This weekend’s project from Apartment Therapy basically flew right under my radar until I visited a friend on Saturday and saw her gas stove’s burner grates sitting on the counter in Ziploc bags. I immediately felt guilty for ignoring the weekend project, especially since my own burner grates are flat out disgusting. I have scrubbed them countless times and ruined enough sponges that I finally concluded that they were just going to stay sticky and gross until I got around to replacing them. But my slightly less immediate feeling was eager wonderment. What was this woman doing with her burner grates?
I was all casual like, “oh, are you doing the weekend project?” But in my head I was like “I can see that you are up to something magical here, and I want in!” But I didn’t have to beg to get the secret spell. She even handed me the ammonia as she told me how to fail it myself.
I went home and put my own grates in one-gallon Ziploc bags, which are basically the perfect size for the grates, added a tablespoon of ammonia, and sealed them up. Then I left them overnight.
I expected this to turn the gunk on my grates into slightly less gooey gunk, but it actually turned the gunk into brittle little flakes of stove-top shellac that I sloughed off with a brush. And I cannot tell you how satisfying that was. This is going to sound completely insane, but this was the best cleaning experience of my life. It was magical. That is all.
Fail It Yourself 