At work we brick our flat top but there’s a ton of buildup in the corners I want to clean off this week. I can’t get in there with a brick without the risk of splashing oil on my face. Is it safe and or effective to use a wire brush on those corners? Any other methods?
I’ll try that
Oh that's a great idea how did I not ever think of that
Just keep the oil light on the grill and you can get in the corners nice. If you have a real stubborn spot I've used a butter knife to scrape at it.
Minimal to almost no oil, very small up and downs. Pro tip: hold your brick with a towel, have it hang over the top so that it makes a buffer between the back wall and the brick, that way you don't slap the corner and splash oil
Get a flat bladed putty knife from the hardware store for like $3. Scrape corners of grill with corners of putty knife.
I’ve also used an oyster shucker for the same purposes.
I'll one-up ya, get a cheap wood chisel from the hardware store. It's a harder steel and will last much longer. Putty knives are great for the rest of the grill, but they get rounded corners pretty quickly and then won't get into the nooks.
This is important, With the chisel, take a sharpening stone, then blunt the end. You don't want a knife edge as it will cut into the soft metal of the flat top. Hold the chisel at 90 degrees to the stone and grind a flat where the edge was. You aren't dulling it, you are blunting it, there is a difference. You want a crisp 90 degree profile on the edge. Now when you scrape, it will blow right through any carbon build up, but will skate over the metal.
Yea I just use those and lightly tap with a hammer. LIGHTLY.
People actually manage to clean those things? Dang, I just cover the flattop with newspaper and let the AM people deal with it
This is strictly a joke, don’t castrate me
Does newspaper still exist?
I heard that the last tree ever died today, so I think it’s officially retiring. Now I’ll cover the flat top in Nooks and Kindle Fires
*Grabs pitchfork and torch*
I hate to be that guy, but get some grill cleaner
Manager won’t order. I can get the rest of the grill pretty clean with just oil
No grill cleaner?
What are you supposed to clean with? Thoughts and prayers?
Like I said, Grill brick and oil while it’s hot asf
We were told to use ice while the grill was on medium high heat. Works great, but you'll singe your forearms scrubbing over the steam lol
Can’t be worse than cooking cases of bacon on the flattop and getting your forearms blistered with bacon fat.
Eventually management listened to me and we started cooking batches in the convection oven - as we should have been from the start.
Oh my god not the bacon if the oven is free!!
Grill brick with oil, scrape, then hit with a splash of distilled white vinegar, scrape and wipe dry, then polish it up with a light coat of oil.
So many interesting methods.
I would use cleaner and then wrap a rag around the grill spatula to get at the corners.
I throw a scooper of ice and use that with the block. After scraping and rinsing out brick residue a final clean up with lime juice. But the corner along the back side of flat top is a pain.
Oooo that’s a good trick.
We used to use pickle juice to clean the flat top. It's great for the pores!
I'm a big fan of using carbonated water to clean it.
Jam a welder back there and turn the corner into not a corner
i have used a wire brush with a light rag wrapped around it to get in the corners
Before bricking it with oil I would get a towel soaked in pickle juice and work it with a spatula.
Huh. Would vinegar also work?
Distilled white vinegar works best. Less sugars and other crap leaves less of a residue. It also tends to be the cheapest. I've worked places that bought cheap vinegar just for the flat top.
Of course you'd basically be deglazing it makes cleaning so much easier.
Crank it up as hot it will go, block the grease drain and dump a bucket of ice on there. Give it a minute and take a wire brush to it
I always saved the end pieces of grill brick where you can start flipping over to 'sharpen' it by grinding it to a blade like edge. Then you get a very fine edge and I'll use that for corners.
I used to use a bench scraper
Paint scraper
Razor scraper. It comes off so easily it almost feels like cheating
Word?!
It's a trade-off. Gotta have a sharp blade otherwise it's pretty useless, but yeah, it works surprisingly well
We used to have a pair of wire cutters and cut a metal coat hanger at an angle. Then fold a handle. We would use it to get the edges and corners.
Steel scrubby and degreaser. Been burned too many times to even try the brick in the corner
Degreaser and a scrub brush, then squeegee all the degreaser off and clean up the residue
I always used a cut off piece of the brick.