If you love barbecuing but hate cleaning up the mess, here are five sure-fire ways to clean grill grates without scrubbing. Grill grates are the source of a huge amount of frustration for most people who scrub away to no avail. All of these tips are guaranteed to leave you with sparkling clean grill grates for the minimum amount of effort.
- The 24-Hour Vinegar Soak
Vinegar can work wonders on grease but the secret is letting the grill bars soak for at least 24 hours. Take your cool grill bars and place them in a garbage bag. Use two bags if you are worried about leaks. Mix three cups of white vinegar in a bucket with three cups of ammonia and one cup of baking soda. Pour this mixture into the garbage bag containing the grill grates, close up the bags and leave them for 24 hours. After this time, remove the grates and hose them down. - Degreasing Spray
If the above tip seems like a waste of perfectly good vinegar, ammonia, baking soda and garbage bags, a simple degreasing spray may be the answer. Most big box retail stores sell high-strength degreasing sprays. The secret is applying these sprays while the grill bars are still warm. Remove the grill bars from the grill with tongs or whilst wearing oven gloves and set them aside. Apply liberal amounts of degreasing agent and leave them. Hosing them down later should reveal promising results without any scrubbing. - Pressure Washing
As you’ll know if you’ve ever run your grill grates through a dishwasher – hot water and cleaning agents alone won’t produce results. The reason is that without chemicals, baked on grease and fat requires pressure to shift. Your average dishwasher isn’t designed to pound items with a ton of pressure. If you have a pressure washer, you can get good results without having to scrub. Simply lay the grates on a concrete surface and fill your pressure washer reservoir with degreasing agent. A gas-powered washer will generate 3,000 psi – easily enough to make short work of filthy grill grates. - Leave The Grill On High For 10 Minutes
According to a firm specializing in barbeque grill repair, you can ‘burn off any fat left on the grates by running the grill on high for about 10 minutes’. This is a good tip for avoiding having to scrub the grill grates clean as scrubbing is typically only necessary when you leave fat and grease to conceal. - Use A Pumice Stone
Even brand new grills can become dirty, especially if you do a lot of marinating. If you don’t fancy breaking out the sprays or firing up your pressure washer, try a pumice stone. You can use pumice stones sold in health shops for removing calluses on the bottom of feet. However, regular stores such as Wal-Mart sell pumice stones specially designed for cleaning. For instance, the Pumie® Scouring Stone is a pumice stone. This is a great way of cleaning stainless steel grills without hardly any scrubbing.
Conclusion
Hopefully, you’ll find something you like on this list that will help you keep your grill grates gleaming without too much scrubbing. Our personal favorite is the pumice stone, hence its top slot on our list. Let us know what you think and leave us a comment or question below!