If you’ve ever charred your food on the grill, you probably thought GrillGrates might be the answer you need. These are grill racks that you place on top of your grill so that your food is raised up, and doesn’t stick to the rack. But how well do they actually work when put in a real world grilling situation?
Overview
Most people that have grilled food have run into the problem of either burning their food, or having it fall through the rack, or having it stick to the racks. It can really put a damper on the meal when things don’t turn out right, because it takes so long to grill the food that there often isn’t time to cook it again. You either end up eating the burned food or calling the pizza place.
The Claim
The makers of GrillGrates say that by placing their grates over your current grill you’ll be creating a new grill surface, one that doesn’t cause flare ups, cooks the food evenly, and makes it easy to remove. They say it sears, sizzles, radiates, and protects the foods you put on it. You can use it for meats, vegetables and anything else you like to grill.
There’s also a special flipper that is half spatula, and half fork. It goes through the grooves so you end up lifting foods instead of using a scraping motion. They say you won’t have to wrap things like fish in aluminum foil because it won’t fall apart on this grilling surface, and is easy to remove because you can lift it off and not scrape it off.
The Hype
Since this is a problem that is experienced by most grillers out there, it will get its fair share of attention. It addresses so many concerns that people have when they grill food that a fix like this will be in high demand if it can actually perform and deliver results.
The Cost
GrillGrates range in price from $40 to $100 depending on what size you need, and what shape grill you have. It’s important to make sure that you get the right size, or you’ll be left with a lot of empty space on the grill and you’ll end up resorting to using your old grilling surface if you are cooking a decent sized meal or for a party.
The Commitment
This is a grilling solution that is designed to help foods cook without all of the problems typically associated with grilling, and therefore should save you time and hassle when making your favorite foods on the grill. Putting them into place and using them is very easy, and washing them is easier than trying to scrape the gunk off of a traditional grill rack.
Evaluation
GrillGrates uses a rather simple concept, but it is often the simple inventions that have the highest rate of success. In real world testing by actual users it has been shown time and time again to produce the desired effect: properly grilled food with the juices seared in and no burned or charred mistakes.
One aspect that is especially appreciated is the convection nature of these grates. This helps trap the heat and radiate it around the food, so you get more evenly cooked food as it’s not relying on direct contact with the flames for it to get cooked.
Being able to cook grilled pizza on this, as well as delicious grilled vegetables makes it worth a trial run at the very least. You might find that you actually end up grilling more when you’re able to get juicier meats with nice sear marks on them, so your food looks and tastes like grilled food is supposed to.
Final GrillGrates Review
GrillGrates are getting our Thumbs Up review, based on the positive feedback they have received, and the results you can get with it, as well as the ease of use. By creating the raised surface, they are giving the food a buffer from the direct flames, and they are also able to catch the juices and fats before they’re able to cause flare ups.
Some have complained that these cause the grill to take longer to heat up and be ready, but that’s a small price to pay to have food that is cooked the way you want it, and to avoid the problems that come when you cook directly on your grilling surface.
Our Recommendation
We recommend picking these up, but be sure to choose the one that’s properly sized to your specific grill. They have several models and you’re going to want get the most surface area you can so that you’re never in need of space, or having to resort to using your original grill surface because you run out of room on the grill grates.
Better tasting, juicier meats & even cooking on my food
It looks great. It will be perfect for my marinated chicken and bbq. I got two grills at home and both of them are supposed to be easy to clean and non-stick but they’ve proven to be neither. This on the other hand should be easy to clean but how the non-stick works I won’t be able to know until I try it, unfortunately.