I love me a good broiled steak. Or lamb chop.
I’m lazy enough that i often use a cast iron pan, instead, because it’s so much easier to clean, though.
Re oven cleaning…I’m really serious about QnB. Get a tub, get a rag. Use the rag to smear a thin coating inside your oven. It’s not (very) corrosive, so you don’t need to worry about getting it on trim, chrome, etc. It IS a bit easier if you’re willing to unscrew and remove electric elements. Wait about 30-60 minutes. Use a very wet rag to wipe it all off, rinsing your rag as needed. Do a final clean wipe and you’re done. There’s no strong odor and it’s non-toxic.
My 86 YO mother would be down on her knees putting Easy-Off oven cleaner in her oven, with newspapers spread all over to protect her floor, counters, etc. Next visit, I’d bring a tub of QnB and knock the whole thing out in less than 20 minutes (not including wait time).
Self-cleaning is easier. It takes about two minutes, not counting wait time.
And honestly, regular dish soap is good enough for everything else i actually feel the need to clean.
I have an older oven. Works great, but not self-cleaning.
My first oven was terrific, but not self-cleaning. I would happily try your tip if i still had it.
My current oven is also terrific.
In between I’ve had two or three mediocre ovens that were self-cleaning. The last one was so mediocre that i replaced it. It didn’t die or anything, it was just hard to cook with because it wouldn’t hold a steady temperature and had hot and cool spots.
The new one has a convection feature that i have fallen in love with. It is truly awesome for roasts.
I kind of agree with you in principle. I read all these incredibly complicated accounts of how to roast meat using a grill, and i think, "my oven does that, it holds a temperature at the touch of a dial, it’s conveniently in my kitchen, it’s larger than my grill, too…
Really, i mostly grill when i want to broil, but don’t want to clean the broiler.
Thank you for this tip! I’ll be on the lookout for the product, for sure. This sounds way easier!
I freely admit that I am not looking forward to firing up my grill later on today for hamburgers and hot dogs. Not because I have any problem with grilling, but because for a large chunk of the year (June through about mid-September) it is uncomfortably hot around here. Hot enough that triple digit temperatures don’t even get a heat advisory most of the time. Today’s expected to top out around 101 Fahrenheit and humid. I’m using my gas grill today, because I have no desire to babysit a charcoal fire in this heat.
Most of the year, I don’t mind grilling. Sometimes if the weather’s nice, it’s pleasant to sit on the deck with a beer and chill out while something cooks on the grill. Even if it’s kind of cold, it’s not so bad.
But 100 degree temperatures? No thanks.
Not sure if Texas counts as the South, but I hate grilling unless it’s in cool/cold temperatures - and even then, I don’t like the odor of ash, lighter fluid, etc.
I am no longer Southern, but I did grow up in West Texas. Grilling outdoors holds no appeal to me, nor has it ever. The trouble, the mess. And there is nothing magical about something being cooked outdoors that makes it better. Just fuck it. Let’s all go stuff ourselves silly in a nice restaurant.
I’m not going to chastise you for having a preference different from mine. And I’ll confess that I’ve got a gas grill precisely because it’s so much more convenient than using a charcoal grill. Actually, I also have a charcoal grill. One of the reasons I like cooking outside is so I can avoid heating up my house too much. I can roast a chicken in my oven but I’d prefer to cook it on my grill with some woodchips burning and adding some flavor.
This phrase:
…leapt out at me and made my jaw drop.
mmm
I love grilling /BBQing … but I think its a waste for just burgers and dogs type of stuff … give me some nice sauced brisket or ribs … or some nice thick pork chops that have been sitting in some spicy brown sugar &honey sauce all night … or carne asada heck one time we grilled some goat a neighbor gave us …
Gives new meaning to “short ribs”…
I’m not sure if pollen is a big issue. In this neck of the woods it’s spiders (black widows particularly) and paper wasps, as well as other creepy crawlies that like to infest grills left outdoors.
I scrub my grill clean after each use – usually the morning after. I dump the ash of course, pull out the grates, and then scrub everything with a soapy SOS pad. Rinse and repeat until shiny. Then do the same for grill grate itself. I wouldn’t use pots, pans, cutlery, or dishes that are dirty so why would I use a dirty grill? I realize I’m in the distinct minority on this, but to me cooking on a dirty surface is just asking for problems. Whether it’s a dirty crock pot or a dirty Weber grill is immaterial – contamination is contamination. I also clean it throughly before each use, prompted by once discovering one of the aforementioned black widows, freshly roasted, on one of my finished, plated hamburgers one delightful spring barbecue. I was seconds away from applying the top bun. Shudder So now I sanitize that bad boy before I use it.
And because of this I grill much more infrequently than I used to. I have a couple of Weber charcoal grills and a charcoal smoker but I havent used the smoker in months and the Weber kettle… well, its just plain easier to cook pretty much anything I want to cook in the kitchen than on the grill. Except burgers. I will always cook burgers on a charcoal grill. Anything else produces inferior patties. I’ve threatened to get a pellet grill but I’m not sure if I’d be any happier with that. I’d still want it clean and for me that 95% of the work. At least with a kettle I can literally hose it out.
So I’m with the OP. ::stands up:: “Hi, I’m Lancia and I’m a balding overweight middle-aged American male who doesnt like to grill outdoors.” ::sits::
We have a stiff wire brush. I give the grill a quick brush which scrapes loose the carbonized remnants of the previous grill session.
I see no reason or need to put it under water and go at it with steel wool or whatever. It’s very sterilized (or will be long before I take the food up) and the only concern is flaky material you don’t really want sticking to or incorporated into your grilled food.
I am a Northern adult male who loves to grill and BBQ outside. I grill at any time of year. I grilled salmon once in the middle of a snowstorm that accumulated over a foot of snow. Seeing the dark grill standing out in the blur of snowy whiteness was cool. But hanging outside on a beautiful summer day, perhaps with a beverage, tending to the grill is the best.
I use charcoal and wood. Yes, that makes food taste better. No, a propane grill is not as good. I’ve slow-smoked pork shoulders and whole turkeys and briskets, but even if I’m just grilling up steaks or burgers, I’ll soak a handful of wood chips and throw them on the coals.
I don’t understand people who claim that charcoal grills are so much work. Light charcoal in starter chimney. Go do some food prep while the coals are heating up. When coals are getting hot, I spread them out over half the grill area and I put the grate close to the coals to burn off the residue from the last grilling. First one side, then the other. Clean grates with soap and water? What?!? No, purify by fire! I use the broken end of a stick, or maybe a crumpled up wad of aluminum foil to finish cleaning the fine gray ash off the grates. I don’t like wire brushes because I’ve heard the little wires can break off and get into the food.
that level of cleaning will remove a spider that somehow died on the grate, too.
Yeah, your procedure is what I do, as well.
Speaking of spiders – I once had enough trouble with one of my gas burners, on the kitchen range, that I took it apart to see if something was wrong. And I found the incinerated remains of a spider blocking the flow of gas through the burner. Removed the sad little corpse, and the burner was good as new.
I fire up the grill at least once a week 52 weeks out of the year. Wait, I take that back, it’s 50 weeks out of the year since we are away on vacation 2 weeks out of the year. Fish, pizza, burgers, steaks, lamb, veggies, fruit, etc, all can be grilled.
I appreciate tour frustration, as I have been there. Used to have a charcoal grill, had nothing but angst. Between getting the coals to the right temperature, then making sure they stay hot enough, i did not enjoy grilling.
All changed getting a gas grill with a connected gas line. We grill fish, shrimp, or chicken mostly, and its really easy. Just turn the gas knobs, wait 5 minutes, burn off the crud, make a quick pass with a scraper, but the stuff on, flip half way, done!
I clean the grease pan every few months (use cat litter to soak it up).
We’re in the southwest so nothing outside to clean (though we do have a pesky mama mouse trying to make a nest in there).
Totally worth it as mrs. Oxido really appeciates the help with cooking.
I never plan ahead, so I’ve trimmed down the experience to “Gas grill that I can start and put stuff on it right away”… or in five minutes if I’m searing burgers, or our usual… salmon.
And I’m pretty lazy, so I put down a layer of foil (oiled and pressed down to follow the topography of the grill, to get those ‘grill marks’). Twelve minutes* later, the salmon’s a little charred (but med. rare on the inside), and I just pull off the foil, and the grill’s still clean.
So cooking is quicker, the house doesn’t smell like fish, and cleanup takes a few seconds. Laziness rules!
*oh, that 12 minutes is spent drinking a beer in the backyard, because I “need to keep an eye on the grill.”
.
(Me, I’m in the Far North, but I’m grilling all year round. There’s something very primal about being warmed by the grill while you’re cooking in a snow globe.)