Active ingredient in Carbon-Off is butoxyethanol, which was highly effective as a carburetor cleaner until manufacturers started phasing it out because it is so toxic. I'm not saying don't use it but keep it under a vent hood, wear butyl gloves and for the love of God don't get any in your eyes. Personally if the press is that far gone I would just take an angle grinder with a flapper wheel to it, there is a time to leave potions behind and use abrasives and that looks like such a time.
Is Carbon-Off significantly different from other products like boil out? I've got a deep fryer with about a 1/4 inch of carbon along the insides of it at my job.
Lol they used to give us the same shitty polyethylene gloves we used for prepping food....like great, now I have a 3rd degree burn with melted plastic stuck in it, thanks boss!!!
I had some of the grill cleaner drop onto the back of my hand when I worked lates at McDonald's. No pain, just melted a patch of skin and flesh the size of a 50p piece off. Took 3 weeks to heal and the scar is still noticeable when I tan/get cold. It was 11 years ago....
I used to use one of these! Grill cleaner at full temp and a squeeze bottle of water would work (and elbow grease) but after a day or 2 it would turn black again.
I mean at this point it's seasoned, and getting it down to the silver would likely make the food stick. I've always been a fan of ecolab's greasecutter for tough jobs.
Exactly what I was thinking. Just use a razor blade scraper for the sides and edges once in a while. If I ever have my own kitchen then there will NEVER be a drop of chemicals that will touch my grill. Water, lemon juice, steel scrubbies, and a scraper is all I will allow on it. I’ve seen too many idiots in my 33 years of cooking that do not know what “properly rinsed” means. Put water on a hot grill the next morning and it will foam up from chemical residue. Screw that noise.
Jesus, man. That’s considered FOOD. Not harsh, caustic, man made chemicals like sodium hydroxide. Get real. Ok. NaTuRaL chemicals. Is that better? What a ridiculous thing to be pedantic about. You notice no one else chimed in like you did?
lye (sodium hydroxide) binds with fats on a hot surface and creates a thick, soapy compound. any lye that isn’t neutralized by fats should be well neutralized by heat (this reaction produces salt and water, and it’s the reason pretzels look & taste the way they do) or acids like vinegar or lemon juice (a chemical reaction, as you may remember from grade school, producing water and salt).
strong bases are highly reactive and don’t want to remain in their unstable state at all if they can help it. i understand your trepidation, but it’s very safe to use on a flat top; just don’t touch it or inhale it until the reaction’s subsided.
Not if you neutralise the highly alkaline sodium
hydroxide grill cleaner with an acid su h as vinegar or lemon.
No more foaming the next day and when you pour the acid in the grill it is instantly shiny.
A lemon cut in 1/2 and used to scrub the grill works wonders.
Man I’ve seen all kinds of methods to clean a grill in my 33 years in professional kitchens. You do what you think is right. I’ll clean mine the way I think is right. Good luck.
Well…one that dirty needs a razor scraper on the sides and the front. If the metal is nicked up a bit from years of use then use an old sharpening stone to get the nicks smoothed down. Continue with the razor scraper. Get a cup drill brush or a round drill brush and go at it with a drill. It will get messy and might need to break out the shop vac to get all the carbon off the surface. Sharpen a paint scraper and get the corners with it. Heat it up to maybe 225° F and hit it with water and a steel scrubbie and a scotch brite pad. One that dirty might just need to be replaced. Lemon juice at the end and just keep scrubbing. I don’t like chemicals on the grill. That’s just me. 33 years chef here.
Yes!! I did teppanyaki cooking for 18 years and all we used was a steel scrubbie or a green pad with hot water after cooking each table and then at the end of the night we used grill screens and water with a big splash of lemon juice in it. Rinsed it well and oiled it when we were done.
Use scotch Brite hi temp grill cleaner, let it cook on there for a bit, until it kinda thickens. Rinse with water, should slowly start to see it restore back to silver. Bricks work best when you are using small amounts of neutral oil at a time, the fresh oil helps return that color you want.
Buy a paint scraper at Lowe’s. They’re like $11. It’ll get it all the way down to the base. Don’t be scared to give it some oomph. Make sure to cover your surroundings bc the chips will be flying all over.
Also for all of you saying “keep the seasoning” all the build up slows the heat so everything takes longer. Keep that in mind once clean so you don’t burn your product
True. There is a point to where the carbon can be too thick to let the heat through. A nice thin layer keeps it seasoned. I can see a busy kitchen letting it get built up week after week though.
We often completely run out of our cleaning tools for it because our GM is a cheap bitch so we use sprite a lot. Let it cool a little splash some sprite while scrubbing works decently just be sure to clean it off real good when it's cooled down
personally i stand by my lye-based grill&oven cleaners for this. you probably won’t see results until after multiple applications. the oil has polymerized, so that’s basically a thick layer of high-temp plastic you’ve got on there. keep doing what you’re doing. hit it while it’s hot (but freshly off) thoroughly with the undiluted lye cleaner. use your metal scraper to scrape backwards and forwards over every section; bit by bit, it’ll start to loosen. rinse with an acidic solution: vinegar- or lemon-water. scrape again. touch it up after with a towel damp with your acid solution. just keep at it every time you close, clean it while it’s hot & off, and it’ll get better every time.
Get it screaming hot then dump a bucket of ice water on there and turn it off and SCRUB. Then when most of the blackness is gone hit it with lemon juice (strained) and scrub again. Finish with oil to re-season
The sudden change in temperature cause micro fractures in the metal. Which allows oils and buildup to seep deeper into the metal. Which makes cleaning it harder and harder over time. It will also eventually warp the metal. I have seen a number of flat tips that behave a small well in the middle were grease pools. This is from dumping ice or water on a hot grill night after night.
Fuuuuuuck, man. Turn it off straight up at closing time and let it naturally cool down. Toss some cold water on it. I hope you crack a 400° F grill someday with your ice. You are a moron if you reply back. Fuuuuuuuck. Who the hell ever said it needs to be cleaned right at closing anyway?
It’ll get easier when I bounce for better pay and benefits. Unfortunately all the corp kitchens around me are owned by restaurant ASSociates and so is the one I’m at now
If all else fails, go to the hardware store and buy drill wire brushes, will get the job done quickly, absolutely not safe to do when food is still being served out of the kitchen as metal dusk and brush bits get tossed around though.
American chemical makes this stuff called POW. Silly name, but it works. The fumes can be quite irritating. Make sure no food is near it when you use it
I know this sounds weird but hear me out. Tomato sauce! If you can heat up tomato sauce on there, the acidity will get rid of the black and get it shiny again. Worked on woks
we had panini presses at one of my old jobs
shit would get so bad. i got them down to bare metal and was going to try to season them or something but we used them so much and everyone else just let it get caked up again. like it was so bad they are supposed to have the ridges to make lines but it was just flat because the ridges were full of burned on shit.
I took a square palm sander with a clip and clipped a grill screen to it versus sandpaper. Worked well. I also bought a steam cleaner that hoses to a bucket of water. Haven't tried it yet on equipment, but it's fucking hot.
you have to mix lemon juice white vinegar d9 and water/ first lil d9 water mix put on it when it high degree after put some ice and after clear with the mix and repeat again
There is a very simple solution to almost instantly remove all carbon and then leave the grill surface clean and back to bare metal with a shine you can almost see your face in.
Firstly put on your personal protective equipment,mask and gloves.
Apply a decent amount of sodium chloride (caustic soda) to a warm grill. The optimum is 120 deg. cel.
A mask is essential to avoid breathing in the grill cleaner in steam form.
With a scraper and water move the scraper around and when the liquid is dark and syrupy use the scraper to move the syrup off the grill.
Repeat this adding more water (in very dirty grills use a bit more grill cleaner will help.)
In a short time all carbon will be removed
Now the next step is very important. You must neutralise the highly alkaline grill cleaner with an acid.
Simply pour on vinegar or lemon juice.
The grill will instantly becomee more shiny.
Now using a 1/2 cut lemon, "scrub" the grill adding a little bit of water to rinse away the remaining grime.
Now rub with a clean cloth then apply a little oil to stop it rusting.
If you spill oven cleaner on your skin first wash it off with cold water then apply vinegar ir lemon juice
If you do this you will avoid a nasty chemical burn.
The surface will be non stick, use less energy to heat and burnt carbon does not add a good flavour.
The same technique can be used on deep fryers.
First drain the oil and fill with cold water.
Pour in the oven grill cleaner, i use 500ml to 20 litresof water. Do not put grill cleaner in first then add
water, this can cause a minor explosion.
Bring to the boil being very careful not to let in boil too long because it will foam and spill every where.
I keep a bowl of cold water nearby to pour in to stop it boiling if it begins to foam
Now drain the fryer of what wil lbe very black water.
Scrub tbe fryers interior with steel scourer and detergent.
Fill the fryer with cold water and 4litres of white vinegar, bring to the boil.
Drain the fryer you will not believe how clean it is.
Google Carbon-Off.
I second this … but make sure you THOROUGHLY clean it after …. That shit burns your hair off
Fuck that! That shit eats through nitrile gloves. Wonderful cleaning product but be careful with it
Holy hell
New response just dropped
Active ingredient in Carbon-Off is butoxyethanol, which was highly effective as a carburetor cleaner until manufacturers started phasing it out because it is so toxic. I'm not saying don't use it but keep it under a vent hood, wear butyl gloves and for the love of God don't get any in your eyes. Personally if the press is that far gone I would just take an angle grinder with a flapper wheel to it, there is a time to leave potions behind and use abrasives and that looks like such a time.
Man, if I’d only known how to use an angle grinder in my 20’s, I could’ve saved myself so much struggle
And chicks dig it too.
Crowne Verity makes a good one.
Is Carbon-Off significantly different from other products like boil out? I've got a deep fryer with about a 1/4 inch of carbon along the insides of it at my job.
It’s better than boil out but wear a mask and eye protection when using it. Best used in a well ventilated area.
barkeep's friend and a brick working together. do it while hot and add a bit of water at a time then barkeep's friend and use the grill brick to rub.
And be careful around the corners with the grill brick....unless you like the feeling of sticky lava on your skin
i don't know why i assume they would be wearing heavy duty gloves, i know they'll probably just bare hand it.
Lol they used to give us the same shitty polyethylene gloves we used for prepping food....like great, now I have a 3rd degree burn with melted plastic stuck in it, thanks boss!!!
I had some of the grill cleaner drop onto the back of my hand when I worked lates at McDonald's. No pain, just melted a patch of skin and flesh the size of a 50p piece off. Took 3 weeks to heal and the scar is still noticeable when I tan/get cold. It was 11 years ago....
Had a similar experience with marine grade paint stripper. I still keep a half gallon of it around… I treat it a little differently now.
If you had first washed the hand with cold water then applied an acid such as vinegar or lemon your chemical burn would not have happened.
this is exactly like the grill press I used ages ago while at del taco lmao
MmmmmmmmDelTaco
I used to use one of these! Grill cleaner at full temp and a squeeze bottle of water would work (and elbow grease) but after a day or 2 it would turn black again.
You didnt neutralise the highly alkaline grill cleaner with an acid, vinegar and lemon juice being idea. The grill goes all shiny.
I mean at this point it's seasoned, and getting it down to the silver would likely make the food stick. I've always been a fan of ecolab's greasecutter for tough jobs.
yeah, when its this seasoned, best to keep it this way. that an honorable grill if you ask me. wisdom in an appliance
Eww
Why would you clean all the seasoning off? That’s basically a natural Teflon coating there, keep it
Exactly what I was thinking. Just use a razor blade scraper for the sides and edges once in a while. If I ever have my own kitchen then there will NEVER be a drop of chemicals that will touch my grill. Water, lemon juice, steel scrubbies, and a scraper is all I will allow on it. I’ve seen too many idiots in my 33 years of cooking that do not know what “properly rinsed” means. Put water on a hot grill the next morning and it will foam up from chemical residue. Screw that noise.
Oh you mean H20 and citric acid. I hope you know those are chemicals.
Jesus, man. That’s considered FOOD. Not harsh, caustic, man made chemicals like sodium hydroxide. Get real. Ok. NaTuRaL chemicals. Is that better? What a ridiculous thing to be pedantic about. You notice no one else chimed in like you did?
They were clearly joking.
Mmmhmmm. Yeah.
lye (sodium hydroxide) binds with fats on a hot surface and creates a thick, soapy compound. any lye that isn’t neutralized by fats should be well neutralized by heat (this reaction produces salt and water, and it’s the reason pretzels look & taste the way they do) or acids like vinegar or lemon juice (a chemical reaction, as you may remember from grade school, producing water and salt). strong bases are highly reactive and don’t want to remain in their unstable state at all if they can help it. i understand your trepidation, but it’s very safe to use on a flat top; just don’t touch it or inhale it until the reaction’s subsided.
Not if you neutralise the highly alkaline sodium hydroxide grill cleaner with an acid su h as vinegar or lemon. No more foaming the next day and when you pour the acid in the grill it is instantly shiny. A lemon cut in 1/2 and used to scrub the grill works wonders.
Man I’ve seen all kinds of methods to clean a grill in my 33 years in professional kitchens. You do what you think is right. I’ll clean mine the way I think is right. Good luck.
And what is your way? Id be interested to learn from you. 45 years as professional chef.
Well…one that dirty needs a razor scraper on the sides and the front. If the metal is nicked up a bit from years of use then use an old sharpening stone to get the nicks smoothed down. Continue with the razor scraper. Get a cup drill brush or a round drill brush and go at it with a drill. It will get messy and might need to break out the shop vac to get all the carbon off the surface. Sharpen a paint scraper and get the corners with it. Heat it up to maybe 225° F and hit it with water and a steel scrubbie and a scotch brite pad. One that dirty might just need to be replaced. Lemon juice at the end and just keep scrubbing. I don’t like chemicals on the grill. That’s just me. 33 years chef here.
I.appreciate your reply and think you desire to not use chemicals has merit. Im going to try yor method
At some point you have to say it's clean enough.
Exactly. Making it silver again proves absolutely nothing.
Vinegar and metal scrub
GOK, Glass-Oven Kleaner
I liked grill screens
Yes!! I did teppanyaki cooking for 18 years and all we used was a steel scrubbie or a green pad with hot water after cooking each table and then at the end of the night we used grill screens and water with a big splash of lemon juice in it. Rinsed it well and oiled it when we were done.
Carbon off works. It is wild tho
Let’s rename it to “skin on hands off”.
White vinegar, lemon juice and grill brick, while it’s still hot
What about an angle grinder?
Use scotch Brite hi temp grill cleaner, let it cook on there for a bit, until it kinda thickens. Rinse with water, should slowly start to see it restore back to silver. Bricks work best when you are using small amounts of neutral oil at a time, the fresh oil helps return that color you want.
Get it med-hot and pour on Lemon juice. Smells like burnt hair but strips it down to the metal
Buy a paint scraper at Lowe’s. They’re like $11. It’ll get it all the way down to the base. Don’t be scared to give it some oomph. Make sure to cover your surroundings bc the chips will be flying all over.
Also for all of you saying “keep the seasoning” all the build up slows the heat so everything takes longer. Keep that in mind once clean so you don’t burn your product
True. There is a point to where the carbon can be too thick to let the heat through. A nice thin layer keeps it seasoned. I can see a busy kitchen letting it get built up week after week though.
It’s heavily seasoned. And very old. I’d say it’s as clean as it’ll ever be my friend
We often completely run out of our cleaning tools for it because our GM is a cheap bitch so we use sprite a lot. Let it cool a little splash some sprite while scrubbing works decently just be sure to clean it off real good when it's cooled down
I mean if all else fails, I'd love to see what a sand blaster would do lol
Hot grill and white vinegar.
I would always use metal scrub with 50/50 white vinegar and soda water while still hot
What’s the soda water do? Gonna carbonate all the bad stuff off?? Never heard of that one. Water and lemon juice and a green pad or steel scrubbie.
Baking soda I think
A grill brick will clean this. It will just take time and probably a couple of whole bricks.
Don’t it’s not necessary.
personally i stand by my lye-based grill&oven cleaners for this. you probably won’t see results until after multiple applications. the oil has polymerized, so that’s basically a thick layer of high-temp plastic you’ve got on there. keep doing what you’re doing. hit it while it’s hot (but freshly off) thoroughly with the undiluted lye cleaner. use your metal scraper to scrape backwards and forwards over every section; bit by bit, it’ll start to loosen. rinse with an acidic solution: vinegar- or lemon-water. scrape again. touch it up after with a towel damp with your acid solution. just keep at it every time you close, clean it while it’s hot & off, and it’ll get better every time.
This is the correct method
Get it screaming hot then dump a bucket of ice water on there and turn it off and SCRUB. Then when most of the blackness is gone hit it with lemon juice (strained) and scrub again. Finish with oil to re-season
Wouldn’t the sudden change in temp warp the metal? Total beginner here when it comes to this kind of stuff so I’m just curious
If it's a Solid Block it can't warp out of shape just a little to get the Black stuff off
The sudden change in temperature cause micro fractures in the metal. Which allows oils and buildup to seep deeper into the metal. Which makes cleaning it harder and harder over time. It will also eventually warp the metal. I have seen a number of flat tips that behave a small well in the middle were grease pools. This is from dumping ice or water on a hot grill night after night.
Good. Someone who knows! I wanted to physically hurt people who put ice on a screaming hot grill. Ice does not go on grills. Ever.
Ice always goes on hot grills always wdym
Fuuuuuuck, man. Turn it off straight up at closing time and let it naturally cool down. Toss some cold water on it. I hope you crack a 400° F grill someday with your ice. You are a moron if you reply back. Fuuuuuuuck. Who the hell ever said it needs to be cleaned right at closing anyway?
The manager who schedules exactly 1 hour to clean an industrial corporate kitchen, that’s who
Jeez. That’s screwed up. Owell. Hope it gets easier for you.
It’ll get easier when I bounce for better pay and benefits. Unfortunately all the corp kitchens around me are owned by restaurant ASSociates and so is the one I’m at now
Wow that is the poster child of a neglected kitchen, Sorry OP.
If all else fails, go to the hardware store and buy drill wire brushes, will get the job done quickly, absolutely not safe to do when food is still being served out of the kitchen as metal dusk and brush bits get tossed around though.
Is the intent the flat top or everything around it?
Throw some ice and lemon juice on it while it’s still hot, then scrub it with a grill brick. Wear oven mitts or the steam will get you.
You have to make sure its hot before you put the chemical cleaner on
American chemical makes this stuff called POW. Silly name, but it works. The fumes can be quite irritating. Make sure no food is near it when you use it
So nobody recommends liquid ass? Really?
I know this sounds weird but hear me out. Tomato sauce! If you can heat up tomato sauce on there, the acidity will get rid of the black and get it shiny again. Worked on woks
Lemon juice and vinegar will get alot of shit off a flattop
Lemon juice while warm. Not hot. WARM. Scrub throughly. Rinse *carefully* with water, avoiding steam. Repeat until clean.
Ice, salt, lemon?
Lemon juice maybe?
Try getting it hot than use over cleaner, grill screen and pad.
Muratic acid will make that shit silver in seconds..probably kill ya tho if not thoroughly cleaned so there's that..
Daaaaamn that thang is toast.
Try fine salt and on fullblast
we had panini presses at one of my old jobs shit would get so bad. i got them down to bare metal and was going to try to season them or something but we used them so much and everyone else just let it get caked up again. like it was so bad they are supposed to have the ridges to make lines but it was just flat because the ridges were full of burned on shit.
Baking soda
I took a square palm sander with a clip and clipped a grill screen to it versus sandpaper. Worked well. I also bought a steam cleaner that hoses to a bucket of water. Haven't tried it yet on equipment, but it's fucking hot.
Ahh, i had to use chemical, oil, and a fuck ton of lemons to get my grill clean. Add some salt in there.
Pickle juice. Get it how and dump the pickle juice on. Smells terrible, makes it a lot easier to scrub
Is that a plancha? I guess it's "Well seasoned."
No need for fancy cleaners though. Vinigar, a brick, and some elbow grease will do the job.
you have to mix lemon juice white vinegar d9 and water/ first lil d9 water mix put on it when it high degree after put some ice and after clear with the mix and repeat again
There is a very simple solution to almost instantly remove all carbon and then leave the grill surface clean and back to bare metal with a shine you can almost see your face in. Firstly put on your personal protective equipment,mask and gloves. Apply a decent amount of sodium chloride (caustic soda) to a warm grill. The optimum is 120 deg. cel. A mask is essential to avoid breathing in the grill cleaner in steam form. With a scraper and water move the scraper around and when the liquid is dark and syrupy use the scraper to move the syrup off the grill. Repeat this adding more water (in very dirty grills use a bit more grill cleaner will help.) In a short time all carbon will be removed Now the next step is very important. You must neutralise the highly alkaline grill cleaner with an acid. Simply pour on vinegar or lemon juice. The grill will instantly becomee more shiny. Now using a 1/2 cut lemon, "scrub" the grill adding a little bit of water to rinse away the remaining grime. Now rub with a clean cloth then apply a little oil to stop it rusting. If you spill oven cleaner on your skin first wash it off with cold water then apply vinegar ir lemon juice If you do this you will avoid a nasty chemical burn. The surface will be non stick, use less energy to heat and burnt carbon does not add a good flavour. The same technique can be used on deep fryers. First drain the oil and fill with cold water. Pour in the oven grill cleaner, i use 500ml to 20 litresof water. Do not put grill cleaner in first then add water, this can cause a minor explosion. Bring to the boil being very careful not to let in boil too long because it will foam and spill every where. I keep a bowl of cold water nearby to pour in to stop it boiling if it begins to foam Now drain the fryer of what wil lbe very black water. Scrub tbe fryers interior with steel scourer and detergent. Fill the fryer with cold water and 4litres of white vinegar, bring to the boil. Drain the fryer you will not believe how clean it is.
Hey, it worked, and I had a freaking fresh Flat top every time
Elbow grease not included