As you can see from the oven clock, it took me a full 13 minutes to clean the cooktop. All of us know that gas ranges are much easier to clean. I'm wondering how long a similar condition would have taken to clean. Sealed burner? Open burner?

Hi FOAS!

So, for cooked on char, sprinkled very liberally with baking soda, cover with a paper towel, and pour just enough boiling water over it to dampen thoroughly. I learned this from Trailrunner. Do it while the cooktop is warm to avoid thermal shock, but it shouldn't hurt because boiling water falls on cooktops all the time.

Anyway, once it's done, go away. Go to bed. When you get up, you should be able to wipe away the gunk. If some remains, do it again the next night.

For stuff that hasn't reached the char stage, just a warm, soaking wet paper towel may be enough, like soaking a dish. There's no need to leave it go to the embarrassing point. And you can use rags instead of paper.

The theory behind an open burner range is that it burns away most of the gook, so you're just cleaning the drip tray most of the time. I've seen what that looks like, however, and it looks similar to your range in my eyes. As Gary said, disassembling and deep cleaning open burner is a hassle. Closed burner enamel would probably take about five minutes, and most of that for cleaning the caps. OTOH, you'd have to lift the grates, which, even when they're flimsy, are really heavy, so maybe not something to put limited ability towards. Closed burner stainless might take a lot longer if you also wanted to make the stainless spotless (i.e., undiscolored) from having gunk left on it.

Gas is worse. Induction is easier!

Actually this was a bit of a sarcastic post because I've read so many comments about ceramic being a pain to clean. I've just not experienced that. I documented it just to see if I've been kidding myself. That said, I like the oven but hate the cooktop on my range. Way inferior to my old Frigidaire. Thinking about buying an induction range, even though this one is less than a year old. If induction is even easier to clean, it sounds kind of like wiping the counters.

With induction You would NOT of had that mess, in the first place.

You can cover the top with paper towels, as long as you are NOT using a Hot Wok, Searing, or doing some extreme high temp stuff, that would get hot enough to set off the paper. Also when using paper, NEVER leave the stove~~~~~safety first!!!!

But even if you did not line with paper and made a "Mess", it doesn't get baked on like it did with my old ceramic cooktop.

Gary

Glass ceramic cleans the same no matter what the heat source is. If you made that kind of mess on induction, it would take 13 minutes to clean.

The difference with induction is that it should never get to that point. If you're making candy, get a great big sponge like you'd wash a car with and have it hand. Then you can wipe up the spills with the sponge immediately without worrying about burning your fingers on the hot sugar. If you're making cheese, you can use any old sponge, rag or paper towel to wipe up the milk before it bakes on.

Cleaning induction while you're cooking actually is pretty much like wiping the counter. Right under the pot will get hot from the heat of the pot, but the rest won't get more than slightly warm, and for that, you need to be cooking a lot for a long time. So it would be a lot harder to make the same mess altogether. But the real trick to not getting that way isn't as much that it doesn't get hot enough to bake stuff on as it is that it stays cool enough to clean while you cook.

I don't go for perfectly clean, when I spill while cooking. I leave the smears, and just sponge up the food. The smears clean up fine afterwards. I have had to scrub a little with a soft scrubbie maybe twice in four years--but I think at least one of those times was something I spilled while using it as counter space (i.e., no heat).

The big thing about changing to induction is that your cookware will react differently. The shape of the pot is as important as the metal content, so there might be some learning curve to which now does better, and you might need to buy a few more pots and pans to fill in. If that sounds fine to you, go for it! If you can afford to donate the old stove, someone needy will be thrilled, and if you want to sell it, someone of limited means will be thrilled too because it's so new. You could do a good deed in the world at the same time as you're improving your lifestyle. :)

plllog is correct. If you used a propane torch to create that mess on the ceramic top of your induction range it would take 13 minutes to clean. But you cannot use the induction element to do that. You would need an outside heat source.
While induction 'sans torch' is infinitely easier to keep clean the quick temperature control and high output performance are its core strengths. You can cook on it. And, of course, it doesn't pump thousand of btus of waste heat into your kitchen.

LOL! Dan, my torch would clean the gunk off the top. It puts out over 2200ð according to the specs. But it might also crack the glass. :)

Really, though, it does happen. Stuff runs over or drips onto the hot part that's usually under the pot. Especially, pouring over sugar could do that. Just saying...

But, FOAS, do consider going forward. Dan is right. :)