How to Clean Rusty Grill Grates

When we opened up our grill at the beginning of spring after a long winter of sitting outside unused, we found that the cast iron grates had gotten all rusty. Ick.

When we bought our grill, we specifically got a model that had cast iron grates since they are supposed to be more durable, but what we didn’t take into account is that we should have been doing a better job maintaining them. We didn’t do much other than scrape them with a wire brush after using.

We could just buy new grates, but first I decided to do a little research if we could get the rust off. Apparently there are lots of methods including using vinegar, baking soda pastes, salt pastes, and many other methods. I decided to give some of these methods a go before breaking down and buying new grates.

The first thing I wanted to do was to get some of the charred flaky bits off, so I bought some steel wool pads. When I opened up box, I realized I bought the kind with soap in them. Oops. Oh well. I used them anyway. I know a lot of guides out there say not to use soap on cast iron, but I was planning on attacking this with vinegar, baking soda, and/or anything else that would get the rust off. I figured a little soap wasn’t as bad as all of that.

With a little elbow grease, water, and about 10 minutes of scrubbing. The flaky gunk was off…and to my surprise, so was the rust. Woo hoo! So, step one is all there was to it. No pastes or other concoctions needed.

I didn’t try to get the grates perfectly smooth and new again, since I didn’t want to take off all of the good seasoning we’d built up with our couple years of use. Instead, I just wanted to get off the charred flaky stuff along with the rust.

If you have rusty cast iron, try using a little steel wool and water first. Ours had the soap in it, but you may have luck with just plain steel wool. If not, try a little dish soap (hey, it worked for us!). That might be all you need. If it doesn’t do the trick, there are lots of methods out there that people say work in addition to this, so I’d definitely try out a few things.

After cleaning, I oiled them up really well with canola oil on a paper towel. To keep them from getting rusty this summer we are going to try and be more diligent about doing that after each use. The oil helps keep it from rusting.

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