I had a roasted chicken disaster yesterday and the oven needs to be cleaned before I can use it again - way too smoky:( And we have an alarm system that automatically triggers in the event of any smoke.

If you have it, do you use the self-clean option? My oven has it, but for some reason I'm scared to use it. I just remember my mom using it growing up and it smelled so bad/so smoky. Cooking is pretty new to me (see roast chicken disaster), so I've never had an oven that actually needed cleaning. Anything else you might recommend instead?