New Stovetop?

So for Christmas, we got Dan a flat griddle for our Saturday family breakfast he makes for us. You know the kind you put on the top of the stove and use the burners to heat. Well, after burning the pancakes because he was chasing James away from the Christmas tree, he noticed a strange smell. Then when he was done cooking, picked up the griddle, and saw....guess....melted griddle! So now there was melted pot on my stovetop and here we are thinking that we are going to be getting a new stove for Christmas, unbeknownst to us!

Stovetop

Bottom of griddle


Well at any rate, my first thought was to attack it with the cleaner that comes with the stove. That got some of the grime off. Then I took the pizza stone scraper to it to see if that would remove any of the stuff sticking up - not really. So then I googled this problem...seems the only recommendation was to get a new stovetop or stove ($300 - $2,000). Hmm. Other ideas for cleaning a stove that had lots of stuff on it were baking soda, this wierd bar cleaning agent, and something else off the wall. So I tried the baking soda and pour vinegar on it, you know volcano style bubbling and whatnot.

This seemed to have something of an effect, but not enough to really make it usable. So I tried this product called Scour Off that really took a bunch off. BUT there was STILL some metal shine left. So Monday morning (after Dan left for work) I decided that nothing could be lost by just turning the burner on and remelting the metal then just wiping it off. Which actually worked really well. Then I repeated the Scour Off after it cooled down. Viola - clean stovetop!