Cleaning 101: Cooker Hood Mesh Covers

This is a long overdue post. I was planning to post a few entries on cleaning stuff around the home because I find myself repeating the same info when sharing with friends, so I thought blog entries will be useful to direct friends to. The step by step guide and photos in a blog entry will be most helpful too. But well, every time I finally had time to write it, I found that I couldn't find those photos I have taken. So this time round, I made sure I edited the photos and saved them in a separate album in one sitting for easy retrieval. So here it goes! The 1st item to be cleaned this time is ... the dreaded hood mesh covers!

We all know how terrible it is to clean these covers; They are greasy and sticky and have hard to reach layers and worse is they are in mesh form! My early days as a new homemaker was spent using the dish sponge to clean it like dishes, only to find bits of the sponge being caught in the mesh and spending the next 30min trying to get those sponge bits out. Next I went on to using a brush, I thought that would be the best way but no, the mesh covers are way too sticky and coated with grime for the brushing to work without multiple cycles of soaping, brushing and rinsing. Seriously I could understand why no one cleans these things at all.

Well fret not, I have since found an easy peasy way to clean these mesh covers and have been sharing with my friends on how to tackle them. Below are the detailed steps with photos for the method. Before you jump right in to cleaning your mesh covers, I have a very important disclaimer here: Only use this method if you are very sure that your mesh are made of stainless steel. This method is NOT suitable for aluminium stuff, it will in fact tarnish your aluminium if you soak it in baking soda. (I have learnt it the hard way through my aluminium roasting tin!). Even if you are sure that your mesh covers are made of stainless steel, as with any other cleaning method being used for the first time, please test the method on a small area of your covers first. 

So now that you have understand the caution, let's take a look at how I clean my mesh covers!

Items needed:

- 1-2 cups of baking soda
- hot boiling water
- a tray that can fit your mesh covers
- dish detergent (optional)
- a small soft bristled brush (e.g. an old toothbrush)

First, you will need lots of baking soda. I suggest you buy those sold by the kilogram. I get mine from NTUC Fairprice under the brand Arm & Hammer. It is a bright orange box packaging, I use baking soda for cleaning my stainless steel stove too. This will come under another blog entry (hopefully soon!).

Put your mesh covers into the tray. This is one of my two covers.
I sprinkle baking soda generously all over it. 

1. Put your mesh covers into the tray. Sprinkle baking soda generously all over it.

Baking soda spread into the gaps in the mesh.
This is the second cover that is stacked on top of the first cover.    

2. Rub the baking soda into the gaps in the mesh and all around the covers.

I stacked the 2 covers in the tray.

After the hot boiling water is poured all over it. Look at the grime that is instantly dissolved!

3. Next, pour hot boiling water to submerge the covers. Use a chopstick to push the mesh covers down if they float. You will see that the water will instantly turn yellow with all the grime dissolved. Leave it to soak for a few hours. Usually I leave it till the whole tray cools down. 

The covers after the water is poured away. You can see that half the grime is gone!

4. After the water has cooled down, pour the water away and you will be able to see that most of the grime is removed. 

This step is purely optional but today I just decided to be "extra". LOL.
Pour more hot water over it and add a few squirts of the dish washing detergent. 

5. This step is purely optional but no harm doing if you have the time to spare. After the first round of soaking in boiling water and baking soda, squirt a bit of dish washing detergent and pour more hot boiling water over the mesh covers. I also use the brush to gently brush the cover that is on the top this time. Again, this is optional but it is so gratifying to see the grime coming off!

The mesh covers after the second round of soaking.
Looks clean but not throughly clean yet.
You will need to gently brush it to remove all traces of grime.

Use a soft brush to brush the mesh covers with your dish soap.
My dish soap is in a self foaming bottle so it is easy to rinse off the soap later.
Do not squirt concentrated form of dish detergent onto the covers at this stage! 

6. After the water has cooled down, pour the water away. For the last step you will need to brush the mesh with a soft bristled brush with some dish soap. My dish soap is always in a self foaming bottle so when I use it, it is in easy-to-rinse off foam. Do not use concentrated liquid soap or powder directly on the mesh at this stage, else you might have to rinse it many times, especially so if the thick gel or powder gets caught in the layers of mesh. 

If you do not have a self foaming bottle, you can dip the brush in your regular dish soap that is already diluted with water, we only need a slightly soapy brush to do the brushing. After brushing, rinse the mesh covers under running water and air dry them on your dish racks and voila! Your mesh covers will be as good as new!

The mesh covers after cleaning and drying!

Update: A technical error occurred with a previous posting of this same entry so I had to recreate and post this up again now.