Anybody Cooking on a Flat Top Griddle?

[Bruce Wrenn]

Seems I have been bitten by the "flat top" bug. Looked at a lot of You Tubes on cooking on the flat top. Had my heart set on a 36" Blackstone, till I saw one in person today. That thing is HUGE! Have ordered a Little Sizzler to fit on gas grill to decide if this is for me. If I do decide it's for me, then I will build myself a flat top sized for my gas grill. Anybody got any experience cooking on a flat top? FYI, I know how to cure grease running down the leg on older Blackstones with the front mounted grease rail. Would incorporate this feature into my shop built griddle.

[Jim Koepke]

This would have been convenient when all my kids were still living at home. The kitchen could have been the restaurant they wanted.

jtk

[Brian Elfert]

I have a Camp Chef flat top griddle that is probably 24"x30". It gets used on top of a Camp Chef stove for cooking for trips taken with my friends in my motorhome. It is the most used cooking tool we have. It is used for breakfast every day and for dinner most days. We can cook just about anything on it. The griddle is just plain heavy steel and not cast iron. The biggest issue we have is remembering to oil it good before storing it away so it doesn't rust. (Meals are for at least eight people.)

[Nathan Johnson]

My brother has had the 36" Blackstone for a few years now and his Weber grill now only gets used a couple times a year. He liked it so well that he bought a second to keep in his camper.
We haul his on our fishing trips and cook every meal on it (unless we're deep frying fish.)

I bought him a warming rack attachment for Xmas.

When it's time for a new grill, I'll buy a flat top. I figure I can pretty easily work around the few limitations.

[Bill Dufour]

Any reason not to just weld rod or angle around the edge to trap grease? Buying a big wok or hubcap would be cheaper.
Bill D.

[Brent Gamble]

I have a 36" griddle that I bought at Sam's Club, their brand. Bought it on a whim thinking "this is really cool, what can I do with it?" Took it to our weekend place, where it's not unusual to have 14 people or so when the kids and grandkids come. I've only cooked breakfast on it but that alone would make it worthwhile to us. I've cooked all the usual breakfast stuff, bacon, sausage, hash browns, corned beef hash, eggs, omelets, pancakes, etc. Cooking breakfast, even for 15 is a snap. You can regulate the heat across the surface to cook different things at the same time, so it's more or less all ready at the same time. Once seasoned, it's completely non-stick. After I bought it, I discovered there are hundreds of youtube videos about cooking on them, anything you can imagine. I'll get around to trying something other than breakfast eventually. I like it a lot.

[Todd Trebuna]

I have a 22 or 24 inch Blackstone that I absolutely love. My grill in our RV finally gave up the ghost, so I replaced it with a griddle. I Keep it out side on my deck next to my Weber Grill. I often use them both at the same time. The grill for meat and the Griddle for vegetables. I bought a Cuisinart portable stand for the griddle and it has held up well, even in 30 MPH winds last week. I am my wife's personal Chef and she raves about it.

[Jim Becker]

My Thermador range has a flat-top griddle available that I use for things like pancakes and certain types of potato sides, etc. Home Depot had an actual outdoor gas flat top on display the other day...I know they are increasingly growing in popularity as they permit cooking certain things outside a lot easier than with a grill and adding pans, etc. I haven't actually used my regular grill in two seasons now since I embraced Sous Vide for steaks and even burgers, but I could see the advantage of having both a grill and a griddle outside for folks who do a lot of outdoor cooking for sure.

[Scott Winners]

I have a Lodge cast iron griddle among my open fire cookware. I tend towards using a skillet instead of the griddle, less ash on the food that way; but it is handly for some things.

[Tom M King]

We put one out of a restaurant into our kitchen, when I first built this house. It had a slide out grease pan underneath. The top is a Heavy cast iron, with tapered up edges all around, and a slot at the back where you could push the grease with a spatula.

It cooks fantastically, but even a small, commercial exhaust fan was no match for it. We ended up taking it out, and I put some drawers where it was, with more countertop.

I used it on drive in camping trips with our Boy Scout troop, and they still have it. The whole unit probably weighs 65 pounds, but maybe even more. The three long burners under it are cast iron too.

edited to add: Ours is similar to this one, but also had two burners on one end: https://www.webstaurantstore.com/ava...177AG36MG.html

Commercial equipment is often cheaper than that made to go in homes.

[Bruce Wrenn]

https://www.webstaurantstore.com/avantco-ag36mg-36-countertop-gas-griddle-with-manual-controls-90-000-btu/177AG36MG.html[/URL]

Commercial equipment is often cheaper than that made to go in homes.

Searching the internet, I have found webstaurant to have the best prices. I've got a Little Sizzler that is to be delivered Sunday. It sits on top of exiting gas grill. If I find griddling to be my thing, then I will build a larger unit to fit in place of the grates of my gas grill, or make a dedicated burner assembly. I just don't have the covered space for a dedicated 36" griddle. Sigh!

[Bruce Wrenn]

Any reason not to just weld rod or angle around the edge to trap grease? Buying a big wok or hubcap would be cheaper.
Bill D.

That's the idea for grease management. As for wok, local farm supply company (Agrisupply) sells a wok which is made from a disk harrow blade, without the center hole punched.

[Jim Becker]

I have the Grill Grates system for my grill and can have either "bars" or "flat top" (albeit perforated) for items that heat or cook better on a non-grate setup. I keep one section "flat" and it's been handy for bun warming, etc. But obviously, the perforations don't help if you want to sling eggs and pancakes or something.

[Bruce Wrenn]

I have the Grill Grates system for my grill and can have either "bars" or "flat top" (albeit perforated) for items that heat or cook better on a non-grate setup. I keep one section "flat" and it's been handy for bun warming, etc. But obviously, the perforations don't help if you want to sling eggs and pancakes or something.

My first wife and I owned a gas stove with a center griddle section. It had a grease trough around the perimeter, and vent holes just outside the grease trough. One morning, my soon to be scrambled eggs made their way across the grease trough, and then down one of the vent holes. It's not fun watching a couple eggs go down the drain. Wound up having to run oven to set eggs, then remove top to clean out cooked eggs. Oh what fun! That was the last thing I tried to cook on that griddle.

[Jim Becker]

The griddle on my Thermador range doesn't have that issue, Bruce. The grease tray is in the front and the pitch is minimal. The food stays put and it's only when cleaning up that anything gets pulled forward into the tray. The whole unit is removable for washing, too. While the range is gas, the griddle is electric. The original gas range I installed in this kitchen back in 2003 (a DCS) had a grill. Now THAT was a pain in the you-know-what to clean and it was gas fired, too.