While you love your gas cooktop, cleaning it can be a little bit of a challenge. After all, you don’t want to risk damaging it! Here are the steps you can take to keep your gas cooktop clean, as well as some tricks for keeping your range going strong.

Important note: When cleaning the top of your stove, make sure you don’t use too much water. It’s always best to use damp cloths throughout. Using too much water can drown your burners, which will make them stop working until they dry out. 

Cleaning the Parts of Your Cooktop

Before we get started with the surface of your cooktop, there are a few parts you should remove and clean. 

• The grates are the metal squares that you place your pots and pans on while you cook. These can easily be lifted off and soaked to clean them. Crusted and burnt-on foods should be easy to scrub off after a few minutes soaking in soapy water, although you can use a half-vinegar soak for harder messes. 
• The burner covers sit directly under the grates. They must be removed too, but be careful to keep these dry. When you are cleaning them, wipe them gently with a damp cloth to avoid getting them too wet. If they do get soaked, make sure that they are completely dry before placing them back on your stove.

With those parts out of the way, you should see the burner component. 

Carefully pick up the burner component and examine it. If any of the holes are clogged, you can take a paperclip and clean them out. It’s important that these are clear so that the gas can flow through them. 

Wipe the area underneath the burner with a damp cloth to remove any dirt under there. 

Now we can clean the cooktop.

Cleaning the Cooktop Surface

You can clean the cooktop of a gas range in much the same way as you would clean an electric one. You just have to be careful to use less water. It’s recommended that you use three different cloths to clean the surface of your gas stove. 

• First, go over the surface with a damp cloth to get all of the crumbs, food debris, and other gunk off of the surface. 
• Next, use a slightly soapy cloth to clean the surface, scrubbing at any difficult places along the way. Do this until you are satisfied that all the dirt has been removed.
• Lastly, go over the surface with a dry cloth to get all of the soap and other water off. This will polish your stovetop to a nice shine.

The final step is to place all of the dry pieces back together. First, make sure the burner components are on correctly. Then, place the clean burner covers over them and replace the clean grates. That’s it! Now your gas cooktop is clean and ready to use again.

Any other questions about appliance care? For a whole host of maintenance tips and appliance repair advice, contact Morris County Appliance Service. We’re more than happy to help you get the most out of your appliances!