Here is one review of that method: They did end the cycle early so not sure if that played a part in it.
“ i decided to do the oven cleaning method. My husband took all the racks out of the stove (didn’t want them to discolor) and since we have no heating element on the bottom, we laid the foil on the bottom of the stove and placed the pan upside down on it.
We turned on the self clean cycle (which cannot be adjusted to less than 3 hours) – the door locked and we were on our way. The fumes started in about 20 minutes and we had the blower going and all our windows and doors open because I have asthma and couldn’t handle the odor. We had no smoke, just odor. We canceled the cleaning cycle after an hour on the timer and waited for the stove to cool and unlock. One look at the pan and I saw that this method works very well. I probably should have left it in a little longer, but most of the gunk came off and I could not handle the odor anymore. I waited for it to cool and took steel wool and soap & water and cleaned off the rest of the mess. We dried the pan and then seasoned it. It looks almost new!
Now for the bad part – ( I went to remove the foil from the bottom of the stove and part of it was stuck. I got most of it up but there were several spots I couldn’t get the aluminum foil off of. I scrubbed and rubbed and even tried to use a plastic scraper and could not get it off. My husband was surprisingly calm as we tried to get it off and took it quite well that the enamel actually peeled off the stove along with one of the pieces of foil. The foil literally fused to the enamel in some spots – there was no removing it without doing more damage. So, we left it alone, went to bed and in the morning my husband announced that he was going to order a new bottom (it is a brand new GE stove by the way) which he did today (cost $60 plus shipping). I should have just put the pan on the rack in the first place or used an old rack placed on the bottom, but I had no clue this would happen to the stove.
Please caution your readers and put this information on your website not to put the foil on the bottom of the stove because of the potential damage it can cause. I would like to prevent it from happening to someone else. I am not sure if anyone else has ever had this problem or not, but better to let them know even if it seldom does.
Nevertheless, lesson learned and I now have a clean frying pan. I intend to do the Dutch oven next (BEFORE) my husband replaces the bottom of the stove. All in all, it is a very effective method for cleaning the pans, it would have been a perfect success if not for the stove dilemma.”
