Clean Your Grill Fast, Easy & Green!

There’s nothing quite like grilling fish, burgers, kabobs, or steak in the backyard or the local park on a warm summer night. It’s one of our greatest and most enduring culinary pastimes. But cleaning the grill afterward?

If you don’t want your burger tasting like last week’s chicken, then cleaning it is a must! And if you’re put off by the idea that you need to use harsh cleaners to do the job right, banish that thought. It isn’t true.

The simplest, best “green” tools are, and always have been, a stiff wire grill brush, a sturdy spatula or spackle knife, tongs, a wadded up paper towel, and inexpensive vegetable oil. The best time to use these tools is when your grill is hot. It’s much easier to clean the grill is hot than when it’s cold.

To prevent the need for laborious cleaning sessions, follow these simple steps every time you use your grill:

1. Preheat the grill for 15 minutes.

2. Scrape the grill grate with a stiff wire grill brush.

3. Grab a wadded up paper towel with grill tongs and dampen it with vegetable oil.

4. Use tongs to rub the oily paper towel over the grill grate.

The grill brush scrapes off large bits of debris, and the oil and paper towel remove the finer soot. This keeps past flavors from permeating your food. In addition, oil lubricates the grill and helps prevent sticking, which prevents the build-up of stuck-on food. This makes cleanup a lot easier.

You should also regularly tackle the area below the grate or on the underside of the lid, but only when the grill has cooled off. Here’s how:

1. Remove the grill grate.

2. Use a spatula or spackle knife to scrape out and discard any carbonized debris from the heat diffuser, which is often a metal plate resting above the burners.

3. Scrape out and remove as much debris as possible from the cookbox below the heat diffuser.

4. Use the spatula or spackle knife to scrape out and discard any carbonized debris from the underside of the lid.

Depending on how often you use your grill, you’ll want to clean the outside on occasion as well. To do so, use a sponge or paper towel and a citrus-based degreaser. Avoid those with artificial fragrances, orange “impostors” (such as d-limonene), or harsh ingredients.