How to Clean Your Grill the Easy Way

Described below is what I refer to in my outdoor kitchen event seminars as the; “How to clean your grill the easy way" method. Any type of cleaning task whether indoors or out-of-doors is never fun but this method seems to be one of the easiest and quickest ways I have discovered to clean the grates and grids of your outdoor grill using minimal time and effort.

For ongoing cleaning of your grates during an outdoor grilling session, I recommend a cleaning tool called the Grill Wizard. Essentially what you have is a stainless steel scrubbie pad on a stick. The handle is a 16” length of wood or plastic onto the end of which the manufacturer has affixed a stainless steel pad. Some of the unique qualities of the Wizard include a tool that cleans both stainless and porcelain grates quickly and easily, comes with an replacement scrubbie pad included, has a two year warranty and has a suggested retail of $10.99, though most retailers maintain a selling price in the range the $10.99 to $12.99. Unlike a brass bristle grill brush which has the tendency of the bristles crushing flat and clogging with unsightly grease and subsequently needing replacement every 3 to 4 months, the wizard brush maintains its shape and can be readily rinsed out using hot water from the tap.

I like to tell folks that, just as your dentist suggests that you brush your teeth after every meal, you should likewise spend a few minutes and brush your grill grates after every meal as well. The method I find best is to bring a two or three quart pot of warm water to the grill and while the unit is still on and is hot from cooking, dip the Wizard brush first into the water and then onto the grates and clean using a brisk forward and back action as you would with any brush. I continue the repeating the process across the entire surface which takes but two or three minutes. I am told what makes this process so efficient is that when the water comes in contact with the hot surface of the grate that it turns to steam and as you may know, water expands in volume by up to 600 times as it turns to steam. The steam literally blows off any debris that may be stuck to the surface of the grill grate.

From time to time to deep clean the grates and grids I use a simple procedure that is also quick and easy and requires minimal “hands on” labor. For this method you will need: a 40 gallon lawn and garden bag, several sections of old newspaper and a 2 quart bottle of ammonia.

Open the bag and lay it flat on the ground. Use two sections of newspaper placing them flat in the bag. Place a grate on the paper and pour 11/2 cups of ammonia over the grates and the paper. Repeat this process until you have loaded all of the grates in the bag. Pour into the bag any left over ammonia. Seal the bag and let sit over-night (24 hours). Taking care when opening the bag to avoid the ammonia odor. Use rubber gloves to remove the grates from the bag, knock off any remaining stuck on debris using the grill wizard brush. The grates will dry in 10 to 15 seconds and at that time you can bring the grates to your sink and rinse with soap and water and you are good to go for several more weeks!