Oven cleaner?

[lisat]

We had a party last weekend, and now I need to clean the ovens. The ovens themselves are easy - they're self-cleaning. The racks, on the other hand, are a huge pain in the (pick anatomy part). I've done them before with steel wool and dish soap, which takes hours, so I was going to use EasyOff. The stuff gets into the air, though, and smells awful, plus it's toxic.
Then I thought, well, I make soap. The main ingredient in EasyOff is lye, so what if I made a heavy-lye recipe liquid soap? Maybe if I use just coconut oil, which has the reputation of being the best cleaner, though harsh? That should do it, right? Not quite so toxic, and not aerosol. I figure I need to use KoH rather than NaH, so it will be liquid, though I could use NaH and use it before it hardens, as a paste.
Has anyone tried such a thing? Any tips before I try this?

 

[Meganmischke]

I use just ls paste that I made for dishwashing and general cleaning sometimes I will make a soft scrub with baking soda. Also you can mix about a tbs of lye to a qt of water and use that. I do a lot of cleaning with a diluted lye solution. Works like nothing else.

 

[CanaDawn]

Tincture of Time. Lots of cleaners work best if they sit for a while. If you ARE going to use Easy Off, bag the racks and let them sit in a warm place (in the sun?) Making soap is a long haul to the finish line to clean oven racks, and I agree that just using a dilute lye solution (with all appropriate precautions) would work well (will saponify the grease on the racks if you give it enough time to work).

That said, I do use my own high coconut soap for cleaning (just rub the bar with a wet cloth and go) and it works extremely well.

 

[Seawolfe]

I read somewhere that the easy way to clean the racks was to put them in a black garbage bag with 1/2-1 cup of ammonia and let them sit all day, kicking and turning them around once in a while. I know, its not soap - but soap would need scrubbing and Im very very lazy. But sure - all coconut soap - strongest would be the pre-diluted paste mentioned upstream.

 

[Susie]

I spray my grill and oven racks with Easy Off way out in the yard and let them sit until evening(or the next morning if I forget), and then spray with the hose. Very little remains after that.