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Recipe 81 of 100 · The Country Cleans Mix Book

How to Clean Grill Grates Before You Put the Grill Away

Baking Soda Soak

Scrape any heavy grease out cold, then fire the grill on high for 15 minutes with the lid open and stay with it. Let the grates cool to warm and scrape with a nylon brush or a foil ball. Stainless and porcelain grates soak 1 to 2 hours in 2 gallons hot water with 1 cup baking soda and 1/2 cup dish soap, then scrub, rinse and wipe with vinegar. Cast iron gets no soak and no vinegar: hot water, the brush, dry over low heat and oil.

Grill Grate Degreaser recipe card: 2 gallons hot water, 1 cup baking soda, 1/2 cup dish soap, 1 cup white vinegar, kept separate
What it fixesBaked on carbon, grease and last summer's char welded to grill grates.

You need

Mix it

  1. Fill the tub with the hot water.
  2. Stir in the baking soda until dissolved, then add the dish soap and stir gently.
  3. Keep the vinegar in its bottle for the final wipe. It goes on after the soak, not in it.

Use it

  1. Fire the grill on high for 15 minutes with the lid closed first. This turns soft grease into brittle ash and does half the job for free.
  2. Shut it off, let the grates cool until they are warm and safe to handle, then scrape them with the nylon brush or the foil ball.
  3. Stainless and porcelain coated grates go into the tub and soak 1 to 2 hours. Warm grates going into hot water loosen far more than cold grates do. Cast iron and carbon steel never get that soak, so set those aside and go straight to step 5.
  4. Scrub each grate with the brush, paying attention to the underside where drip grease collects, then rinse with the hose.
  5. Wipe the cooled grates with a rag dampened in vinegar to cut the last of the film, but only on stainless or porcelain coated grates. On cast iron or carbon steel, skip the vinegar completely, skip the long soak, use plain hot water and the brush, then dry them over a low burner and oil them immediately.
Dale's noteCast iron grates rust in about a day if you leave them wet, so the oil wipe at the end is not optional on those. Porcelain coated grates only need the oil if the coating is already chipped.
Don'tDo not do the burn off with the lid closed if there is thick grease in the firebox or on the drip tray. Scrape the heavy buildup out cold first, then burn off with the lid open and stay with the grill. A closed lid over old grease is how a flare up becomes a fire. Keep vinegar and long soaks away from cast iron and carbon steel grates. Acid strips the seasoning and bare iron flash rusts within an hour of coming out of the water, so cast iron gets a short hot water scrub, a dry over heat, and an oil coat, in that order, same day. Also do not use oven cleaner on any grate. It is lye based, it strips porcelain coating and eats the seasoning off cast iron, and residue in the grooves ends up under your food.
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