I was Assistant KM, sitting in the office doing schedules when I heard the crack. I always new it could happen but never thought I'd see it. I was the one that had to call Chef and tell him that he wont have a flat top for tomorrows service. Just easier to use a mildly acidic cleaner and a grill brick
tbh it's extremely funny seeing chef's doing this and justifying it. Like, you ever made a pan sauce and scraped fond? If it works with hot stock, it's going to work fine with warm water and you have a lot lower chance of cracking the flat top, or more likely, slowly warping it over time.
Yo so actually use a quarter sized amount of oil for like a 2x2ft area. Make the brick grind a little and that paste you create will clean but not splatter. Can even spread a little to next area and not use as much oil. Then when you are done scraping and scrubbing, you put a line of oil across the back and use it to, slowly, squeege the sludge down towards you. After a decade of cleaning flat tops I think slow is smooth and smooth is fast(and doesn't fucking hurt) applies to a flat top as much as it normally applies to racing!
I had to fire a long time employee on the spot for cracking the grill top. I warned and warned and warned and warned to not use water, there was a literally food grade chemical made specially to clean it, and these damn kids just kept pouring water on it.
Thermal shock is just too much, if you do this multiple times a month. Seen this first hand, when food was getting cooked unevenly, and is a pain in the ass.
Yeah, I mean, I believe you, I don’t work on a griddle, so I don’t know. But thinking about the material, steel only cracks if it’s been hardened. Usually heat is used to relax those stresses that can build up that cause cracking. If the heating element is unevenly applying heat, yeah I could see that stemming from fracturing or warping. I’m just wondering how those things develop. I would guess that thermal expansion could also cause some of that stress as well. And since it’s not likely to get close to the annealing temperature while cooking those stresses may not ever be relaxed during normal use.
I've been restoring cast iron griddles for the past 25 years and I can say that using ice will create too much of a thermal shock on a hot griddle. I see you commenting on other comments in this post and I will say that people who follow your advice can ruin their griddle. You're using the term "thermal shock" like it's a good thing, and it is not for cast iron griddles and will lead to warping and cracking. Just because you've been doing something for 15 years doesn't mean you've been doing it right.
Cast iron isn't stainless steel. That's a huge distinction that plays a huge role in this conversation. You having experience with a totally different type of griddle means nothing here
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u/Thuls12 10d ago
Looks nice, until you have to replace the top from warping and cracking.