When the oven is heated to nearly 1,000
oF, at the "self-clean" setting, any grease of spills leftover from the earlier baking which still clings on the walls will disintegrates into fine particles that either free themselves or can be easily wiped away with a damp cloth. This process helps with the cleaning without using any chemicals. However, bear in mind that this feature comes at a price besides dollars. It also consumes space inside the oven unit and thus reducing an oven's interior dimensions and - consequently - the maximum size of a pot, pan, or sheet you can place inside the oven.
Since the oven will be heated to a very high temperature, there is a safety mechanism to lock the oven door to prevent injuries from burning and will only be released after the temperature comes down to about 600oF. The oven self-cleaning cycle will last approximately three hours.
As there are still leftover spill from the earlier baking still clings to the oven walls during the "self-cleaning" process, it is inevitably that sometimes there may be some smoke appearing. So it is best to keep pets out of sight as the oven-heated Teflon-coated items could release deadly fumes which are odorless and could harm small pets especially birds. So it is advisable to do the oven self-cleaning process in a well ventilated area with the windows opened.
With the oven heated to such a high temperature, obviously it will also be going to use up a lot of energy. And in order to save energy cost, perform the oven self-cleaning cycle immediately after baking to take advantage of the current partial heat already presence in the oven from the baking.
** Asian Recipes **
