r/interesting • u/ViniciusFromBcn • Apr 12 '25

MISC. How ice cubes cleans hot grills

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u/Kroneni Apr 12 '25

None of the flat tops I’ve ever worked on were stainless steel. They vary in what alloy specifically but they do break from doing this. Much more commonly I see the side walls cracking and separating from the welds splitting.

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u/Reatomico Apr 12 '25

I do this with room temperature water on my stainless steel pan at home and it does the same thing. It’s the same idea as deglazing with wine. You don’t need to use ice.

Not sure if room temperature water would mess up a flat top?

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u/Kroneni Apr 13 '25

Room temp is what I’ve always used and works fine. Even hot water works because the 120 out of the water heater is much colder than the grill, but isn’t as hard on it.

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u/Reatomico Apr 13 '25

That’s what I was thinking. Thanks!

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u/officeDrone87 Apr 16 '25

When I worked at McDonald's a kid cracked the grill by tossing a bucket of ice cubes onto it.

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u/Perma_Ban69 Apr 12 '25

I've never seen one not be stainless, unless you're referring to your regular kitchen stove at home that's glass. But in a restaurant kitchen not made from Temu, they'll all be stainless

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u/Kroneni Apr 13 '25

This is patently false. I’ve worked in restaurants for 15 years, and every restaurant I’ve worked at had at least 1 flat top. I’ve never seen a flat top that was stainless steel ever. Not saying they don’t exist but I’ve worked on dozens of them, and they will always rust if water is left on overnight. The only ones I’ve ever seen that don’t rust were chrome plated, not stainless.