Cooking on a barbeque is a fun and easy way to create a great meal. There is only one big drawback - cleaning the sticky, messy, burned-on gunk that collects on your grill each time you use it. That chore is enough to put a lot of people off barbequing for good!
Luckily, keeping your grill clean does not have to be a miserable job. Here are some simple and effective tips for cleaning a barbeque that will help you enjoy this outdoor cooking method all summer long.
1. Coat Your Grill with Oil
A good way to reduce the pain of cleaning a barbeque is to prevent the nastiest of the gunk from sticking to the grill in the first place. To do this, coat your rack with a good layer of oil before you start to cook. This will help you to keep your food from burning and sticking to the grill, while making cleanup much easier.
2. The Wire Brush Method
A stiff wire brush is a huge help in cleaning your grill. Simply give your rack a thorough scrubbing before and after each use. If you have used oil to coat your rack, getting the grill clean should be easy with a brush alone.
3. The Grill Stone Method
Grill stones are specially designed to help get grease and stuck-on food off of your grill. They look similar to a large pumice stone with a handle to help make scrubbing easier.
4. The Baking Method
Grills can sometimes be cleaned in a similar manner as self-cleaning ovens: close the hood, turn up the heat, and let the baked-on food burn off. Once grease and grime is transformed into ashes, it is easy to remove with a brush or grill stone. However, you should be careful that this method is not prohibited by the grill manufacturer in order that you do not void the warranty.
5. The Soaking Method
If all else fails, letting your grill racks soak in warm water will help loosen stubborn dirt and food remains. This can be good for getting the edges of your racks, which are often difficult to scrub properly, really clean.
You can add vinegar or dishwashing lotion to the water for additional cleaning power.
Some final tips:
(1) Clean the barbeque as soon as you have used it. It will be easier to clean if it is still warm as the food will not have had time to adhere to the grill.
(2) Clean the barbeque before you use it. Dust, dirt and bugs may have found their way into your barbeque so a quick clean is vital for your health's sake.
(3) Cover your barbeque when not in use to protect it from the elements.
(4) If you are finding it hard to remove baked on grease and food, then heat up the grill and scrape it off while still hot.
In my opinion, the best method I still adhere to, is to clean the grill or barbeque and all things I used at once. I never let any fat or drippings dry by waiting some hours or the following day to clean them. As soon, as grilling is finished, I clean at once. This is the easiest and surest way for me.