As cold as it’s been lately, it’s difficult to get too excited about grilling outside. But recently, I found a great use for my Grill Daddy Pro cleaning tool, that frankly I’m kicking myself for never thinking of before. Read on to find out why you might want to get one of these for your indoor kitchen:
I have a combination griddle/grill in between the burners of my stove top. I used to use the cast-iron surface a lot to cook indoors, but after a while it just fell out of favor because it was so hard to clean all the grooves in the grill. Eventually, I just flipped it over to the flat griddle side for the occasional pancake or burger and kept it covered up most of the time.
Recently, I decided to cook up some steaks for Valentine’s Day and lifted the heavy slab out to flip it to the grill side. Oops.
Like any good cast iron skillet, the one thing you don’t want to do is put it away with any moisture in it at all. As any high school chemistry student knows, H20 plus iron leads to oxidation. Rust. Ugh. I should have paid better attention to my cooking surface, but it was in no condition for a good piece of ribeye.
Luckily, I remembered that the folks at Grill Daddy had graciously sent me a sample of the Pro brush that I had in the review queue waiting for warmer weather. I remembered that I had seen some infomercials that demonstrated the cleaning power of steam for cleaning off griddles. But this was going to need some serious elbow grease.
The Grill Daddy Pro is ergonomically designed sort of like a wood plane to allow the user to get lots of leverage behind the cleaning effort with minimal exertion. The hard steel bristles were more than up to the job of scrubbing off the grit and grime, but the real secret weapon is the unique water reservoir inside the handle of the Grill Daddy.
The Grill Daddy has a stopcock that allows a measured drip of water from the reservoir to be metered out through the cleaning brushes, so if you preheat the grill, this small amount of water is vaporized into steam that cuts through grease and charred buildup. In my case, the steam also helped release the thin layer of rust in between the grooves of the grill which I could not have gotten to without burning myself if I’d used a traditional wire brush. The heat protection of the Grill Daddy Pro turned out to be another major plus.
The results were pretty remarkable.
After a quick scrape and scrub which I augmented with the stiffer short bristles at the end of the Grill Daddy, my grill looked almost as good as new. Like any good piece of cast iron, I wiped away the debris with a paper towel and allowed the heat to evaporate the last bits of moisture. Finally, a quick swab of oil conditioned the surface for future cooking, and Valentine’s Dinner was saved.
Thanks, Grill Daddy!
The Grill Daddy Pro is available at the company’s website or from many online and retail outlets.
MSRP: $24.99 (currently on sale for $19.99)
What I Liked: Easy to use and handle, despite it’s bulkiness. The size and weight add heft to help scrub hard-to-clean surfaces.
What Needs Improvement: I encountered a small amount of dripping even when the stopcock was closed. For best results, don’t store the Grill Daddy full or it might leak into a drawer.
Source: Manufacturer supplied review sample