CI grates on rehabs


 

Bruce

TVWBB 2-Star Olympian
I was looking at a grill on FB Marketplace this morning and got to thinking about the grates. I remember my first real year of buying grills and rehabbing them (two summers ago) and remember that a good percentage of them came with either CI grates or SS stamped steel grates. But, since then, I have acquired maybe one or two CI grate grills and a couple with the SS stamped steel grates. All the others have been the cheap porcelain coated stamped steel grates which 90% of the time are toast.

I realize a lot of people go with the least expensive replacement for their CI or SS rod grates, but it just seems weird that things changed in one year so drastically. It seems other rehabbers find the CI and SS grates in their pickups more often than I have experienced lately.
 
I have mostly seen the stamped SS grates. People in my area seem to prefer the bling. Unfortunately many of them I had to discard because they were too far gone. However I got one grill for free which had almost new CI grates. Originally I used them for myself. But since they will chip eventually I flipped them before they got too bad to sell and got myself some grates from Rcplanebuyer.
 
I guess I have found a little of everything, although I haven't recovered the volume of grills you guys who regularly flip have. On the Genesis 300 series grills, mine have been split about evenly between stainless rods and rusted, porcelain-coated cast iron. On Silvers I have mostly gotten those stamped steel and one or two stamped stainless, but I also did get one nice set of Weber OEM stainless rods. Not rcplanebuyer by any means, but nice grates nonetheless.

On my Genesis 1000's I have gotten a couple used up stamped steel grate sets, but also two very redeemable sets of the original version of Weber's cast iron grates. These don't have coating that I see, but Larry Michaels says that they are still impregnated with some porcelain. I won't argue, but they don't have anything that peels off and definitely quickly get surface rust if left exposed to any kind of moisture.

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While that is a challenge here in S. Florida, if kept seasoned, they are still one of my very favorite grates as shown by the fact that I used them on my Skyline.

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I counted getting these grates as a very lucky find. (I have some of the porcelain plated ones:p in my Weber graveyard shed, but unless I get desperate enough to spend hours getting the remaining porcelain off all the food contact areas, I doubt I will ever use them:(.)
 
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I have never seen any non enameled CI grates. These must be really old. Only the enameled ones which will always chip after a few years. Personally i prefer the grates from RCplanebuyer. Thick and easy to care about. They will not rust compared to the Weber grates. Although i still have another set of Qulimetal grates i am keeping for myself for another project. But I don’t know how they will work out long term. But I got them for less than $25 sometime last year.
 
I have never seen any non enameled CI grates. These must be really old. Only the enameled ones which will always chip after a few years. Personally i prefer the grates from RCplanebuyer. Thick and easy to care about. They will not rust compared to the Weber grates. Although i still have another set of Qulimetal grates i am keeping for myself for another project. But I don’t know how they will work out long term. But I got them for less than $25 sometime last year.

Actually the ones with the shiny coating were the first ones the ones with the dull "coating" and I am not sure you can call it a "coating" are the second version. I understand Weber has gone back to the shiny though. My guess is because it's cheaper because like everything else they've been doing as late the changes are not for better quality. Anyway the dull ones I am unsure how they're made. Supposedly the porcelain is impregnated into the cast iron. Don't ask me how IMO it's all FM. But those dull ones because it's not a true coating can and will rust if not used or cared for. The more wear and tear on them the faster that can happen though so it's a Catch 22
 
Larry,

I hear what you are saying, and I know that you know way more about metals than me. However, I DO know that what I perceive as plain cast iron (like the ones in my pictures) are from the very oldest grills. This has been confirmed by several experiences including a friend who had a Weber back in the early days and the oldest grills that I have picked up for hopeful restores or parts. When I bought my first Weber, it was a Genesis Silver. By that time, they went to the shiny black porcelain coating. I have had several sets of these and have picked up others. They looks so nice when you buy them, but do not last. And, while the other kind may rust, they can be brought back with some hard work. It isn't easy, but I have been able to keep them seasoned with a nice "real" black coating like a cast iron frying pan.

The more recent grates that Weber has been offering seem to have a brown, flat-finish porcelain coating. It seems like a better idea, but I share the doubts you expressed. I do not have any personal experience with them, but they are different from the very old ones I have. The very old ones came with instructions for seasoning which doesn't seem to go with them having any coating. Again, I am not wanting to argue and will bow to your greater knowledge. I just do know that these do not ever have anything that peels off on your food. It is just a matter of keeping them from rusting. Regular use and continual oiling is absolutely essential. Many would argue that they aren't worth it. They may be right, but I personally still really enjoy grilling on the old type of cast iron.

Stefan,

I do agree that high quality stainless rods are super nice and certainly a lot less hassle. They may be better than cast iron all the way around. I definitely like using them and with a Chargon they are easy to maintain. On the other hand, I also do have a kind of "romantic" attachment to old-style cast iron.

I have never been able to do the extensive grate comparison tests I have mentioned in the past, but when I get a set of my old Summit grates cut down to Genesis size, I hope to at least do a side-by-side on the same grill of seasoned cast iron vs. 3/8" stainless rod grates.
 
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I remember seeing cast iron grates WAY back in the old Genesis 1 days just after the switch from horizontal wood to the narrow vertical 1x2 slats made of cedar/redwood. Those were the first time I ever saw Weber market CI grates and they were shiny. Than later on they came out with this "new" type of CI grate and they still called it porcelain but for the life of me I could not figure it out. They looked like pain old "raw" CI. Those grates if not used enough will rust just like raw CI just not as fast. If used and seasoned regularly they hold up very well with nearly 0 rust and minimal care (other than occasional brush clean and cook) with the oils/fats in the food keeping them pretty well maint free and seasoned. BUT and here is the bog BUT, if you use them only very infrequently and along with that don't brush them clean they'll rust faster than you can say "oh s^&t". I think this is why many people THINK they're raw CI because to my research and knowledge Weber never marketed raw/plain CI grates. They were all either called porcelain coated or porcelain cast iron. My guess is much like ceramic brake pads for cars (which really are not "ceramic") they mix bits of ceramic/glass into the (mix) of cast iron which perhaps gives it a slightly less rust prone property. Perhaps there were aftermarket plain CI ones made for use on Weber grills but I truly never ever saw or was able to find grates marketed by Weber as plain CI.
Now come to think of it I think I did see plain grates marketed through places like Home Depot in a box that looked suspiciously like Weber products but like many "generic" products were marketed in boxes cleverly designed to trick the consumer into thinking they were Weber made. They were white red and black with a white field, the name Weber was in very large bold font and in very small print was the words "designed to fit your" WEBER GENESIS GRILL
But they were truly not made by them. I remember them because a VERY long time ago I was with my dad to buy new grates for his grill and I saw them. They nearly fooled me. Even looking at them they were the same design and all. Just that nowhere was the word "porcelain" anywhere on the box
 
Yah, those CI grates that say they are porcelain coated just seem like they have some kind of thin but tough sprayed on coating. Nothing like a couple grills I had that clearly had a thick coating of porcelain. It is the same with Q grills. They seem to have the same or similar coating as the thin coated genesis grates. It inevitably rusts after a while. I don't think it is true porcelain like is on the lids or the real porcelain coated older genesis grates.
 
Well Bruce you're seeing yet another style that I have also noticed. The porcelain is actually a thin coat version of the original very heavy coated style and yet again totally different from the stuff that is impregnated or whatever they do to it. I think the thin coating is way cheaper than the first 2 styles so of course like anything else they've gone to cheaping out as much as they can
 
Well, I took a few minutes and looked up the patent number on the back of the cast iron grate I have been referring to.

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The patent was assigned to Weber-Stephen Products Co. in 1994. So, my grates are not after-market. They may have been special to Home Depot, but they are Weber grates.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...50&s1=5490452.PN.&OS=PN/5490452&RS=PN/5490452

I don't know when Weber first introduced cast iron grates, but the 1991 gas grill catalog that I have, does not mention them as an option. I think at that time you could only get the stamped steel grates. The stamped stainless didn't come out until the early 2000s. So a 1994 or thereabouts introduction makes sense.

I didn't read every word, but the patent seems to comprise a variety of grate designs including kettle grates. I didn't see where it mentioned the materials used.

So, I believe the sets of cast iron grates I have are most likely the first version that Weber offered. I will leave it to you who know more about metals to conclude whether or not it was just plain cast iron (as it very much appears to me and goes with the seasoning instructions) or if they did some type of impregnation/coating as Larry states. I do know that these grates do NOT look like the newest Weber ones that Bruce describes with the brown finish (and that I, too, have seen on some newer grills and offered as replacement parts.). The finish on my old grates is just gray metal.

Whatever the case, I personally prefer these over any of the new ones (goes with Larry's observations of declining quality). I think the fact that I have gotten two sets that had nothing but surface rust even though they are 25 years old says a lot about their durability. I know that the cast iron grates that some 300 series grills have don't seem to last. I have picked up a couple rusted through sets:p that aren't worth trying to restore:(.
 
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The patent really doesn't have too much to do with the material but more the grid design and so on. My buddy had a very early Genesis I want to say from 1990 (maybe even earlier because it went back to his executive chef days) so it may have been pre 1990. It had the gloss CI grates the ones you're showing there Jon are the (IMO much better quality) impregnated grates and it was about early mid 90's they came out. That was when I bought a set for my dad's grill exactly the ones you have there and the box clearly stated "Porcelain Cast Iron" but not like the older ones that some were still left on the shelf and read "Porcelain Coated Cast Iron" very subtle difference in wording.
Notice the word "coated" was changed. Even the early versions of the "Q" grill had the same wording on them "Porcelain Cast Iron" Not "Porcelain Coated".
I will give the very early version of those PCI grates one kudo and that was they were MUCH thicker and heavier than the second generation you and I have now. But I always dreaded when we had a cookout at his house as I never knew what those crunchy bits were since he was funny about his grill he would use heavy metal scrapers on them and the porcelain was chipped and many times we'd come across a piece on the food.
He was a good friend though but troubled and sadly he took his own life about 8 years ago. Still miss the hell outta the guy. We fished all the time together especially on the Madison WI chain of lakes. But, sadly he had demons especially with alcohol. But to this day I'll see something about fishing and think "oh I have to call Allen" than I realize he's not there to call.
Anyway I digress...........he won that grill sometime around 88 or 89 and it came with PCI grates
 

 

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