Hi Carolyn, it sounds like you’ll need to clean your oven manually. Check out my video for more details.

She recommends Biokleen’s Bac-out on her channel all of the time. I like it, but I also like Puracy’s Stain Remover as it has 6 (I think) different enzymes. Though I haven’t used either on my oven door.

With a real self-cleaning oven, there are two things you need to do:
1. If you have a huge, mound from a spill-over in the bottom of the oven, DO NOT run the self-clean yet. Mop up the excess with a dishrag first. Otherwise it will burst into flames during the cycle and produce a lot of smoke. We only did that once with a lot of spilled over blueberry filling. It’s scary to see yellow flames filling the inside, but in the end it didn’t hurt anything but it triggered smoke alarms and we had to open windows. For normal spills that get baked on to the bottom, we don’t touch them. The self-cleaning cycle will take care of that fine.

2. Have good ventilation because it will smell temporarily because the oven is going to get up to ~900 degrees. Depending on which setting you choose it will take 2-3 hours. The oven will lock itself shut during the entire cycle so someone doesn’t get burned.

No, there are no toxic or lingering smells. That is nonsense. You wouldn’t be able to sell them if there were. It is dried food being burned to light gray ash. When finished, wipe down the interior with a damp dish rag and you have a sparkling clean oven. Harsh, toxic chemicals are what you encounter when you don’t have a self-cleaning oven or use cleaners instead of the cycle. The self-cleaning cycle does not require rubber gloves and a mask, and save a lot of money, time, and effort.