Flat-top/griddle question.

I remember helping in a restaurant as a kid. Scrubbing the flattop. Scraping and even rubbing a pumice stone on it Wasn’t I removing the seasoning?

I’m a missing something? I don’t have one. I was just curious. Thx.

We all cherish our hard earned seasoning on our pans.

French flat tops? Used to have to scrub the crap out of the ones at work. Every night. Don’t miss that at all!

U have to scrub them and keep them clean you don't want black flakes on your nicely seared food

I have the Camp Chef 600 flat top griddle and the top is carbon steel. Just like a good carbon steel pan, once you get it well seasoned, it does a great job. To clean mine, after a cook, I just spray some water on it while it's hot and scrape everything off with a big spatula. Then I wipe it down good with a wet towel, followed by a light coat of cooking oil and it's ready for the next cook.

The way the heating working on a flat top makes it very easy to reseason. It is a very adjustable and stable gas flow. There’s also a serious hood system above any serious flat top. The smoke from just turning the flat top on with the layer of oil left from the previous night is no big deal when it starts smoking. It’s not like a pan where you want the same seasoning all around, for me at least. Sometimes I’ll use 1/4 to keep sauces warm, another 1/4 to toast bread and the other 1/2 to cook while using the inbetween parts to cook at different levels. When your cooking 12+ hours a day there can be a considerable amount of crap build up. On the cooking surface and all around it. If you were to let this go on for a while it would be horrendous to do a once in a while cleaning. 5 min at the end of the day makes life much easier in the long run to keep things shiny.

Thanks for the inside scoop.

One of my first jobs, (over 50 years ago), was in an old drive-up restaurant. The owner heard that putting ice on the flat top made it easier to clean. It might have, but it also warped the top to the point that it was noticeably not flat, and harder to scrape too.

I clean my flat top with seltzer water and a scraper, worked great. Felt the seltzer worked better than water etc.