Cleaning Griddles

What is everyone's preferred griddle cleaning technique?

Heating it up on max heat and killing it with a brush then some water and more scrubing and than storing it in oil (for a cast iron one)

Hit it with baking soda when it's hot and scrub/scrape the hell out of it, used to clean pretty much every cooking surface the same way in my old job

hot oil from the fryer, scoured with a pumice stone that's very coarse scrape it clean,light coat of salt, scrub and scrape. Lightly oiled for next day. Cast iron very old griddle. Massive thing it was over five feet in length. That was over twenty years ago.

Use baking soda

I use vinegar when off and still hot, then thoroughly rinse and rub in oil

I stock "real lemon" juice just for this purpose. my cook hits it with some of that, gives it a scrub and its freshy.

Those pumice stones work pretty good. I like the thin mesh pads followed by the black grill scrubbies. They almost look like a green dish scrubbie just a little tougher, more heavy duty. Scrape it down with a bench knife and then give it a good wipe down with some oil.

Though there are those who swear by the "seasoned approach". This involves gently scraping the larger bits off and leaving the rest, maybe a gentle wipe with a towel. Was never into this. Definitely an old school, greasy spoon type of thing.

Vinegar and eblow grease. Man up, scrub it

hot flat top, grill brick and water after a good scraping. Bottled lemon juice after its cooled a bit to cut through the last bit of residue.

kizam said:

Though there are those who swear by the "seasoned approach". This involves gently scraping the larger bits off and leaving the rest, maybe a gentle wipe with a towel. Was never into this. Definitely an old school, greasy spoon type of thing.

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I'm not sure what the answer is but I used to share a station with a guy who would make the griddle shiny at the end of his shift and truth be told, food would stick to it like hell and it'd need tons of oil, a pain in the *ss for me the next day!

That said, I definitely can't imagine "gently" scraping is going to remove much, if any, build-up.

wbusby1 said:

I'm not sure what the answer is but I used to share a station with a guy who would make the griddle shiny at the end of his shift and truth be told, food would stick to it like hell and it'd need tons of oil, a pain in the *ss for me the next day!

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We have a person who uses a 1/4 bottle of degreaser every day on the flat top. Completely stripped down to bare metal each day she works (she works the day and I work evenings). I try to not even use the darn thing. If I do have to use it I go through the whole seasoning process of full heat and smoking oil 3-4 times before I feel ok using it. When I don't use it, it often ends up with rust spots by the end of the day. I honestly think it is a germ phobia of hers. After I season it and use it for the evening meal I scrape it down then scratch it down with hot oil leaving a nice seasoning. She degreases it the next morning before she uses it. W+F? BTW- I will not eat anything she cooks, especially if it came off the flat top.

Cheers!