Barbecue
An outdoor cooker whose parts are made of different things, where the only surface food touches is the one people clean most aggressively.
Precautions
- Do not apply to a hot surface
- Rinse thoroughly afterwards
- Check the manufacturer's instructions
Start here
What this is, what tends to go wrong with it, and what to do about it.
Which part are you cleaning?
These parts take different answers. Cleaning one the way you clean another is a common way to damage this.
- Barbecue grate
Three different surfaces that look identical under a season of carbon, and the one place on a barbecue where food actually touches metal.
Seasoned cast iron, Vitreous enamel
Things not to use here
What tends to go wrong
- Burnt-on food and carbon depositsvia its component
Food heated until it carbonised and bonded to the surface. Time and softening do the work; scouring powder does the damage.
Why it is difficult: Contact time, Carbonisation, Adhesion and cohesion, Why old stains are harder
- Rustvia its component
Hydrated iron oxide from corroding iron or steel. Distinguish a surface deposit, which cleans off, from active corrosion of the item itself, which does not.
Why it is difficult: Corrosion and passivation, Why old stains are harder, Adhesion and cohesion
In detail
A barbecue is a food-contact appliance that lives outdoors, and both halves matter. Outdoors means it takes rain, weather and rust in a way an indoor cooker does not, and that grease left over a season carbonises into a deposit far harder than the fat it started as. Food contact means the grate is subject to the same considerations as a chopping board: whatever cleans it must be rinsed off, and product residues have no business on a surface food is laid on. What decides the answer is what the grates are made of, and that is not obvious by looking. Bare cast iron, porcelain-enamelled cast iron and stainless steel look alike under a season of carbon and need different handling. Manufacturer guidance is unusually valuable here because the manufacturer knows which of the three it sold you, and most general barbecue advice is written as though there were only one kind of grate. Cleaning a barbecue is also one of the few domestic jobs with a real heat hazard in the cleaning rather than the cooking: the appliance holds heat long after it looks cold, accumulated grease is flammable, and the routine most manufacturers recommend involves brushing a grate that is deliberately hot.
Related
- Barbecue has the component Barbecue grate
Sources for this page
Sources
How to Care For Your Cast Iron Cooking Grates
Weber-Stephen Products LLC · Manufacturer documentation
Relied on for: That the manufacturer's routine is to preheat the grill and then brush the cooking grates, and that porcelain-enamelled cast iron is a coated surface whose coating can be damaged. (states this directly)