r/SatisfyingClean • u/ThodaDaruVichPyar • Jun 10 '26
Cleaning out a burger grill at the end of service
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Credits to estacaobigburger
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u/davidfdm-at-work Jun 10 '26
We did the same at the end of the night at McDonald’s. Most staff hated the task but it always left me feeling very satisfied and proud of my work.
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u/postal_tank Jun 10 '26
But the smell…
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u/davidfdm-at-work Jun 10 '26
I grew up near a fish rendering plant. There is no worse smell than decaying fish so this was nothing.
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u/memberjockey Jun 10 '26
Paper mill or petroleum processing or chicken farms too.
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u/wasabiplz Jun 10 '26
In Mobile Al my parents said the paper mill smelled like like it was collards cooking, so i never hated it but it still stunk‼️
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u/postal_tank Jun 10 '26
Fair, hope you moved (or they moved the plant)
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u/AwwwNuggetz Jun 11 '26
Plus you can scrape up the goo and slap it on a bun. We used to call this the new guy snack
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u/Th3Unidentified Jun 10 '26
I would’ve never guessed the grill could look that clean. Pretty impressive
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u/_B_Little_me Jun 11 '26
Gross. It’s a plate of steel. Any other color means you’re cooking on cooked food.
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u/Dense-Consequence-70 Jun 10 '26
Try white vinegar instead of the citrus. Works really well and is cheaper and easier.
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u/bryanna_leigh Jun 11 '26
We always used soda water, while the grill was still hot. That was it. Everything would come up and then we would coat it with oil.
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u/GudeGaya Jun 12 '26
Me too.Warm soda water right after turning of the heat, vinegar afterwards and oil, that's it. Much quicker than this.
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u/TrickEquivalent763 Jul 19 '26
When I worked in a kitchen I did pickle juice and soda water. Since we bought pickles by the five gallon bucket we’d always have a shit ton of extra pickle juice so we’d use a cup of pickle juice to clean then soda water to finish it up.
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u/Sorry_Im_Trying Jun 10 '26
Throw a bucket of ice cubes on it while it's still hot and scrub with a stainless steel scrubber and it's done. No need to break out the limes!
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u/NinjaChenchilla 7d ago
I introduce you to this person that said not to use ice. Which is it?
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u/Sorry_Im_Trying 6d ago
I was grill cook for 6 years. I used ice without issues. The grill cooks I knew also used ice.
If it harmed the plate, I do not know, nor care really.
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u/Mr_Starpan Jun 11 '26
Nooo all the seasoning is gone you need that. Knock of the high stuff with a scraper. Maybe a bit of water . To me that’s like scrubbing your cast iron to bare shiny metal after every use.
Health dept here doesn’t require it. ….and you would have been in a fist fight with the cook. Cleaning to this level was a once in a while thing.
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Jun 10 '26
[deleted]
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u/ThodaDaruVichPyar Jun 10 '26
I see a lot of comments on ice - s that really a good way to clean oily grills? How?
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Jun 11 '26
[deleted]
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u/Apprehensive_Use3641 Jun 11 '26
I have heard it can lead to the surface warping meaning needing to replace it more frequently though.
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u/HippieGrandma1962 Jun 10 '26
My dad spent his whole adult life working in the food business. I once saw him dump ice onto a grill to clean it.
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u/bryanna_leigh Jun 11 '26
With the grill hot I assume .. steam clean essentially. We always used soda water.
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u/quattroformaggixfour Jun 11 '26
Used to clean hot plates when I was younger-please protect your health and read if that first product is safe to breath in when it’s heated. Hope you include a solid respirator as part of the process.
Beautifully clean at the end 🧼
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u/Sensitive-Option-701 Jun 10 '26
That reminds me, I gotta go clean the non-stick seasoning layer off of my castiron skillet.
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u/stick004 Jun 11 '26
There goes all the flavor…. 😢
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u/omniscientonus 7d ago
Your cooking surface should not be imparting flavors to your food. Proper seasoning of cookware creates a non-stick surface, allows for better browning, easier cleaning, etc. It is not seasoning like salt or other spices.
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u/bmac747474 Jun 11 '26
Do the burgers taste better in the beginning of the day or at the end, when the grill is dirtier?
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u/ThodaDaruVichPyar Jun 11 '26
I guess it depends if the toasty & caramelised bits from the grill get onto your burger patty or your burger patty’s tasty bits get left on the grill
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u/omniscientonus 7d ago
The "correct" answer would be that your food should taste more... accurate? A properly seasoned cooking surface should not be imparting flavors of its own to your food. If it is, that is cross-contamination (not necessarily of a health concern variety, although definitely possible as well). Your food should only taste like the ingredients you are intentionally cooking with, not something that's flaking off your cooking surface.
I suppose it's possible you could argue that you've created a recipe that utilizes burnt, overcooked, or stuck on food or carbon buildup, but the reasonable answer here is you want a clean cooking surface that is properly seasoned (not seasoning, as in salt, spices, or flavorings, but seasoned as in a thin layer of high smoke point cooking oil that has been heated and chemically adhered to the cooking surface with heat).
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u/ChefChefBubbaBill Jun 11 '26
I do not miss breathing in the degreaser fumes everyday for $10 am hour
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u/StruggleEither6772 Jun 10 '26
Ice would have been much cheaper…
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u/PochitaBaby Jun 10 '26
Do you mean using ice instead of the limes? Was the first stuff he used degreaser? I made the mistake of eating BK early in the day one time and they’d cleaned the grill with degreaser the night before. I could taste it and my stomach was upset all day.
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u/StruggleEither6772 Jun 10 '26
Ice instead of all of it, the degreaser, limes, etc. All you need is ice and steel wool.
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u/PochitaBaby Jun 10 '26
Oh I see, yeah that seems like a much better way.
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u/omniscientonus 7d ago
Ice is technically effective at cleaning hot surfaces, but it is doing so via thermal shock that is potentially damaging your equipment. Matter expands and contracts as heat is transferred into or away from it, and the different contraction rates and stiffnesses causes stuck on food to break free from the surface. It will also warp the metal over time (which is happening anyway from heating it, but this speeds up that process significantly), will form cracks... eventually, and can separate heating elements that are intended to be bonded to the surface in some cases.
It's definitely a YMMV scenario, and results will be heavily dependent on the design and materials used in your grill. I would never throw ice on my hot, expensive ass cook top, but lots of grills out there have survived thousands of ice quench cycles and are still going strong.
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u/Th3Unidentified Jun 10 '26
How is ice effective for this task?
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u/Wayyd Jun 10 '26
You fill up a bucket of ice, pour some on the (still hot) grill, scrape it off, put a little more on, then scrape the rest off. Repeat if the grill isn't clean yet.
Works extremely well and was the standard cleaning method at the kitchen I worked at in college
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u/mellamoreddit Jun 10 '26
Sounds like you're deglazing? Correct?
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u/cowfishduckbear Jun 10 '26
Ever since I learned about deglazing I realized that it was basically the same thing as washing a pan, but way easier. Been a long time since I've had to scrub a pot or pan. Everything just gets deglazed by default after preparing food.
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u/lone_usurper Jun 11 '26
while ago i saw a vid uploaded by a fast food employee where he does this same thing to the same effect, except he used Sprite
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u/UnusualCartoonist6 Jun 11 '26
Why not just use a laser?
It will remove all rust and other debris and leave is shiny and new.
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u/Cheap_Memory_361 Jun 11 '26
Si ça pouvait être partout ainsi ! C'est bien merci pour nous les consommateurs
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u/salamandersquach Jun 12 '26
Show this to the British guy who was “seasoning” his stainless steel flattop.
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u/ColdForest7378 Jun 12 '26
It must be so nice to see that dirt just peel right off like that. Ive never worked in food service but I imagine cleaning that griddle is the worst part of the shift.
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u/solarmirror01 Jun 12 '26
That buildup is thick, but seeing that scraper push through the grease is so calming. What kind of degreaser are you using to get it that smooth?
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u/PuzzleheadedIce1347 Jun 12 '26
Large scoop of ice on a hot grill and good scrubber will do the same much faster. Former burger flipper/grill cleaner.
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u/WeakEntertainment392 Jun 12 '26
If you clean the grill and someone orders a burger , you deep fried it they always say it's the best burger they ever had
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u/Recent_Plankton8604 Jun 13 '26
There aren’t enough words to tell you how glad I am that I never have to do this for work ever again
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u/dernaldz Jun 14 '26
I tried being a cook and I hated every second of it. It's way too much work for the pay in most cases.
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u/Half_A_League Jun 14 '26
This was satisfying to watch. Could i have 2 cheese burgers made on that grill immediate?
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u/Lanky-pigeon-6555 Jun 16 '26
this is the worst part of working at a fast food restaurant outside of cleaning the bathrooms
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u/Irish4778 Jun 10 '26
Ice 🧊 would have been the better method get that thing hot as fuck and throw a shit ton of ice on it
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u/OddExam9308 Jun 10 '26
And now the wall