How clean are the grates on your grill? Does that question make you cringe? How about your pots and pans? Having to scrape off food debris every time you want to eat is no way to go through life. With the holidays around the corner the chances you’ll be preparing food for guests is high, and the last thing you want is for them to see the mess their food was cooked on. If you plan to be a good host this holiday season you’ll follow these Hero Tips for cleaning your pots, pans, and grill.
The Grill
• Man’s second best friend is his grill. Nothing beats the sights, sounds, and smells of meat being cooked over a flame. With how often you use your grill, it’s no wonder grease and grime build up in a short amount of time. If you’re going to be serving up juicy steaks and burgers to friends over the holidays you have to make sure you’re not grilling on a swamp. There are three easy ways to go about keeping your grates ready for ribeyes.
The Methods
• Cover your grates with aluminum foil, close the lid, and turn the heat on high. After fifteen minutes the leftover grease and food will be chalky white and easy to scrub. Grab your grill brush and go to town. You can also do this after anytime your grill, but when the food is ready the last thing on your mind is cleaning. No fault there.
• Baking soda is coming to the rescue one more time! This time you’ll need a bucket large enough to fit the grates inside. Fill the bucket with warm water and squirt in enough Hero Clean Hand+Dish Soap to make it sudsy. Pour in a quarter cup of baking soda and stir the concoction until it becomes a nice lather. Finally, drop the grates in the bucket. Take a nap, clean your room, or wash your car for the next sixty minutes while the grate bath works its magic. When an hour is up take the grates out and scrub them with your grill brush or a steel wool pad. They’ll be spotless and you can get back to being a Grill Master.
• Don’t ignore the exterior of your grill. The elements can take the shine off your lid and make it look like an antique. Use Hero Clean All Purpose Spray Cleaner on every surface that’s collecting dust, water stains, dirt, snow, and even the messes you can’t identify. Take pride in your grill, because the longer you take care of it the longer it can take care of you.
Pots & Pans
• You might not use these as much as your grill, but that only means stains and burn marks have more time to set it. The best way to avoid those problems is to clean them shortly after use. But be honest, after chowing down the thought of cleaning is on the back burner…and sometimes forgotten about completely. You don’t have to cook like a five star chef, but you can keep your tools clean like one with these easy tips.
The Methods
• Fill the pan with warm water and drop in five or six Alka-Seltzer tablets. Grab a beer and wait an hour. When you’re done the stains should come right off. Considering how easy this method is, it might not work on the worst of the worst stains. For those you should look at the next Tip.
• Baking soda is the real MVP of the kitchen. It can clean almost anything. Fill your stained frying pan with small layer of water. Pour in about the same amount of vinegar and bring it all to a boil. Once the mixture is bubbling, take it off the stove and add in about two tablespoons of baking soda. Do this over the sink just in case the fizz overflows. When the bubbles settle down, empty your science experiment into the sink. If you have a scourer use that to scrub the stains off. If you’re like most guys and have no idea what a scourer is, you can just use aluminum foil.
• For burned on food that’s proving impossible to scrape off, put the pan in the freezer for a couple hours. The little bits of food will freeze up and that makes it easier to scrub them down into the garbage disposal.
• When all the stains, food bits, burn marks, and whatever else you managed to let hang out in your pots and pans are gone, give them, and your hands, one final cleaning with Hero Cleans Hand+Dish Soap.