Say Goodbye To Greasy Stove Grates With The Help Of An Ordinary Kitchen Ingredient

When it's finally time to deep clean your stove and oven, the first step is always to remove your stovetop grates so you can scrub down the surface. But the grates themselves are often tricky to clean. More likely than not, you give them a scrub and a rinse in the sink before setting them back into place. Unfortunately, those basic tools don't always get rid of large food particles that have been stuck on the grates for days or weeks. There is a better way to get rid of the built-up food and grease that gathers in those hard-to-reach areas and are difficult to remove with just a sponge and dish soap. Instead, swap your normal cleaners out for a simple kitchen ingredient — lemon juice — so you can finally say goodbye to all that buildup.

Lemon juice is not just a natural ingredient to use for cleaning your dirty oven and stovetop. It also works hard to remove stains left on your stovetop grates from spilled food. Lemon juice contains high levels of citric acid, which helps remove stains from your clothes, clear hard water buildup, and even serve as a go-to cleaning substitute when you need to refresh your living room furniture. Meanwhile, greasy and gunked-up surfaces like stove grates benefit from a soak in citric acid, allowing the grime to loosen and making it easy to wipe away.

When using lemon juice as a cleaning agent, you can either use freshly squeezed lemon juice or bottled concentrate. The bottled concentrate will last much longer, and large bottles are available for super cheap at your local grocery store. To deep clean your stovetop grates, remove them from the stove and wipe off any large pieces of food stuck to them. Next, you can combine dish soap and warm water to scrub the grates, letting them soak for several minutes if desired. If there's lingering stuck-on grease and grime, fill your sink or basin with hot water. Add the grates alongside about a half cup of lemon juice. Let them sit in the hot solution for anywhere from 15 minutes to several hours. After they've soaked, the grates should be a lot easier to scrub and de-crust. Make sure to wipe the grates dry before placing them back on your stovetop.

You could also try another trick that will make cleaning your stove grates easier — adding vinegar to the mix. Alternatively, combine baking soda with the lemon juice to make a paste for extra-greasy burner grates. Apply the paste to the stained area of the grate, and cover with plastic wrap to leave on for a few hours or overnight. After removing the plastic wrap, the food buildup should be a lot easier to remove with a sponge or scrub brush.