Okay, so a few weeks ago we made scalloped potatoes for an event. That was all fine and good, except we made a bit too much, and they boiled over in the oven. Well, not for long, but long enough for an amount of liquid butter to basically pool in the bottom of the oven.

So we dealt with the smell of burning butter in an oven during that event. Airing out the house helped with the smell, and a day later it was all gone.

But the oven was forgotten. We don’t use the oven very often.

So we baked some squash tonight. Which was excellent (for store-bought squash). It was about the time we put the squash in the oven that we re-discovered that the mess in the oven hadn’t been cleaned.

Burned butter smell. Again.

Biggest difference this time is that it’s below freezing outside now. Last time it was in the 50’s…so while it was cool when the house was opened up, it wasn’t freakin’ cold.

So we lit a bunch of candles, temporarily un-batterified the kitchen smoke alarm, and opened the kitchen window and back door (to at least let a little air exchange). It’s getting better, but it still stinks throughout the house.

So I had the great idea that we’d just run the self-cleaning cycle after we were done with the sqash. After all, the oven was already warmed to 350…so it makes sense.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that there was still a good amount of butter in the bottom of the oven that should’ve been wiped out before we ran the clean cycle. Since the light doesn’t automatically come on when one opens the oven door (and due to the oven’s position in the kitchen), it wasn’t overly obvious at the time.

So we sat down to eat while the oven cleaned. And I kept an eye on the thing. Smoke was really starting to come out of the vent as one would expect, but my curiosity was piqued when I saw a big puff of smoke (accompanied by a ‘whoosh’ sound) come from the underside of the oven door (where the door’s seal has a joint).

When I went to check it out, I turned on the oven light. At the same time, fire erupted inside the oven. The butter was at its flash point. Presumably this is what caused the ‘whoosh’ previously mentioned. Anyway, at this point in time I decided to cancel the cleaning cycle. I didn’t need to burn down the house. Granted, it’s in a ‘controlled’ environment, but still…

Once the oven cooled down enough to allow the lock mechanism to release, I opened the oven door. Sure enough, most of the butter in question had been burned up. So the short cleaning cycle (maybe a half hour) seems to have taken care of the problem. It has to be wiped out (and maybe a 2 hour clean cycle run again, we’ll see), but this should be the end of the spillage burning problem.

Now if we can just get that nasty smell out of the house…

So that’s my fire story for the time being. Good thing I just replaced all the smoke and CO detector batteries! We know for sure that the kitchen unit works!

“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.”
– Jimi Hendrix

–MZ