[rstuart4133]

> Nothing cleans quite as good as strong alkaline.

Depends on what you are cleaning. Most oven cleaners are strong alkalines, often sodium hydroxide. They work well enough on grease, but neglect it a bit and the heat turns the grease into a char that nothing short of a steel scraper and lot of elbow grease will remove. (On reflection, that char may be a combination of what was grease and protein.) In any case, alkaline cleaners and soaps won't touch it.

But allow to ammonia at it for 12 or so hours (it doesn't have to be wet - just exposed), and it just wipes away. The usual technique is to put the stainless steel fittings in a garbage bag, pour in a cup of cloudy ammonia, and tie off overnight. (If you want to have working nostrils afterwards, open bag outside.)

It even works on the glass door. Open so it's flat, cover with paper towels, soak paper towels in cloudy ammonia, hide outside for an hour so the smell doesn't take you out and burnt on crap wipes off.

I don't the chemistry is, but it's magic. It would be interesting to find out what the chemistry is, actually.