I've never run self-clean on the Gagg before. I barely needed to once or twice a year in the Wolf, so I'm not sure why this one is so dirty after such a short time. But the distributor's rep made it a point to tell me to run it as often as needed without letting it get too bad. I was approaching the 'bad' point, I thought, so clean it, I did.
These is the 'before' shot (Stating the obvious):
The manual said to clean the door gasket, and also the door and window, as the self-clean wouldn't target those areas. This was in contradiction to what the showroom rep told me. She said Gaggenau puts a special element around the doorway of each cavity, so that the door and front edges of the oven DO get clean in the process.
I tried scrub off the burned on spatters on the door and glass, but didn't get very far.
The instructions didn't say whether or not the black, shiny rack supports need to come out, so I removed them, just in case. They were greasy-sticky, so I sprayed them with oven cleaner and tucked them into a garbage bag while the oven cleaned itself. --A trick I learned for cleaning my porcelain-coated rangetop drip pans.
The oven cleans at 905 degrees, and takes 3 hours.
The display shows a brush to signify the cleaning mode, also known as Pyrolysis in my manual. You can see that I started the process at 10:55, and it was going to time for 3 hours. The symbol in the lower left corner of the rectangle shows that the door is locked.
I guess I don't have the choice to shorten the cleaning time like I did in previous ovens. Not a big loss. I don't know if it's a difference in oven odor control, or maybe just the difference in the specific oven mess, but this one didn't smell as bad as when we cleaned other ovens. The kitchen got toasty warm, and there was a smell of cooking, but not the choking, smoky smell that some ovens have put out during self-clean.
At 1:55, the timer beeped, and I turned off the oven. The door remained locked, and I still couldn't turn on the interiors lights until it cooled awhile.
I don't know at what point it was cool enough to unlock. But I do know that by 4:00 it was unlocked and not too warm to open and wipe out.
This is what I saw first... All the black, brown, and spills transformed into fine, white ash. Pretty much what I was used to in other ovens.
I was additionally impressed by the door and glass. Very clean!
So, here is the result... Ta-dah! All clean and ready for me to dirty again...
