Not Onions, Not Vinegar: Grimy Grill Grates Sparkle Like New With This Kitchen Scrap

As if we needed any more excuses to make coffee, not only does a fresh pot provide much needed caffeine to weary backyard pit masters, but the spent grounds can even be a useful tool in the cleanup as well. While half an onion works well on a hot grill, this trick is more useful once you're done cooking. And it smells better than vinegar. Using coffee grounds to scrub built-up grease and grime off a grill is a simple process that replaces hazardous chemicals and works more effectively than you might expect. Just as coffee grounds are great for cleaning the flat surfaces of grimy kitchen items like pots and pans, they're also useful for scrubbing crusty BBQ grills.

Anyone who's ever accidentally sipped grounds at the bottom of their cup can vouch for the following claim: coffee grounds are pretty abrasive. While this is unpleasant to coffee drinkers, it's part of what makes grounds effective for scrubbing tough grime and debris from the surface of grill grates. The beauty of this method is that coffee grounds are abrasive enough to dislodge burnt, crusty food and grime, but not hard enough to scratch or damage your grills themselves, whether you choose cast iron or stainless steel grates. The process is easy: Just take damp, spent coffee grounds from your pot filter, French press, or whatever receptacle you collect them in, and apply them like you would a paste to the abrasive side of a clean, dampened sponge. Scrub the grime off, rinse the grounds away, and dry thoroughly, especially if you have cast iron grills prone to rusting. You may have to repeat the process on heavily baked-on portions of the grill.

There's another aspect of coffee grounds that helps with the cleaning — residual acid in the grounds also helps to break down charred grease and food that's been baked onto the surface, making the scrubbing part easier. To really double down on the value of this acidity, you can submerge the grill in freshly brewed coffee, as that is much more acidic than spent grounds. Just set your grills in a wide enough container so they can sit flat, and soak them in a shallow coffee bath for 45 minutes to one hour. Once the soaking is over, scrub coffee grounds onto the surface of the grill to scrape off the grime, which should have loosened after their bath.

A variation on this method involves combining the powers of coffee grounds with another usual suspect of the home cleaning crew. Baking soda — another mild abrasive — helps remove fat and protein. Because baking soda is basic, it reacts with acids like those in the coffee to bubble and fizz, a reaction that helps in breaking up and removing sticky fats and grease. For the ultimate approach combining coffee and baking soda, soak your grills in coffee for an hour, then remove and cover the surface with baking soda to let the reaction lift off residual grease. Then, go in with a sponge loaded with coffee grounds to do the actual scrubbing. Rinse and dry your now spotless grills, and they're ready for another barbecue.