Questions about cast iron grates


 

Bruce

TVWBB 2-Star Olympian
1. Are all the cast iron grates ceramic coated on only some of them?

2. If you have a set of grates that are all full of nasty stuff from a previous owner, what is the best way to clean them up to determine if they need replacing.

3. What criteria do you use for determining if they need replacing. I have 4 Weber gas grills sitting in my garage waiting to be cleaned up for flipping. I need to know if I should replace the grates or not. Personally, if the grate is still intact, it is good to go. I used a Weber Q grate until a 3x4" square chunk fell out of the grate. But, I want to know what is the general consensus on when to replace the cast iron grates on these Genesis and Spirit grills.

Thanks,
Bruce
 
As with pans I would bake them to get all the crud off, inspect and if good reseason them. There's plenty of articles on the web on how to season cast iron. I used my performer to season my pans, make sure they're clean and to bare metal and then coat them with cooking oil and bake at like 300 - 350 till they stop smoking, let them cool naturally and repeat.
 
I use as high of heat as I can to clean them also, that's another reason I use the performer, gets really hot
 
Let's say you have some rust in your cast iron. What would you do? Sand the rust off and reseason?

I'd like to get ahead of the decay of my CI grates ...
 
If it's just surface rust I just use Scotchbrite then wash in hot hot water, dry really quick and then reseason. I don't know too much about these grates as was mentioned on my post so.... All my experience has been with skillets and Dutch ovens. I would imagine that if you are doing these to sell and you don't want to replace the grates then a good seasoning is in order then it's up to the buyer on what to do.
 
I'm interested in mine to keep, not to sell. I'll try scrubbin' and seasoning and see what happens. It's not too bad, just a small amount of rust in a couple of spots, like three linear inches total.

Always interested in how to maintain things well!

Thank you!

Tim
 
I'll season my CI three times before first use. After I'm done cooking I use bamboo utensils to scrape off any leftovers, never use a wire to clean CI, you'll just have to reseason it again. Don't heat it up too hot after your cook either, it destroy the seasoning and you'll have to start all over again...... Ask me how I know that.

The bamboo utensils you can get from places like Wal-Mart
 

 

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