How tough is a stainless steel oven to clean?

[Paschale]

So I'm planning a kitchen remodel in late spring/early summer.  Home Depot has a great deal right now, and I'm debating between stainless steel and black porcelain.  The way I cook, I make a big mess, always, and I can't imagine having to worry about scratching up stainless steel when I'm cleaning up the stove top.  How bad is it really to clean stainless steel?

Also, has anyone had any experience with Electrolux ovens or GE Profile Convection ovens?  I'm debating between those two...

I like the look of stainless steel, but wondering if it's a huge bear to keep clean and shiny.   ???

[Tom]

If you are the only one using the pots and pans, why don't you use Cast Iron?

Gael is changing cookware often.  She now has something called 'Greenpan' and I don't think you can make anything stick to it.

My favorite has always been castiron though.  A properly seasoned cast iron skillet is a thing of beauty.

[Patty]

We have a stainless steel Vulcan stove. It is a bear to keep clean, just as the stainless steel refrigerator & dishwasher are. You cannot scrub them with a pad, or they will scratch  : . You can buy stainless steel cleaner, but it only removes fingerprints, not baked on gunk. However I do like the looks of stainless steel when it is clean. One thing I have found is a commercial restaurant cleaner on the web, to remove grease. It is a heavy duty cleaner and kind of a hassle, but it does a good job.

The burners on our stove are cast iron, they clean up good by just throwing them in the fire pit for a few minutes. The fire needs to be very hot to burn off the crud, and it does a great job.

[pineywoods]

If you want the ultimate in easy cleaning, look at the flat ceramic top. Took a little getting used to, but now the wife loves it. She also loves the convection oven. Almost as fast as a microwave but stuff browns nicely. Frozen biscuits start to finish in 15 minutes, nicely browned.



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[OneWithWood]

Black porcelain topped off with good cast iron cookware.

We have a couple sets of high end stainless cookware that rarely gets used.  The old cast stuff gets used daily.

These are gas stoves, right?

[Paschale]

Yeah, I'm looking at a gas stove.  I had hoped to get a porcelain top, but the oven I'm looking at doesn't have that as an option.  I've been thinking more about cleaning stainless steel, and I would imagine that one of those hand powered power steam cleaners would work well, especially with the stuff that sort of gets cooked on as you are in the middle of cooking.  I'm a messy cook, and clean up is important enough that it's a major consideration for me. 

A friend of mine at work has one of those steam cleaners and swears by it.  He cleaned his hubcaps with the thing before and I'm thinking brake dust and road junk is probably about as hard to clean as caked on food. 

I think I'm going to go buy one of those things, and try it on the inside of my oven, which is in serious need of a cleaning.  That should be a good test of whether or not it will clean stainless.  I'll keep you posted...

Thanks for all the comments...

[Engineer]

I have a stainless commercial-residential gas range, made by Capital Cooking Inc.  It's similar to the typical Viking/Wolf/DCS ranges.  It's a pest to clean.  Always looks greasy, shows dust and grime easily, I usually just let it accumulate crud for a week or two, not even wipe it down, and then Sunday mornings I'll tear it down and clean it throughly, takes me about 2 hours.  It's hard to let it go for those two weeks, especially since I was trained in food service to clean everything completely at the end of every shift, every night, but it's a bit easier in a home environment.  I find that a combination of cleaners works - I use some plain soapy hot water to get the majority of the crud, and then follow up with an oxy-type cleaner on the stuck-on bits.  The grates get dunked in a sink full of hot soapy water and scrubbed and left to air dry.  The oven we've not yet had to clean because it tends to self-clean due to the high temperatures.  The bottom of the oven is also lined with beige quarry tiles (floor tiles) that act as a heat sink and pizza stone.  It takes longer to heat the oven with the tiles there, but it also holds temperature much more consistently.  Great for bread, especially if you use steam. 

If you really are serious about your cooking (and I know YOU are), look into a 30" Blue Star range.  It will hold a full 18x26 sheet pan and has some serious BTU's (22,000 main burners and a 30,000 BTU broiler).  If I had a local dealer I'd have bought one myself, but I didn't, and got a heck of a deal on the Capital range to boot.  It's a pricey beast but will probably outlive you.

[Don_Papenburg]

Do not get shined and pollished SS   Get satin finish  then sandblast it every week ,or use a scotchbrite pad  .  with a satin finish you will not have to worry about scratch marks . 

[WildDog]

On the radio this morning they were saying citric acid 1part to 10parts warm water is a great stainless steel cleaner, these guys were using the mix mainly for taking rust off old hand tools.