About Alex Avery Expertise Questions regarding organic food, agriculture, pesticides, herbicides, environmental issues, food safety, bacterial infection, agricultural economics, crop biotechnology, wildlife conservation, erosion, global food issues.
Experience Director of research and education with the Center for Global Food Issues at Hudson Institute. Prior to joining Hudson in 1994, I was a McKnight research fellow at Purdue University, where I worked to develop drought-resistant sorghum varieties for the Sudan of Africa.
I have spoken to a wide variety of national and international audiences and have represented the Center at the United Nations World Food Summit in Rome. I have written numerous articles which were published in leading newspapers and am currently working on a book.
Organizations Center for Global Food Issues
Publications Washington Times, American Outlook, Global Food Quarterly, Des Moines Register, USA Today Magazine, Canada's Western Producer, New York Post and others.
Awards and Honors McKnight Research Fellowship at Purdue University
Question I recently bought my first gas grill and I want to know how to care for the cooking grids. I have been cleaning them with soap & water after each use, but I was told you should not clean them like that. That it was better to scrape your grill & let the rest of residue burn off. I have noticed that my food really sticks to them even after spraying them with Pam spray. They are aluminum grids, I think. How do you treat your grill? Thanks!
Answer To clean your grill, all you need to do is heat up the grill and then use a brass bristle grill brush to scrub the food residue off the wire grid. Such brushes also have metal tabs on the corners with semi-circle cut outs that fit over the metal grid wires. Use this to scrape more difficult residues off the wires. (the grids may be aluminum, but unlikely, as this metal is soft. If it is aluminum, the grid will have wide elements. If they are no thickier than heavy coat hanger wire, they're chromed steel)
Warming the grill up softens the grease and makes cleaning far easier. Any residues will simply fall below and will burn up on the hot stones or fall under the burner.
This won't get the grid "like-new" clean, but you don't want it that clean, as food sticks to super clean grids. The residue of grease on the grid left by they wire brush will help keep future food from sticking -- similar to the semi-nonstick surface made by oil-seasoning a new cast iron fry pan (to do this, coat the pan in oil with a paper towel and put in 500 degree oven until the oil residue turns black. That's why cast iron skillets don't rust and are black!)
And remember, the high heat of the grill will sterilize the grid before you put food on it, so you don't have to worry about older food residue if you follow these cleaning instructions.
Good luck and happy grilling.
Alex Avery
Hudson Institute
