26 | January | 2016 | frugalfish.org

I usually keep foil on the bottom of my oven to catch drips. (The manufacturer tells you never to put anything on the bottom of your oven.)

For some reason, the foil was missing when something ran over. It was right before Thanksgiving and I didn’t have time to clean the oven. I put more foil down on top of it.

BIG MISTAKE!

When I pulled the foil off, a section stayed stuck to the bottom.

This section of foil was stuck.

I researched how to get it off, and found that there are two different problems:

The foil is stuck to food on the bottom of the oven, or
The foil has been fused to the bottom by high heat.

(The “Clean” cycle will not remove the foil; it will fuse it to the bottom of the oven.)

We cook our turkey on 500° for the first half hour. I knew there was food it was stuck to, but I didn’t know if it was fused to the oven bottom. I tried a trick that chef’s use to clean pans.

I put a dryer sheet down, poured boiling water over it, and let it sit overnight.

Dryer sheet to the rescue.

Whistle while you work…

Just cover the area with boiling water.

Some of the foil came right off, but some stayed fused to the bottom of the oven.

I did more research and found they recommended using “Draino” or “Easy Off” to remove the foil. Since it is a chemical reaction, (it gets hot and there are bad fumes), they recommended taking the bottom piece out of the oven and doing it outside.

Right. It was below zero here!

Is there a better way? One of the chemicals mentioned was the same as Coke, (according to one of the comments). I got a Coke, poured it over the remnant, and let it sit overnight.

Well…this is the embarrassing part…

My daughter came over to watch our granddaughter because I had to leave and her parents weren’t back yet. She asked to make cookies and I thought it was a great idea!

I was playing the keyboard at practice when my phone vibrated with this text…

THE OVEN IS FILLED WITH SMOKE!

I forgot about the Coke! So, I got out another dryer sheet, doused it with boiling water, and started over. Most of the burnt Coke came up.

I poured more Coke over the foil and waited. That did not work.

I ran the “Clean” cycle last night.

The burned coke is gone, but the foil is still there.

The good news? You can determine if the foil is stuck to food or fused to the oven with the dryer sheet trick! The bad news? I have to take time this weekend to try to remove the fused foil. Sigh.