Stark Naked BBQ Pit, Probe & Grill Cleaner!!!!

Matt sent me some of his Stark NakedBBQ Pit, Probe and Grill Cleaner a couple of weeks ago and I finally had a chance to try out the cleaner over the weekend. I used it on the grates of my Memphis Pro. They were pretty bad when I started since I really hadn't cleaned them after our last competition in the fall, and have done a few cooks on it since then. I know, shame on me

Here are the grates before cleaning...



Pretty bad.

I started by scraping off the large bits to give the cleaner a fair chance :-D. I put the grates into a large plastic bin and applied the cleaner. It is fairly thick, similar in consistency to Karo corn syrup, so I used a sponge to apply it to the grates, top and bottom. A brush probably would have been a better choice since the sponge absorbed some of the cleaner.

I left the cleaner on the grates for a while (I was cleaning the outside of the grill so I lost track of the time, but it was probably 20 - 30 minutes) and then gave them a brushing with a grill brush. Quite a bit of the gunk came off with the brushing. The cleaner has softened it and made it easy to remove. There was so much crud coming off that the brush bristles were clogging so I gave the grates another quick coat of cleaner and went inside to clean the brush head.

After another 10 minutes or so I gave the grates another brushing and was able to get them down to the original stainless steel. Here is what they looked like when I was done.



The hardest part was the corners where the grate rods meet the support rods. A smaller wire brush or a toothbrush would probably have helped in those areas, but I didn't try that.

Overall I was pleased with the cleaner. I tested it with a worst case scenario and it worked well.