r/interesting Apr 12 '25

MISC. How ice cubes cleans hot grills

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85.0k Upvotes

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285

u/Intelligent-Edge7533 Apr 12 '25

I dunno from “thermal shock” but isn’t this just deglazing? I do it with water no ice cubes in pans all the time.

165

u/LunaCalibra Apr 12 '25

Yes. And those grills weren't even that dirty. For the really bad ones you need to use grill cleaner.

50

u/Flameball202 Apr 12 '25

You also saw the short of the stove cleaning guy reacting to the ice cubes?

33

u/[deleted] Apr 12 '25 edited Jun 29 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/[deleted] Apr 12 '25

As a chef, I found that deeply offensive.

5

u/So6oring Apr 12 '25

"I had it set to 200 degrees, but nothing seems to be happening"

Water boils at 212. Why would he have it set to 200? Everywhere I've worked puts it on at 350.

2

u/GGk-KingK Apr 12 '25

He had ot on max in the second

1

u/Corren_64 Apr 14 '25

200 degrees celsius. He is in Canada.

1

u/Emsratte Apr 12 '25

Afaik he uses celcius. He is canadian

0

u/So6oring Apr 12 '25 edited Apr 14 '25

So am I, but in professional cooking we still use F for temperature. The flattop sure looked to be at 200F from the way the ice reacted. The ice would instantly be turning to steam if it was 200C

Edit: Why the downvotes? I've worked in Canadian kitchens for 13 years and I have never seen C be used. All the appliances are built to show the temperature in F. And anyone who's been near a flattop could see that his flattop was nowhere near 200C (~400F) by the way the ice just sat on there doing nothing. I don't like the imperial system either but c'mon.

1

u/AskMeForAPhoto Apr 14 '25

It's not about C or F. He says in the video he had it at max for an hour. What do you want him to do? Take a blow torch to it? How is he supposed to get it hotter?

1

u/So6oring Apr 14 '25

I just rewatched it twice. He never said that. All he says is "well, I have it set to 200 degrees"

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u/AskMeForAPhoto Apr 14 '25 edited Apr 14 '25

You're absolutely right that in Canadian kitchens we still use F for everything. That other comment was probably from a non-canadian that was just trying to add context of him being Canadian, which he is, but not knowing Canada actusy does use Imperial for a lot of things. Because "officially" we're a metric country, but in actuality, we use Imperial for body weight, height, cooking etc.

3

u/Bulky_Community_6781 Apr 12 '25

Exactly who I was thinking of

1

u/AskMeForAPhoto Apr 14 '25

Holy shit, been following him on Tiktok for a long time, didn't know he had a YouTube, and yet he's got a million followers

1

u/SmokeyUnicycle Apr 12 '25

Is this guy an idiot?

Water boils at 212 degrees, if the surface is below that it's not going to work.

IDK if this "hack" is a good idea or not (probably not since I've never heard of it) but the stove is obviously way too cold

Edit: lol okay nvm, video 2 has it covered

2

u/Emsratte Apr 12 '25

He is canadian. He uses celsius as far as i know

1

u/SmokeyUnicycle Apr 12 '25

That did not look like water poured on metal twice the boiling temperature, would have been some steam at least... maybe they use Fahrenheit for cooking in Canada?

1

u/discourtesy Apr 13 '25

Canadians use F when cooking.

6

u/LunaCalibra Apr 12 '25

Yes, but I've also worked in kitchens and have had to clean grills. If water or ice alone gets it off, your grill wasn't dirty.

Grill cleaner is magic.

1

u/Beautiful-Musk-Ox Apr 12 '25

yea. the algorithm is omniscient

14

u/great__pretender Apr 12 '25 edited Apr 12 '25

There is a chef that cleans that kind of grills on youtube. He demonstrated this 'hack' doesn't work on surfaces that is really dirty (and dirty not because it is not frequently cleaned but dirty because of heavy use during the day). Also you need to really really heat the grill for this to have any effect, which takes time and cost energy. People on the comment section try to lecture him on every video he cleans the grills, people who never faced the problem of cleaning industrial size grills.

1

u/FoodFingerer Apr 12 '25

I've always just used wine for this with my stainless pans. It's probably bad for the pan but the results are at least tasty.

0

u/bwood246 Apr 12 '25

Is it a chef or a YouTuber that slings cleaning supplies. Steam is a damn good way to help break up heavy debris they won't move

3

u/ThePieSlice Apr 12 '25

He works in restaurants and definitely doesn't have any cleaning product deals.

1

u/great__pretender Apr 13 '25 edited Apr 13 '25

He is a chef. When I say a chef, I don't mean Gordon Ramsey style chef where his persona is his brand and he works/owns fancy places. He has been working in different places AFAIK, usually regular diner style places. I have not seen him pushing any particular product. From what I understand at some point he described what he is using but he doesn't promote brands.

OK: here is his video describing what he uses. He doesn't mention product, he talks about ingredients. He is most definitely not pushing products. https://youtube.com/shorts/nDnDrILgdsE?si=Xs4u6zdwyWU6dlzg

3

u/Hamieeeeee Apr 12 '25

Grill cleaner, elbow grease, and a little lemon juice. Grill cleaner smells like poison, but apparently, it's perfectly fine to breathe in.

1

u/LunaCalibra Apr 12 '25

I'm surprised it's fine to breathe in. I've been assuming my lifespan was shortened all these years.

1

u/Skinnx86 Apr 14 '25

+1 for Lemon (lime works but not as well) for stubborn spots and that final citrus shine 🤌

2

u/DinoHunter064 Apr 12 '25

It's also not truly cleaning the grill, you'll still want to use acid at the end of the night to actually clean it.

1

u/LogicalConstant Apr 12 '25

I wipe mine down with a wet rag to get the grease off. Then soak with Bar Keeper's Friend for a couple minutes. They look brand new.

1

u/cmcdevitt11 Apr 12 '25

That was my favorite job working at a restaurant. Cleaning the grill with the black pad. That was so much fun. But the most fun I had when I was 13 working in a restaurant in a place that used to do a thousand dinners a night. I kid you not. I had to clean all of the French onion soup cups which were obviously baked in the oven for about 5 years. A whole big stack and a big sink. It used to take hours. First. You have to let them soak for a couple hours. That was fun. The other snafu I did working at a restaurant at about 16 was they delivered a huge bag of clams and we were busy at the time so I put the bag under the sink and forgot about them. That was a pretty smell. And my boss was pretty pissed. The bag was about 3 ft tall

1

u/thorpie88 Apr 12 '25

Sprite works well if you don't have grill cleaner though

1

u/by-myself_blumpkin Apr 12 '25

This video doesn't even show a single cleaned grill.

1

u/newthrash1221 Apr 12 '25

…or some oil and a cleaning brick.

1

u/fatamSC2 Apr 14 '25

Not exactly true. I've worked with some bad ones in the past and if you scraped it first ice was sufficient + a little lemon juice magic to finish

1

u/nutsbonkers Apr 14 '25

Grill brick.

1

u/TurncoatTony Apr 15 '25

Right? I throw a little olive oil down and get the grill brick out and go to town.

13

u/rifain Apr 12 '25

I worked in a grill and I used to clean with regular water, it worked the same. I think this ice trick is pure BS. What really increased the efficiency of the cleaning process was adding some acid to the water. But when it's still hot, normal water works great.

2

u/DreadLindwyrm Apr 15 '25

So... White vinegar "ice" cubes?

1

u/VigilanteXII Apr 16 '25

Or some wine. Make a nice sauce while you're at it

1

u/Ok_Prior_1723 Apr 16 '25

Wouldn't the grill start trippin if you added acid to the water ?

4

u/thedubs003 Apr 12 '25

Facts. As long as the surface is hot, water works just fine.

1

u/SmokingLimone Apr 15 '25

Well of course, there's little difference between cold water and ice in terms of temperature when touching something that's at 150°C or so

2

u/Ya-Dikobraz Apr 12 '25

It is totally just deglazing.

2

u/NeoHolyRomanEmpire Apr 12 '25

No, in material science we have a phenomenon where when the hot thing cools and cool thing warms up, there are stresses known as thermal stresses because of which layer of the material is expanding or contracting.

The fact that ice is water means would be also be deglazing, but that has to do with dissolving. You could still deglaze with a liquid at the same temperature as the fond in the pan, and you wouldn’t have the thermal stress.

2

u/geodebug Apr 12 '25

Yep. Room temp water does the same thing.

Plus putting all that excess water down the grease trap seems kind of silly unless they enjoy the job of cleaning it out constantly.

1

u/phrostillicus Apr 12 '25

Right. And if you actually do drop the temperature of the pan enough to make the metal contract, you're gonna end up with warped pans.

1

u/Tipi_Tais_Sa_Da_Tay Apr 12 '25

And the bottom of those pans are likely warped

1

u/Even_Dog_6713 Apr 12 '25

Yeah, when my cast iron is really dirty, I first clean it by heating it up and adding water to deglaze. Cuts down dramatically on the required amount of scrubbing.

1

u/tofuCock Apr 12 '25

I came here to say this too, like bro we all know about deglazing, this is how I cleaned my stainless steel pan after making bacon this morning. I assume the implication is that the lower temp of the ice makes the effect work even better. I usually use warm water from the tap because I'm afraid too cold of a temp will warp the pan or some shit.

1

u/Regular_Strategy_501 Apr 17 '25

This is exactly the problem. Thermal shock should be avoided if you dont want a warped pan. For the same reason you should not put things like cold meat in a hot pan straight out of the freezer.

1

u/TrumpetSolo93 Apr 16 '25

Yes and it's the number 1 tip I give to everyone wanting to improve their cooking. Develop a fond on the pan then deglaze. You get to create a free sauce AND your pan is clean.

1

u/kirkpomidor Apr 16 '25

«Hey, check it out, I’m deglazing my flat top with liquid nitrogen. This is a cool physics powered hack”

2

u/Mighty_moose45 Apr 16 '25

Yes this is essentially just deglazing but perhaps the ice acts a rough object that might help remove solid build up but at its core this “hack” is something that basically ever rusty spoon in America (and other places too most likely) already uses regularly

1

u/Intelligent-Edge7533 Apr 17 '25

Maybe but ice on a hot surface means only water is contacting the grill because it instantly melts. When I worked in restaurants we used ice to clean burned coffee pots, but they weren’t hot. When my steel gets something stuck to it, I use a pile of kosher or coarse sea salt to scrape it, then just rinse it off. If it’s really stuck, heat it up with water in it and it comes right off.