals used to actually clean an oven by hand.

Best way to clean a manual clean electric oven, one: keep it clean by using HD aluminum foil on the floor under the bake element.

Two: lye based oven cleaners like Easy-Off.

Note oven cleaner will NOT hurt the sealed heating elements, they are a nickle-steel alloy that oven cleaner would never hurt even if left on them for years or even while the elements are on.

Hi Sarah, be sure that your electrician only uses a 30 amp breaker for this oven and another 30 amp breaker for the TD cook-top anything larger than 30 amps is dangerous to you and the oven.

John L.

 

[sarahperdue]

Relief!

Thanks John,

Perhaps a double P7 would have been the best choice, but since I've gone down the Frigidaire rabbit hole, I'm very glad to know the lye based cleaners won't harm the elements--

And thanks for the electrical advice. We are putting the fridges and cooking appliances on separate circuits.

I just purchased an owner's manual for the Frigidaire ovens that appears to have detailed instructions for using the radiant wall roaster. I'm looking forward to receiving it.

And thanks to all of you for the encouragement and advice. I'm committed to the Frigidaire ovens. Beauty like this is hard to resist. I still think it's kind of neat that the first one I saw and fell in love with was in the rectory of a Catholic church. It is currently white, but Father Richard tells me that it was originally turquoise! (picture below for those of you who haven't seen it)

 

[sarahperdue]

No space...

If I had some, I would most definitely be tempted to tuck an extra P7 away some where--especially for the times when my husband cooks bacon or sausage. As it is, I'm trying to figure out where to put a full sized trash can/recycling receptacles. (Yep, I could put them in the 30" space I'm using for the combo washer dryer, except that I cannot live without the combo.)

My Geneva kitchen sink cabinet has a nifty little stainless trash can mounted on the inside of the door, but little is the operative word.

Sarah

 

[sudsmaster]

I confess I'm none too fond of the stench that a self-cleaning cycle in the P*7 can produce. And actually I rarely need to run that cycle, because most of my baking of small amounts is in the Oster french door countertop convection oven: pizzas, fish sticks, even TV dinners etc. The Oster has those "self cleaning walls" that don't seem to collect any debris. And it has an internal crumb tray that is very easy to clean in a sink. Roasts and chickens go into the stainless gas BBQ/rotisserie on the covered patio outside. I also use a seasoned cast iron griddle pan for cooking stuff like chicken parts in the covered BBQ. It has raised ribs and gives a result similar to grilling, without the flare-ups from grease.

 

And Easy-Off, at least the original, is basically lye. Very caustic. Which is why it's important to use rubber gloves when using it. Unless you want to lose a layer of skin.

 

When I do run the cleaning cycle on the P*7, I do it on a day when I can open all the windows and doors and run the exhaust fan on the nearby cooktop hood.

 

[neptunebob]

Another way to clean the oven...

As shown on some you tube videos, make a paste of baking soda and water and apply it to the inside of the oven. It will take maybe 3 days to have any effect, but it is less obnoxious than the lye of Easy Off.

 

[bradfordwhite]

yes

I have white vinegar in a spray bottle and baking soda in a shaker container.
Spraying the cooked on areas with vinegar and then shaking a covering of baking soda on, then spray again to dampen, and apply a piece of saran wrap. Let it sit for at least a few hours while it soaks in without drying out.