Establish whether a glass Blanco is radiant ceramic or induction before choosing a product, because the two behave in opposite ways. On gas, lift the trivets, caps and crowns and soak them flat in a non-caustic degreaser after photographing the layout.
Blanco hobs came into Australian kitchens mostly through developers, matched to a Blanco oven and rangehood. They are unremarkable appliances and they are cleaned badly for one predictable reason.
Check the surface before the product
Where a Blanco hob is glass, it is far more likely to be radiant ceramic than induction, and the two need opposite handling. Our cooktop cleaning guide covers how to tell them apart and what each needs.
The Blanco-specific point is that nobody chose it. These arrived with the apartment, so the owner has no purchase memory to fall back on and frequently no manual, and the surface has to be identified rather than recalled. It is worth doing once and writing on something, because it decides every product decision afterwards.
The gas models
Blanco gas hobs carry enamelled steel or cast iron trivets over enamelled burner bases. Photograph the layout before anything comes off, because caps and crowns are sized per burner and a large cap on a medium crown gives a flame that lifts and will not simmer.
Soak the trivets and enamelled caps flat for an hour in hot water with a non-caustic degreaser, work them with a stiff nylon brush rather than wire, clear the ports with a wooden toothpick rather than metal, and keep liquid off the ignition electrodes.
One appliance of three
Because Blanco is supplied as a matched set, the hob sits between an oven that gets cleaned when it smokes and a hood that gets nothing at all. The hood is invariably the appliance furthest behind, and it is the reason the hob keeps getting greasy. See how to clean a Blanco rangehood and how to clean a Blanco oven.
The edge trim and the silicone bead
A Blanco hob is set into a benchtop with either a shallow frame or a bead of silicone around the glass. That junction sits slightly below the cooking surface and it has caught every boil-over the appliance has ever had.
In an apartment kitchen where the hob is close to a wall on one side, the run along that side collects the most and is the hardest to reach. It darkens, then hardens, and at that point people either ignore it or attack it with something sharp.
Neither is right. Lay a warm damp cloth along the line for ten minutes to soften it, then work it with a soft brush and warm soapy water, finishing with a cloth wrapped around a fingertip. Nothing sharp goes into that line, because the silicone underneath is what stops water reaching the cabinetry.
What actually goes wrong
A ceramic hob treated as induction, so spills are left to cool and then will not shift.
Permanent sugar damage from a boil-over left until the surface cooled.
Haze across the glass from a scourer used in frustration after the first attempt failed.
Rusted trivets on gas models, dried by air rather than by hand.
Should you do it yourself?
Do it yourself, and the answer is timing rather than technique: wipe the zone while it is warm and you will rarely need more than a cloth.
Get someone in if a ceramic top has months of baked film, or if you are booking the matched oven and hood anyway, which is how most apartment owners do it.