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Add water while it’s still hot
As soon as the food comes off, splash some water across the surface. Leave the burners on. You want that water to hit hot steel and go straight to steam.
It doesn’t matter how messy the meal was. No soap, no scrubbing, no special cleaners — water, steam, a scraper and a wipe of oil.
Do it right after you eat, while the steel is still hot. That’s the whole secret — hot steel and water do the work for you.
As soon as the food comes off, splash some water across the surface. Leave the burners on. You want that water to hit hot steel and go straight to steam.
The steam gets under anything stuck on and floats it off. Stubborn bits that would take a scouring pad on a normal pan simply release. Give it a few seconds — this is the step doing the actual cleaning.
Work a metal scraper across the whole surface and direct everything into the drain holes. Don’t be gentle — a metal scraper on 3/16" steel is exactly what the surface is designed for, and it will not damage your seasoning.
A paper towel or dish rag takes off whatever’s left. Leave the burners on a minute longer to drive off every last bit of moisture — a Flat Top put away damp is a Flat Top that finds a rust spot.
While the steel is still warm, wipe on a thin coat of Flat Top Oil or whatever oil you cook with. It repairs any spots the cook wore thin, seals the surface against moisture, and leaves it ready to go for the next meal.
That’s the routine. Done.
A seasoned steel surface asks for the opposite of what you’d do to a non-stick pan. Four habits to unlearn.
Soap is a degreaser, and your seasoning is polymerized grease. Regular soap washing strips the finish you spent meals building, and you’ll be back to bare steel and rust spots. Hot water and steam sanitize the surface perfectly well — you’re cooking on metal that just sat at 400°F.
Detergent plus a long soak plus a damp finish is the fastest way to strip seasoning and rust bare steel. The drip tray is dishwasher-safe. The Flat Top itself is not.
Standing water on steel makes rust, and there’s no reason to soak something you can steam-clean in thirty seconds. If a meal has gone cold and set hard, put the Flat Top back on the heat, get it hot again, and run the normal routine.
The single most common cause of rust spots. Dry it with heat from the stove, not with a towel alone, then oil it while warm. Thirty extra seconds now saves a re-season later.
Thick black crust in the corners or along the edges is old carbon, not seasoning. A cleaning brick takes it back without touching the good surface underneath.
Usually too much oil that never fully cured. Heat past the oil’s smoke point, let it burn off, then wipe thin while warm. A Flat Top Scrub handles the worst of it.
You can always take a Flat Top back to bare steel and re-season from scratch. It’s a piece of solid steel — there is no coating to ruin and no point of no return.
A second drip tray is the most useful $23 you’ll spend — rotate a clean one in while the other’s in the dishwasher.
3/16" American steel, made in the USA, backed by a lifetime warranty. Tell us what you cook on and we’ll match you to the right size.
