Do you personally know a fool proof way to get smoke off the walls of a microwave?

Hm, I’m not sure about smoke, never tried before… With baked-on-food, I usually putting a dish of water in the microwave for a long time—enough time for the water to steam up the inside of the microwave and start softening whatever is stuck on the sides. Sometimes I have to do that several times, getting of the stuff layer by layer. Maybe that will work with the smoke?

You could also try baking soda or vinegar to see if either cuts the smoke? I use baking soda to whiten out my tea-mug, and sometimes to get water stains off my glass, and it works like a charm in both cases—no apparent scratching… I think it’s fine-ground enough to not be overly abrasive on the surface. Then I use vinegar sometimes to help lift difficult substances off surfaces… And, since baking soda and vinegar are both edible, any leftover residue-turned-fume is fine.

There are a couple of things I’ve done to remove smoke and other debris from inside a microwave. First put a mug of water in there and get it boiling. After the microwave turns off, let it sit while the steam softens up the gunk on the walls. Then use baking soda as a scouring powder.

Baking soda will NEVER scratch because it dissolves in water, and you can use it to detail lots of other things, such as toasters and those buttons on the front of a dishwasher.

I’ve also had success by first spraying the microwave with window cleaner, then steaming it, and wiping it down after everything is softened. Use an old toothbrush for the nooks and crannies. You can also use baking soda and ammonia together with no problems.

I’ve had smoke. I was demonstrating the interesting results of microwaving a discarded CD.
Place it on a tea cup, turn off the room lights, and watch the fireworks! Neat!
But…

To clean up the mess I boiled water in there and was able to wipe it off with the help of Windex and a paper towel.

@snowberry Thank you, we boiled the water in a mug, and then wiped with baking soda. It worked. Just for good measure, I also finished it off with a window cleaning wipe, and then a Clorox wipe.

@snowberry—good to know about the baking soda! It has never seemed to scratch things but I was always sure my luck would run out at some point on some object… now I can freely unleash the soda!! :)

@YARNLADY yay! glad you got the stain out!

@everyone That isn’t exactly true about baking soda never scratching. Once I used it to remove a spot on wallpaper. The problem was that it was made of real paper. My rubbing it, combined with a little moisture and mild abrasive of the baking soda damaged it further. So it never hurts to be extra cautious.

@YARNLADY Will you tell us what you did to get the smoke in the first place? That might be useful for others so they don’t make the same mistake.

@LuckyGuy I always keep a paper towel on the bottom plate to cut down on cleaning work.
This time, I put in a plastic bowl (a microwave meal leftover) to warm up the food, but a fork was left in the bowl by mistake. The fork sparks set the paper towel on fire and it melted the edge of the plastic bowl.