Oven Cleaning Without Harsh Chemicals (AKA Holy Crap My Oven Is Nasty!) Part 1

My oven began smoking while baking last week.  I thought maybe it was a fluke thing, since it did not do it the next day when I continued baking. Then I baked an amazing Cheeseburger Pie (recipe will be posted soon) and the whole house filled with smoke and the alarm went off and it sucked.  I had to open all of the windows, turn on the overhead fans and all portable fans, and not finish baking the fish sticks Radin was going to enjoy for lunch.  I had it in my mind to clean out the oven.  Obviously something had spilled onto the bottom of the oven and was causing the smoke.  And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had NEVER thoroughly cleaned the inside of my oven.  I have lived here and used the oven almost daily for 5 years.  Gross.
So I took to the interwebs for instructions on how to run the "self cleaning" option on my oven.  Which I am pretty sure that is an option on my oven.  The wording is so worn out, but I think it says "CLEAN" on one of the knobs; past the word "BROIL."  Well, the advice online is to NEVER actually use your oven's self cleaning mode.  It could cause serious smoke damage to your home, especially if there is spillage on the bottom of the oven.  Great.  There goes my easy option.
Then I took to Pinterest for an "easy yet green" cleaning solution.  I found many different pins about using baking soda and vinegar and wound up following CaChingQueen's advice the most.
First off, this is how my oven looked before I did anything to it.

Yeah, gross.  There is a GIANT spill of something funky right in the middle.  And now it is baked on and charred.

Extra gross.  Makes me wonder what the heck I cooked that made that big puddle though.  Bleh.

The little Dragon and I took a trip to WinCo to pick up the supplies.

Doesn't he just look thrilled to be at the grocery store?! About as thrilled as I was when I remembered that you have to bag your own stuff at WinCo.  I'm so lazy.

Here is the ingredients we picked up and used today:

• Spray Bottle filled with 1/3 vinegar and 2/3 water.
• Sea Salt
• Baking Soda

That's it!  Super easy checklist and you probably already have these items in your pantry.  I did not have these items, because Christmas just happened along with a ton of cookie baking.

Now here is what you do with this stuff:

1. Remove the oven racks (post coming soon about how to clean those bad boys, since the advice on this site did not do the trick for my racks).
2. Spray the whole inside of the oven with the vinegar/water solution.  Including the door.  Get it all nice and soaked.
3. Sprinkle (I heaved) baking soda everywhere; making sure to put extra on the really bad parts.
4. Sprinkle a thick layer of the sea salt over the baking soda.
5. Spray again with the vinegar/water.  It will get all bubble from the reaction between the vinegar and baking soda.
6. Leave it to sit overnight.
7. With the course side of sponge scrub the oven.
8. Spray again with vinegar/water to help remove everything.
9. Use damp towels to wipe up everything.

Okay, so at step 6 I varied form CaChingQueen.  I was impatient and let it sit for 2 hours and then attempted scrubbing.  A lot did come off, but not nearly enough to say the job was done.  So I smeared the baking soda around a bit and created a paste all over the oven (which helps with the back and walls.  Cuz gravity and all).  

Here is what it looked like before I smeared it about;

It just wouldn't stick to the back and walls without me smearing it into a paste. So now it is sitting overnight. I will update tomorrow on how it all turned out and if this recipe is worth it.  Here's hoping.