Photo: Matthew Korfage
Griddles is a sign of the American dining room and short-order cooking, as well as the heroes of all street beats. And we tested the ability of each grid to make the flatter meals of the flat grid.
On the seven grids I tested for this guide, I made dozens of Smashburgers, beats, fireworks, pancakes, bacon stripes and eggs. I also curled skin fish, senated pig rags and tested the ability of each grid to cook delicate vegetables as asparagus at lower temperatures during meat cooked at higher temperatures on a different burner.
For Smashburgers, this involved cooking at the highest temperatures that each grid could handle – testing the ability of each grid quickly caramelized meat shattered on the grid and then release the meat to a spatula to patch. Pancakes. Set across the grid, there was an attempt by the grid of the grid through the cooking surface. Thicker slabs of meat, such as Prok Chop, tested the grid’s ability to retain temperature during drying.
But also we only became acquainted with each grid using an infrared thermometer – controlling temperature at different points along the surface of the grid while heated on high or low temperatures. We also drove grids against each other, checking how long it took each grid to heat 500 degrees Fahrenheit.
Although notice that faster is not always better: grids that warm up faster are sometimes less temperature stable, or less. Our highest choice, the Traeger Flatrock 3 zone, took 10 minutes to reach 500 degrees. But it did so equally across the surface of the grid.
I myself have assembled each grid, both to familiarize with the amount of work that each client will face, but also to descend into the nitty-granted of how each device is put together: you really get to know a grid, while spending one hour screwing each part.
And especially I put in the work of cleaning and condiment and healing of each grid over time, getting to know its gaps and warm places, how fast it is cold, and how quickly it warms – learning the amount of effort that each grid requires, and the degree to which this effort is rewarded.
