How To Green Clean Your Grill Without Lifting A Finger

Grilling can be a year-round activity, but summer is an especially popular time to get cooking al fresco. Not only is the warm weather and longer, lighter days good reason to get outside, but that same nice weather can also make cooking inside (and preheating your oven) seem unbearable. Simply prepared meats and vegetables can feel downright special with minimal effort.

So with all that extra grill use in the summer months, it can be important to show your grill some attention for its hard work. Cleaning a crusty grill grate can be dirty, frustrating work, or you can use our recipe for scrub-free cleaning that requires no elbow grease and leaves your grate sparkling like new. You just need a few basic household cleaning supplies. Since both vinegar and ammonia make such handy all-purpose cleaners, they are both good to have in bulk under your sink or wherever you keep your cleaning supplies. Your nicer kinds of vinegar can then get used for cooking projects, not cleaning.

Materials
• Grill Grate
• 3 cups Ammonia (scented or non)
• 3 cups White Vinegar
• 1 cup Baking Soda
• 1 plastic garbage bag

1 Place your crusty grill grates outside in a plastic garbage bag. If you don’t have a yard, a secure balcony also works. It can just get messy doing it inside.

2 Mix the ammonia and white vinegar together. Add baking soda (gently but quickly) and pour into bag. Seal bag and shake to coat the grate inside. If you’re worried about the foaming, you can use just ammonia and nothing else, but this combo will clean even the toughest burnt-on-food.

3 Allow to sit in the sun for 24 hours and then remove the grate from the bag. Rinse with a hose (or in your kitchen sink if needs be). You shouldn’t need to scrub a thing as the cleaning solution will soften and break down all food particles, allowing the water to rinse them away.