Self cleaning oven disaster

[JimPghPA]

My brother and his wife put their turkey in the oven, and tried to cook it. The oven said cleaning mode and locked the door. The broiler came on and they could not get it out of cleaning mode. And they could not get the turkey out because they could not get the door to open.

By the time they figure out to go to the electric box and turn off the breaker the top of the turkey was burnt black.

Fortunately the plan for today was for three different families to bring turkeys here today, along with other fixings. They arrived here early to use our oven to finish the cooking of their turkey. Most of the meat from that turkey was too dried out, or burnt, but there was still plenty enough for everyone to eat because of all that was brought by everyone else.

So I guess one of the things to learn from this is that if your oven has self-cleaning ability be sure you know where the electric breaker is and make sure the oven is not in the self-cleaning mode when you put something in it to cook.

 

[earlyre]

that would have been fun to see what came out after the full cleaning cycle...(says my inner mythbustery-pyro guy)
that is if the bird didn't just catch fire, and take the kitchen with it..
the self clean feature gets the oven up to around 800 or so degrees to basically incinerate anything inside.

also handy for stripping a funky season off cast-iron cookware.

and yeah, once that clean cycle kicks in, that door will not unlock until the cycle is over, and the temp is back to cold...

 

[chubbs1]

Wow, glad everybody was ok and you all probably got some good laughs out of it. Happy Thanksgiving!

 

[ARB1977]

One year our smoke detector went of and got a call from the alarm company. The marshmallows on top of the yams caught on fire. Could of been disaster.

 

[TallPaul]

Seems my oven has a self cleaning feature, but I never use it. The oven is about 50 years old and I would not trust that feature. Oh, and why clean it, you only see inside when you open the door.

I must say, in the 12 years I have lived in this house I don't recall cleaning that oven once.

 

[JimPghPA]

I am not exactly sure of how that oven got into the self clean mode, but my brother and his wife talked about fixing the oven or getting a new one. They seamed to be indicating that they thought the oven went into that mode without them telling it to. Then again it could of been a mistake on one of their parts, though they seamed to be talking otherwise.

So even if you never use that feature, if you have it you should know where the breaker is, and have going to it quickly as an option in your mind if the oven were to go into clean mode, so you can turn it off quickly.

 

[TallPaul]

Mine is so old there is a lever you have to flip all the way from one side to the other to lock the oven before the clean feature will work, but I guess a short could cause it to come on otherwise. Never liked the idea of crematorium levels of oven heat just to clean the inside of an oven.

 

[Zaedock]

I've only used clean mode a couple of times to heat a starter ring to fit on a flywheel.

My wife caught me the second time and hasn't let me use it for shop use since.

 

[expat]

We had that happen once on our old Oven, the next day I disabled the locking mechanism.

 

[Donald]

Originally Posted By: Zaedock
I've only used clean mode a couple of times to heat a starter ring to fit on a flywheel.

My wife caught me the second time and hasn't let me use it for shop use since.


At least you were not baking powder coat!!

I'll bet you use the dishwasher to clean parts!!

 

[Donald]

Originally Posted By: TallPaul
Seems my oven has a self cleaning feature, but I never use it. The oven is about 50 years old and I would not trust that feature. Oh, and why clean it, you only see inside when you open the door.

I must say, in the 12 years I have lived in this house I don't recall cleaning that oven once.


Its a lot better than using EZ-OFF oven cleaner which is very toxic as far as fumes and so on.

 

[Kestas]

I have every electrical outlet and switch mapped and color coded with a map at the fuse box. No need to fumble anymore.

 

[D189379]

Originally Posted By: TallPaul
Seems my oven has a self cleaning feature, but I never use it. The oven is about 50 years old and I would not trust that feature. Oh, and why clean it, you only see inside when you open the door.

I must say, in the 12 years I have lived in this house I don't recall cleaning that oven once.


It depends on how sensitive your taste is, but the burnt spilled stuff in your oven can affect the taste of other dishes.

Eg. Cooking a pie, while a puddle of previously spilled lasagna bubbles and smokes, can add an unwanted flavour to your pie.

 

[Pablo]

Sounds like somebody just burned the turkey

Did you witness this? (sorry couldn't resist)

 

[SHOZ]

My GE oven is so old it doesn't have a self cleaning feature. 1959 model I think. Replaced the door seal and heater element once.

 

[morris]

now i know why i do NO cooking of any kind.

 

[JimPghPA]

Originally Posted By: Pablo
Sounds like somebody just burned the turkey

Did you witness this? (sorry couldn't resist)

They brought the burnt turkey here to finish cooking it. The top was burnt totally black, and after cooking it here, when they dug into the it to see what could be used, the meat was very dry. I don't think anyone ate the meat from that turkey.

 

[Rick in PA]

This thread has potential!

So far:
A carbonized turkey
Yams flambé
Heating engine components for a shrink-fit
And a suggestion to bake powder coat

Any other clever or novel uses for a kitchen oven?

 

[TallPaul]

Originally Posted By: D189379
Originally Posted By: TallPaul
Seems my oven has a self cleaning feature, but I never use it. The oven is about 50 years old and I would not trust that feature. Oh, and why clean it, you only see inside when you open the door.

I must say, in the 12 years I have lived in this house I don't recall cleaning that oven once.


It depends on how sensitive your taste is, but the burnt spilled stuff in your oven can affect the taste of other dishes.

Eg. Cooking a pie, while a puddle of previously spilled lasagna bubbles and smokes, can add an unwanted flavour to your pie.


Yes it can work both ways, sometimes enhancing the flavor.

But really if we have a mess like that we will scrape it out, sop it up, whatever. That does not happen often, probably because of what we use the oven for, mostly warming pre-cooked stuff, and the weekly home made lasagna.

My oven is actually a Frigidaire by General Motors (never knew GM made anything but cars until I saw that), but does have self cleaning feature--Electriclean.

 

[JimPghPA]

Originally Posted By: Rick in PA
This thread has potential!

So far:
A carbonized turkey
Yams flambé
Heating engine components for a shrink-fit
And a suggestion to bake powder coat

Any other clever or novel uses for a kitchen oven?

Since you asked, I made an aluminum frame that fits into our kitchen oven using the tabs normally used in the oven for the metal racks used to hold cooking.

The aluminum frame has two layers that bolt together to hold a sheet of plastic that is cut and has holes along the edge where bolts hold the frame together. We use an electric screw-driver to un-screw and re-install nuts on the studs that hold together the metal frame.

I got a book from the library on vacuum forming, and built a wood box with peg board as the top. I connected the pick-up end for a shop-vac to one side of the box. That is connected to a sump check valve (tested at the hardware store by sucking on it to be sure it is air tight in the stop direction of flow). The down stream side of the check valve goes to a three stage rotary vacuum (amatec) blower /vacuum. And in front of the check valve a hose into the shop-vac pick up end connects to a ball valve that connects to a 11 gallon tank that holds a high vacuum. I also placed rubber gasket material on the top of the vacuum box so as to provide a good seal.

Experiment with different thickness of plastic to determine how hot the oven has to be, and how long the plastic has to be in the oven to get the plastic soft enough to make it sag.

Then wearing gloves to protect me from the heat of the aluminum frame, I remove the metal frame and place it over a pre-made mold on the top of the vacuum box. The three stage vacuum pulls the plastic down, and then another person opens the ball valve so the 11 gallon high vacuum tank pulls the plastic tight enough to get good resolution.

We use this plastic vacuum forming machine to make some plastic parts for items we are developing, when those parts can be made by vacuum forming.

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So my answer to your question is that we use our kitchen oven to heat sheets of plastic for vacuum forming.