The Surprising Tool Curtis Stone Uses to Clean His Grill

Curtis Stone knows his way around a barbecue. The Australian chef and television personality got his start with the show Surfing the Menu, in which he cooked over many an outdoor grill. Now he juggles TV work with two LA restaurants, including restaurant-slash-butcher-shop Gwen, where meat is cooked on an open fire grill all night long.

While you might expect the Gwen staff to use a fancy grill brush to clean burnt goop off the grates every night, Stone says he prefers a time- and money-saving hack: a paint scraper.

“That little scraper fits in your pocket and gets a good workout at the restaurant and in my backyard,” says Stone.

Most high-end fancy grill brushes include a scraping bit, but also wire bristles or even a steam sprayer — all of which, according to Stone, aren’t necessary. If it’s good enough for the head judge of Top Chef Junior...

You can find paint scrapers at Amazon, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and your local hardware store for less than $5. (There are fancy paint scrapers as well, but a simple blade should do the trick.)