Jon Tofte
TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
Here's one that will probably stir controversy, although that isn't my intention...
I have mentioned before that I am planning a post tax season video shoot comparing cast iron grates, stainless rod grates, traditional Weber stamped steel grates, and those "GrillGrates". While I can't do anything that complicated right now, our family does need to eat, so I still get to at least grill a little bit. To make my competition fair, I want to be sure that in the case of the cast iron and the GrillGrates, they are adequately seasoned.
So, I went ahead and installed GrillGrates on the Genesis Silver C I picked up for $50 a few weeks ago. (It has turned out to be a great bargain grill, by the way, supplying me with a nice set of stainless rod grates, and stuff for my Skyline grill - black knobs & starter button and a cool side burner that I hope to fix using Larry's advice.)
Anyway, I wanted to use these GrillGrats enough to get them to the seasoned look that the instruction sheet shows. So far, I have done some burgers, steaks once, and tonight pork chops. My comments that follow are ONLY FIRST OBSERVATIONS. I am not making any recommendations or comparisons until I can do as objective a test as is reasonably possible. I hope with that to come up with an unbiased, non-emotional evaluation and rating of these popular grate options.
In the meantime, I will say that my first impressions of GrillGrates are very positive. No flare-ups so far. The grates are pretty easy to scrape clean with the funky spatula-looking tool they include. (Although they show you using this tool as a spatula, too, I have been using regular spatulas for turning the food with no issue.) One negative comment that I have heard is about these type of "infrared" grates getting clogged up. On the Charbroil versions I have seen, which have very small holes, I can see why this is a problem. My brother-in-law had one of those, and, while he loved cooking on it when it was clean, he felt it was way too much work to keep clean. (Oh, and his grill also rusted out unreasonably fast.) The holes in the GrillGrates are definitely larger, and so far I have had no problem keeping them open. Obviously, if they are clogged up then all you pretty much have is a griddle with ridges.
My take so far is that the grilling experience with these grates is much more like having narrow flavorizer bars up closer to the grates than "grilling" with a griddle as is sometimes claimed. I am sure others will not agree, and I don't have enough long-term experience yet to argue the point.
As far as results, I like the sear marks and the spacing. Here are a couple of my tryouts:
T-BONES
Pork Chops from tonight. (Note: darker chops have DizzyPig Tsunami Spin rub while lighter ones are boring seasoned salt per my wife's preference.):
So, how does the food taste? Everything has been really good. Definitely very moist in spite of my medium well cooking style. That is a subjective opinion only.
OK, please remember that I am only offering some first personal observations. I am not, at this point, recommending GrillGrates or claiming they are better than other options. Just thought some others would enjoy some preliminary commentary. Looking forward to a video presentation!
I have mentioned before that I am planning a post tax season video shoot comparing cast iron grates, stainless rod grates, traditional Weber stamped steel grates, and those "GrillGrates". While I can't do anything that complicated right now, our family does need to eat, so I still get to at least grill a little bit. To make my competition fair, I want to be sure that in the case of the cast iron and the GrillGrates, they are adequately seasoned.
So, I went ahead and installed GrillGrates on the Genesis Silver C I picked up for $50 a few weeks ago. (It has turned out to be a great bargain grill, by the way, supplying me with a nice set of stainless rod grates, and stuff for my Skyline grill - black knobs & starter button and a cool side burner that I hope to fix using Larry's advice.)
Anyway, I wanted to use these GrillGrats enough to get them to the seasoned look that the instruction sheet shows. So far, I have done some burgers, steaks once, and tonight pork chops. My comments that follow are ONLY FIRST OBSERVATIONS. I am not making any recommendations or comparisons until I can do as objective a test as is reasonably possible. I hope with that to come up with an unbiased, non-emotional evaluation and rating of these popular grate options.
In the meantime, I will say that my first impressions of GrillGrates are very positive. No flare-ups so far. The grates are pretty easy to scrape clean with the funky spatula-looking tool they include. (Although they show you using this tool as a spatula, too, I have been using regular spatulas for turning the food with no issue.) One negative comment that I have heard is about these type of "infrared" grates getting clogged up. On the Charbroil versions I have seen, which have very small holes, I can see why this is a problem. My brother-in-law had one of those, and, while he loved cooking on it when it was clean, he felt it was way too much work to keep clean. (Oh, and his grill also rusted out unreasonably fast.) The holes in the GrillGrates are definitely larger, and so far I have had no problem keeping them open. Obviously, if they are clogged up then all you pretty much have is a griddle with ridges.
My take so far is that the grilling experience with these grates is much more like having narrow flavorizer bars up closer to the grates than "grilling" with a griddle as is sometimes claimed. I am sure others will not agree, and I don't have enough long-term experience yet to argue the point.
As far as results, I like the sear marks and the spacing. Here are a couple of my tryouts:
T-BONES
Pork Chops from tonight. (Note: darker chops have DizzyPig Tsunami Spin rub while lighter ones are boring seasoned salt per my wife's preference.):
So, how does the food taste? Everything has been really good. Definitely very moist in spite of my medium well cooking style. That is a subjective opinion only.
OK, please remember that I am only offering some first personal observations. I am not, at this point, recommending GrillGrates or claiming they are better than other options. Just thought some others would enjoy some preliminary commentary. Looking forward to a video presentation!
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