- 2 hours ago
The fastest way to clean a BBQ grill may be simpler than most people think: let the heat do the hard work first, then finish with a few safe household tools. This Amish-inspired grill cleaning method shows how to burn off grease and carbon buildup, loosen stubborn residue with a little steam, and avoid harsh chemicals altogether.
Using a hot grill, aluminum foil, a cut onion, and a light coat of oil, the process turns a dirty barbecue grate into a cleaner, better-seasoned surface. It also explains why wire brushes can be risky, and why a clean drip tray matters for grill safety as much as appearance. The result is a practical outdoor cooking tip that fits summer grilling, backyard BBQ maintenance, and simple home hacks.
If you enjoy Amish cleaning methods, traditional household tips, grill maintenance, and chemical-free cleaning ideas, this video offers a straightforward guide to cleaning a gas grill or charcoal grill the old-fashioned way. It is useful for anyone searching for BBQ grill cleaning, grill grate cleaning, safe grilling tips, and easy home cleaning hacks. Learn how to clean a grill fast, protect your cooking surface, and keep your next cookout safer and easier.
Using a hot grill, aluminum foil, a cut onion, and a light coat of oil, the process turns a dirty barbecue grate into a cleaner, better-seasoned surface. It also explains why wire brushes can be risky, and why a clean drip tray matters for grill safety as much as appearance. The result is a practical outdoor cooking tip that fits summer grilling, backyard BBQ maintenance, and simple home hacks.
If you enjoy Amish cleaning methods, traditional household tips, grill maintenance, and chemical-free cleaning ideas, this video offers a straightforward guide to cleaning a gas grill or charcoal grill the old-fashioned way. It is useful for anyone searching for BBQ grill cleaning, grill grate cleaning, safe grilling tips, and easy home cleaning hacks. Learn how to clean a grill fast, protect your cooking surface, and keep your next cookout safer and easier.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Here is a thing about your grill that most folk get exactly backward, and it is costing
00:05them time and money and, I am sorry to say, sometimes a trip to the hospital.
00:11They wait until the grill is cold and dead, and then they take a wire brush to the cold,
00:17hard, baked-on gunk and scrub and scrub and scrape until their arm aches, and they still
00:24do not get it clean.
00:25And worse, they leave bits of wire in the very grate they will cook their supper on.
00:30And the whole of it is unnecessary, for the old way of cleaning a grill is nearly the
00:36opposite.
00:37You let the fire do the hard work for you, and then you finish it with a few plain things
00:42from the kitchen.
00:43No harsh chemical, no deer cleaner, and no wire anywhere near your food.
00:49So today I am going to show you how to clean a grill the old fast way, with heat and
00:54foil
00:55and an onion and a bit of oil, so it comes up clean and seasoned and safe, and you spend
01:01the evening eating instead of scrubbing.
01:03Let me show you.
01:04Here is the thing to understand first, for it is the whole secret and it turns the job
01:09on its head.
01:10Heat does most of the cleaning for you, if you let it.
01:14That baked-on food and grease on your grate is carbon, cooked-on matter.
01:18And here is the plain fact that changes everything.
01:23Fire burns carbon to ash.
01:25So instead of scrubbing hard, cold gunk, you burn it to soft ash first, and then it brushes
01:31away like nothing.
01:32That is why the wire brush on a cold grill way is so hard and so foolish, for you are
01:38fighting hard, baked-on carbon with your arm.
01:41And why the old way is so easy, for you let the heat turn that hard carbon to loose ash,
01:47and then only lift the ash away.
01:50Let the fire do the hard part.
01:52That is the whole secret, and everything else is only finishing.
01:56Now let me show you the way, step by step.
01:59Quick word before we go further.
02:01My name is Esther Yoder, and the old household ways handed down to me, the kind I am sharing
02:07today, and a great many more besides, are far more than I could ever fit into one video.
02:12I have gathered the whole of them into a book, and you will find it at EliasYoder.com.
02:19If today's tips serve you, that is where the rest of what my mother and grandmother taught
02:24me lives, all in the one place.
02:27Now to the grill.
02:28Now, cooking over fire and coals is an old, old way, older than any grill you can buy.
02:35And my grandmother and the old folk cooked over open fire and knew its every trick.
02:40And she had a saying that fits this exactly, that you let the fire do what fire does, and
02:45save your own strength for what it cannot.
02:48She meant that fire has its own powers, to cook and to cleanse and to burn away.
02:53And the wise cook works with those powers rather than against them, letting the fire do the
02:59burning that is its nature, and sparing her own arm for the little finishing fire cannot
03:04do.
03:05And a dirty grate cleaned by the fire's own heat is the very picture of it.
03:10So here is her kind of let the fire work cleaning, with the plain finishing after.
03:15The first step, then, is to burn the gunk to ash.
03:18Right after you cook, or before you cook next time, fire the grill up good and hot, high
03:24on the gas grills, a good hot bed for the coals or wood.
03:28Then close the lid and walk away for 10 or 15 minutes.
03:32And in that time, the fierce heat burns all that baked on food and grease off the grate,
03:37carbonizing it, turning the hard sticky gunk into dry, loose, black ash and flakes.
03:43Close the lid.
03:44Let it burn hot 10 to 15 minutes.
03:47That does the grate part of the cleaning while you do nothing.
03:50Now the second step, for the stubborn spots the heat alone did not fully loosen, steam.
03:56While the grate is still good and hot, you can loosen the last of it with steam.
04:01And there are two easy ways.
04:03The one, lay a sheet of aluminum foil right over the hot grates and close the lid a few
04:08minutes.
04:09And the trapped heat and the moisture steam the gunk loose.
04:12The other, set a pan of water in on the grate and close the lid.
04:17And the water steams up and softens what is left.
04:20Either way, the steam gets into the baked on bits the dry heat could not and loosens them,
04:25so that now, near everything on that grate is either ash or softened and ready to lift away
04:30with hardly any effort.
04:32A little steam for the stubborn spots.
04:34That is step two.
04:36Now, the third step, the scrubbing off of the loosened gunk.
04:40And here, I must give you the most important safety of the whole video.
04:44So hear me well, for this one truly matters.
04:47When you go to scrub that grate, do not, I beg you, use one of those wire grill brushes,
04:53the kind with the metal bristles.
04:55Throw it away.
04:57For those little wire bristles break off as you scrub, and they stick down in the grate.
05:02And then they get onto your food, and folks swallow them, and every summer people land
05:07in the hospital, some of them badly hurt, with a wire bristle caught in their throat or
05:12their gut.
05:13It is a real danger and a common one, and no clean grate is worth it.
05:17So the wire brush goes in the bin.
05:20And here are the honest, safe old ways to scrub off the loosened gunk instead.
05:24And they work every bit as well.
05:26The first, and my favorite, is a ball of crumpled aluminum foil.
05:31Crumple a sheet of foil into a tight ball, hold it with your long tongs, and scrub the
05:36hot grate with it.
05:37And the foil, being harder than the carbon gunk but softer than the metal grate, lifts
05:42the ash and the loosened bits right off and leaves no wire behind, only a bit of harmless
05:48foil at worst.
05:49The second is a wooden or a stiff nylon scraper, which scrapes the gunk from between the bars,
05:55and can be cut to fit your grate, and sheds nothing dangerous.
05:59Foil ball on the tongs, or a wooden scraper.
06:02Those clean it as well as any wire brush, and put nothing in your food.
06:06And here, the fourth, is the old trick you may not have heard, and it is a wonder.
06:11The humble onion.
06:13Take an onion and cut it in half, and while the grate is hot, spear the half onion on a
06:18long fork or hold it in your tongs, cut side down, and rub it firmly up and down the hot
06:23bars of the grate.
06:25And two things happen, both real.
06:27The onion's juice, hitting the hot metal, sizzles and steams, and helps lift and dissolve the
06:33last of the char and the stuck-on bits.
06:35And the onion itself, and its natural oils, wipe the grate and leave it clean and even lightly
06:41seasoned, and give a faint good flavor to the next thing you cook.
06:45It is an old cook's trick, and a true one, and it costs half an onion.
06:49And it is perfectly safe to have on the very grate your food touches, which is the whole
06:54point.
06:55Rub the hot grate with a cut onion.
06:57The juice lifts the char, and it is safe on your food.
07:01Now the fifth step, the one folk skip, and the difference between a grate that lasts and
07:06one that rusts and sticks.
07:07And it is the very same wisdom I gave you for the cast iron.
07:11Once the grate is clean, you season it.
07:14While it is still warm and clean, hold a wad of paper towel or a cloth in your tongs, dip
07:20it in a little plain cooking oil, and wipe a thin coat over the clean grate bars.
07:25And that thin coat does three good things.
07:28It seasons the grate the way you season a cast iron pan, building that smooth black nonstick
07:33surface over time.
07:35It seals the bare metal against the rust a clean bare grate would take.
07:39And it keeps your next cookout from sticking, for the food meets an oiled grate, not a bare
07:45dry one.
07:46A thin coat, mind, wiped on, not poured, for too much oil just smokes and flares.
07:52Season the clean warm grate with a thin coat of oil.
07:55That is the step that makes it last.
07:58And the sixth, the parts that are not the grate, which folk forget, one of them for safety.
08:03The outside of the grill and the lid you wipe down with warm water and a little dish soap
08:08on a cloth.
08:08The dish soap cutting the grease the same as on your cabinets.
08:12No harsh cleaner needed.
08:14Done when the grill has cooled enough to touch, not while hot.
08:18But here is the important one, a real fire safety so heat it.
08:22Empty and clean the grease tray, the drip pan below that catches the fat.
08:26For that tray fills with old grease over the season, and a full grease tray is a genuine
08:32fire hazard, for the grease can catch and flare into a real fire, the cause of many a grill
08:38fire and burn.
08:39So pull it out regular, scrape the old grease into the bin, not down a drain where it clogs,
08:45and wash it with hot soapy water.
08:48Wipe the outside with soapy water and empty the grease tray so it cannot flare.
08:53The grease tray is safety, not just tidiness.
08:56And a plain word of safety, gathered up, for a grill is fire and hot metal.
09:03Do the hot grate steps, the foil and the onion and the oiling, with your long tongs and your
09:09mitts, keeping your hands and face back from the heat, for that grate and that steam will
09:15burn you.
09:16Keep the foil and the onion work over the grate, not down in the open flame.
09:21Use only a thin coat of oil, for too much flares.
09:26Empty the grease tray so it cannot catch.
09:29And never, ever use an oven cleaner or a harsh chemical degreaser on the grate your food touches,
09:36for that is poison where your food goes.
09:39The heat and the foil and the onion and the soap are all you need and all that is safe.
09:46Those cares and the whole job is safe.
09:49Now think a moment about why we came to buy a wire brush that puts metal in our food, and
09:56a bottle of chemical degreaser to spray where we cook, and to dread the grill cleaning as
10:01a hard, cold, miserable scrubbing, when the fire itself does the hard part, and an onion
10:07and a bit of foil finish it clean and safe for pennies.
10:11It is worse than a plot, for no one had to arrange it.
10:16There is money in the wire brushes sold every summer, and the grill degreasers, and none at
10:22all in teaching folk that heat burns the gunk to ash, and a cut onion and a ball of foil
10:28lift
10:29it away, and a thin coat of oil seasons it, all for nothing and all safe on food.
10:35So the plain old knowing, that you let the fire clean the fire's own grate, and finish
10:42it with the kitchen's plain things, just stopped being handed down, because no one profits by
10:48your cleaning your grill with heat and an onion.
10:52The old folk cooked over fire all their lives, and cleaned the grate with the fire and a rag
10:58and a bit of fat, and somewhere between their day and ours, we were sold a wire brush and
11:05a bottle, and taught to dread the job.
11:08The mending of it is the fire, some foil, an onion, and a bit of oil.
11:13You let the fire do the hard part, burning the gunk to ash with ten or fifteen minutes of
11:20high heat under the lid.
11:22You loosen the stubborn spots with a little steam.
11:24You scrub off the loosened gunk with a ball of foil on your tongs, or a wooden scraper,
11:31never a wire brush, and rub the hot grate with a cut onion to lift the last char safely.
11:38You season the clean, warm grate with a thin coat of oil, the way you would cast iron so
11:45it lasts and never sticks.
11:47And you wipe the outside with soapy water and empty the grease tray so it cannot flare.
11:53And your grill is clean and seasoned and safe, with no harsh chemical and no wire in your
12:00food, for pennies and in a fraction of the time.
12:04That is how it comes home, one burned off grate, one seasoned bar at a time, the keeping of your
12:11own cooking back in your own hands.
12:14So here is what I would ask of you, this week, next time you grill, do not let it go
12:20cold
12:21and scrub it later.
12:23Instead, right while it is hot, close the lid and let the fire burn the gunk to ash.
12:29Then scrub it with a ball of foil and rub it with a cut onion and give it its thin
12:35coat
12:35of oil.
12:36And come back and tell me in the comments how much faster and cleaner it went, and whether
12:42you were still using one of those wire brushes honestly, for I would dearly like you to throw
12:48it away.
12:49And tell me too, while you are there, your county and the age of your house, for I learn from
12:55every one of you how the cooking and the keeping go where you live.
13:00And if your own mother or grandmother had a way of cleaning a grate or a griddle over
13:05the fire that I have not named here, tell me that most of all.
13:10For that is how this goes.
13:12We share what we were given.
13:14I read every comment and I learn from you the way the old women learn from one another across
13:20the fence line, one cookout and one season at a time.
13:24Next time, I will show you the old ways of cooking over the fire and the coals themselves,
13:31the tending of the heat and the seasoning of the grate and the griddle, and the caring
13:36for the whole of your outdoor cooking, so that between the clean grill and these you cook
13:42over fire, the old sure way, well and safely, all the season long.
13:48There is a right and an old way to keep and cook on a grill that runs on fire and
13:54a few
13:54plain things and good scents, rather than a wire brush and a bottle of chemical.
14:00But this week, you start with the grate.
14:02You let the fire burn the gunk to ash, scrub it with foil and a cut onion and never a
14:08wire
14:09brush.
14:10Season it warm with a thin coat of oil and empty the grease tray so it cannot catch.
14:15And you will understand, as my grandmother did over her own fire, that you let the fire
14:21do what fire does and save your strength for what it cannot, that the hard-baked gunk is
14:27only carbon that heat burns to ash you can lift away, and that a clean grate wants no harsh
14:33chemical nor any wire, only the fire and an onion and a bit of oil.
14:38The household kept the plain old way is the one that remembers to let the fire clean
14:43its own grate, and so eats off a clean seasoned grate with never a wire in the supper.
14:49And that is a thing we are only just starting to remember.