Grillgrates are awesome!
This IS a great product. Good grates can literally make or break a meal~ or at least the appearance of it.
Almost all of us have to look for new grill grates at some time, they are one of the most important parts of our outdoor cooking equipment. For years, not much has changed with ; chrome, cast irons etc. Well, some folks put their thinking caps on and came up with something relatively new, enter: GrillGrates.
I have been looking at these for several weeks now. I liked the idea and their design looked like something that would work. Their website is well designed and informative. I shopped through and decided to go with the entry level package of two panels. They make specially cut panels that fit Weber Kettles and the Green Egg style grills. I opted for vanilla here.
We ordered them, they shipped out quickly. We received excellent communication from their shipping department. It arrived within four days of ordering.
The grates came well packed and had some nice samples along with it. A packet of Butt Rub and some Smoker pellets. Also with the purchase of the package deals on the grates you receive the turning tool, the Gratetool. Which is a fantastic bonus!
That particular evening we were cooking our Bourbon Steak. with grilled Yukon gold Potatoes. A salad accompanied, of course. Starting off, we seasoned them with a bit of oil. Then fired up the grill to season it. We grilled our potatoes first and intentionally lightly oiled the potatoes. I was pleased with the nonstick quality of these and thrilled with the sear marks!
One of the things that I noticed is while these make excellent sear marks, they also prevent charring over other areas. This makes the grill marks really stand out. There may be times when I want that more general char, but not on this occasion.
As the potatoes were done, I fired our Bourbon Steaks.
As you can see, the marks came out nicely, as did our potatoes. The steaks did not flare on the grill grate and the cooking time actually seemed a bit quicker. Since I was using prime Top Sirloins, I cooked the steaks medium rare. They came out quite nicely.
So for test # one, I would rate them an EXCELLENT addition for grilling potatoes and the steaks.
GrillGrate for Cooking Seafood
To put these to a bit more challenge I picked up some Steelhead, nice and fresh. Not a large fillet, but smaller more delicate. It came skin on, so I could not make it that easy I skinned the fillet. I seasoned up my fish for making Grilled Steelhead with Pecan & Garlic Butter Sauce I heated my grill up nice and hot and fired the Steelhead. Parts of this fillet were pretty thin and on my standard grates, they would have broken off almost certainly. Well, using bonus turning tool, turning the fish was easy and never stuck at all. The flare ups were confined to under the Grates and did not endanger the fillet with scorching. Once again these put excellent grill marks on the fish.
The fish cooked as it should, never stuck and made the cooking a breeze.
My only thoughts are that I need to order another GrillGrate or two for a little more space for when I am entertaining.
We are please to say that the GrillGrates is the first to win our Five Kettle rating. We love our GrillGrates!
**Update after over two years, we still love our GrillGrates!
