If you have a BBQ grill, you know that the most difficult aspect is cleaning. Without a piece of good cleaning equipment, you can spend your whole day cleaning it without achieving the best result. To reduce stress and facilitate the cleaning process, it is necessary that you use the best BBQ grill cleaner brushes. There are several of such brushes.
Using cleaner brushes would achieve a better result because it can touch all parts of the griller. These brushes do not work the same way. This means that you have to search diligently before you make a perfect choice. Making that choice is a big task, and to make things easier for users, top 10 best BBQ grill cleaner brushes are reviewed here. It can guide you to make your choice.
Table of the Best BBQ Grill Cleaner Brushes:
Why Cleaning your Grill is Important
There are many important reasons to clean your grill, not least because grease and oil can turn rancid, if left on your grill grate will impart a bad taste on your food and could even result in flare ups and a grill fire.
When you’re done cooking, you will probably have a build-up of black crust. This is carbon that has burned onto your grill grate, caused by a combination of fat and meat that stuck to the grill, and barbecue sauce. It tastes like burnt toast and you don’t want it on your food.
If the fear of rancid grease and the flavor of burnt toast on your food doesn’t make you want to clean your grill, just remember: A dirty grill can attract insects.
Would you like a side of ants to go with your burger and weenies? I didn’t think so.
How to Clean Your Grill Grates
It’s best to clean your grill while the grates are hot. Whether you’ve just finished cooking, or are just starting, you should turn your burners on high and close the lid for 10 – 15 minutes.
This way, a lot of leftover grease will burn off, and what is left will harden and turn into carbon. This carbon will be much easier to clean off with a brush.
Once you have a hot grill, clean your grates by using a brush with strong bristles. The act of cleaning is pretty self-explanatory; simply apply force with your brush to the grill to remove any leftover carbon and grease.
Things to Look for in a Grill Brush
When it comes to a good grill brush, there are several factors that will help determine if it will make for a good barbecue cleaning tool:
The Right Brush for your Grill Grate
Most grills have either a stainless steel or cast iron grate, and truthfully you can get away with any type of brush with these grates.
If you have a grate that is coated in either porcelain or enamel you’re going to want a gentle metal, like brass, to not chip your coating.
If your coating starts to chip, you’re going to start seeing it come off on your cooked food – which is just gross – as well as your grates losing their ‘non-stick properties’ and just looking a bit unsightly, pock marked and not in top shape.
Long Handle
This may seem obvious, but I’m constantly surprised by the number I see with short handles – i.e. less than 6 inches.
Grills are hot! The longer the handle the further away from the hot cooking surface your hand is going to be and the less chance you have of being burned
Some Way to Hang it up
You’re going to want to be able to store your brush
Most grills come with hooks on so you can hang your brush and other utensils. So either a sturdy leather string or metal loop to hang yours on should be a must.
Sturdy Bristles
It’s been reported in the media lately that many people are having to be hospitalised due to ingesting metal bristles left on their grill from their brushes.
Obviously, you don’t want that to happen to you or your guests. So you should aim to find one with very sturdy bristles that will not easily come out.
Regardless of which you buy, if it has bristles, you should make sure you have a close look at your grill grate before you cook on it to inspect for loose bristles.
Integrated Scraper
We all forget to clean our grates after use occasionally…Don’t we? Well, I do.
When this happens, you can end up with a really solid, hard to remove crust on your grates that a brush is just not the right tool for. This is when you need a scraper.
A scraper is just as it sounds: It’s a solid tool, sometimes sharp, sometimes curved to fit around individual bars of your grate, that you can use to scrape away very hard baked on residue that a brush alone isn’t able to tackle.
Many brushes on the market today have a built in scraper, and for not much extra cost. So it’s wise to look for a brush that has a scraper included. Trust me, you will find it useful.
Things to Avoid in a Grill Brush
Just as there are certain aspects that make a good grill brush, there are certain things you want to avoid:
Plastic Near the Cleaning Area
Many grill brushes have plastic handles. While that is all fine and good, many brushes also have plastic that runs right down to the bottom of the brush where the bristles are attached that gets very close to the heat.
The downside to this is obvious: plastic melts. Even if you’re careful, you can still accidentally touch the hot grate with the plastic and have some melt off.
The last thing you want to do is get melted plastic on your burger!
Gimmicks
As with many products these days, there are lots of unnecessary gimmicks when it comes to grill brushes. Most gimmicky models are poorly made and should be avoided.
I’ve seen everything from “robot grill cleaners” to plastic brushes that have a squirt bottle attached to them (water makes the bristles rust, plastic melts, and the water inside the brush can freeze in the winter).
Trust me, if it seems like it’s a hokey gimmick, avoid it. The only ‘extra’ we can recommend is a built-in scraper. So let’s take a look at some models with built in scrapers first.
BBQ grill cleaner brush buying guide
Here are some of the few features to consider when you are making a choice, and they are as follows:
Handle length:Safety of the user is very important and that is why you must look for a model with a long handle. Another advantage is that it reaches all parts of the grill.
Bristles:Some are designed with bristles while there are some without bristles. You can make your choice depending on what you want to achieve.
Versatile:Moreover, it should be versatile so that you can use it to clean different kinds of grills. You do not need to buy different brushes for different grills.
Easy to use:Most importantly, it should be very simple and easy to use.
Conclusion
Looking for the best grill cleaner brushes? These models are the best for you and you can choose any of them. They are good and you can get a justification for buying one.
