Cleaning aga hotplate covers - advice please

v1ckyt

Dear All,

I look after a holiday house which has an oil fired AGA.
The lift up lids on the top have got lots of splash marks from people cooking on them, the inside which is supposed to be shiny stainless steel I think. What's the best product to clean this baked on food off with,

many thanks in advance,

Vicky:think:

queen_of_string

I used to use astonish paste on mine, I still miss it :-(.

Debt_Free_Chick

Don't try and clean them when the AGA's on - wait until you need to turn it off e.g. when it's due a service. There's no point in using anything other than a damp soapy cloth on a hot AGA as anything else will simply "bake dry" as soon as you apply it.

The underside of the covers are not shiny SS - they're actually aluminium with a brushed appearance and nothing like the covers themselves, which are shiny chrome. Astonish is good, but you can actually use brillo for the underside or similar as the finished surface is not shiny. AGA will tell you not to use brillo and I certainly don't on any other part of the AGA. If you're careful, you can pick off any blobs with a toothpick or even the tip of a knife, but if you slip, you'll scratch the surface.

In my experience, it's not worth cleaning them - they always get some burned on splashes, no matter how careful you are. I treat my AGA like the crown jewels and the underside of the covers, together with the inside of the doors are impossible to keep clean.

My AGA gets a thorough clean every six months when it's serviced and wipe down with a damp cloth in between. To restore the shine, have a damp cloth in one hand and a soft dry cotton cloth in the other; wipe then polish dry.

For a thorough clean, use only Astonish or the W5 biological cleaning stone from Lidl. Both are soft pastes with no "bits in" so no danger of scratching. With the AGA off, you can remove the doors too and clean the inside of the doors - again, you can use brillo on the inside of the doors, despite what AGA say.

I haven't tried this - yet - but I think a steam clean would do a good job. Just be careful not to scratch the enamel or the chrome hotplate covers with any attachments.

HTH

v1ckyt

thank you very much debt free, i have a bog standard cooker so no experience of aga's so thank you very much,
happy snow,
vicky