How To Clean A Foreman Grill

I take so very much from the internet. I watch funny videos, I read interesting things, I get live scoring for fantasy baseball and football, I stream episodes of The Office through Netflix for Wii, and let us not forget the hundreds and hundreds of gigabytes of free porn that are just there for the taking (if one were so inclined). But I never give anything back. Take, take take take take. Sure, I make a blog post once a month or so, and people seem to love my picture of Mr. Burns, but after that? Nada. I do not contribute to any online forums or any comment sections.

But all that changes today! I am giving back to the internets. This is my guide on how to clean a Foreman Grill. I know I searched for answers a while ago, and came up with nothing good, but over time have developed this fool-proof, easy, method of Foreman Grill Cleaning™. (Note: not really a trademark. Well, Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine® is, but the other one is just a joke. Granted, ™ doesn't make it a trademark, but whatever).

Step 0--"Oh Noes! I Has A Dirty Foreman!"

(If I had photoshop skills, I would have done a lolcats with this, but alas, I have only rudimentary MSPaint skills)

Yesterday, I made me some delicious porkchops on the Foreman. Afterwards, the grill looked like this: (note: all pictures open up larger if you so desire. Because Detail is key here (ed. note: detail not key))(Post-post note: ARGGHHH, Motherfucker. Ok, so the pictures cannot be opened in a new window for some reason. I spent way too much time trying to get that shit right, and I thought I had it. Oh well. If you use Google Chrome, you can choose "Copy Image URL" with a left click and open in a new tab. If you use IE 8, well enjoy the tiny little picture). (Post Post-Post: I can never leave things alone. There will be a link by each picture, click that, it should open the picture in a new tab. Hopefully.)

That shit gots to get clean. It is some bizarre form of fat and gristle and McCormick's Grill Mates Roasted Garlic and Herb. It is gooey and it is nasty. You can scrap at that shit for hours with the lame plastic tool they give you, scrub with a sponge, get pissed off and scrub with scrubby bristly part of the sponge even though you know that it will peel off some of the teflon (as you will see on my grill once it is clean), or you can follow my simple step by step procedure and have yourself a clean Foreman in mere minutes! Only 19.99! Or free. Plus it takes an hour. Trust me, just keep reading.

Step 1--Ready the Materials

What you need:

1. Dirty Foreman
2. Faucet with running water/bucket of water
3. Paper Towels

Step 2--Easy Like Paper Mache-ing

Take at least three paper towels (without separating them) and get them all nice and wet. Not sopping, but a nice, all over wetness with some dripiness. Squeeze out a little if too wet. Unfurl the wet paper towel into its original sheet size (folded so it is the size of one paper towel sheet). Place on the Foreman like so: Now, press it down into all the grooves to that it is all good and in there. Like this:

Oh yeah, that's the stuff. You finger the Foreman Grill a little bit, it will be good to you. It just needs a little loving.

Now, some of the grease and nastiness will start to be absorbed by the wet paper towels

Step 3--The Waaaiiting is the Hardest Part (For Realz YO!)

I leave the Foreman Grill dirty until I intend on using it again. Then, when I get home from work and say to my imaginary butler, "Hey, I think I am going to do some quasi-grilling tonight!" I get to work on Steps 0-2. Then, I do p90x. This usually takes about an hour. So step three is letting the wet paper towel sit on the Foreman for an hour. If you choose not to work out, here are some other things you can do that will take an hour:

1. Drive at 60 mph for 30 min in any direction. Then drive back. If you think you are a bad ass, drive 90 mph for 30 min.
2. Watch 1.5 innings of a Yankees-Red Sox game
3. Read everything I have posted in the last five years.
4. Watch Two episodes of the Simpsons. If you are fucking LAME! Because I know you are cool, make that Three episodes of The Simpsons because you have the DVDs
5. Look up "Tacoma Narrows Bridge" on Wikipedia
6. Drink three beers
7. Go to the Grocery Store and get yourself some fresh veggies to go with the delicious meat you are about to cook. Or go there and get the biggest fucking steak you can find that will fit on the grill. Because meat is awesome.

Step 4--The Big Reveal!

Upon lifting your Foreman lid, you shall see that the nasty has permeated the paper towels. This is good. If it looks the same as when you first put the paper towel down, you, my friend, have failed. And I cannot help you.

But for the Alpha Males, you should see something like this:

Well, if you are an Alpha Male, yours is probably better looking than mine. But that is neither here nor there *Ahem, *Cough Cough.

Step 5--Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel

At this point, I think it is important to note the time that I took each picture. Just so you understand how undeniably awesome my method is. Because it is gonna take a few pics to realize that. And since I am not charging $19.95, I have no reason to lie. I hope. Anyway, the picture immediately above, was taken at 5:12 pm (I am unable to account for seconds, so for that, I apologize (but it's really Research in Motion's fault))

Now, spread out your fingers, apply pressure to the paper towel, and pull down. If you stopped halfway through, it might look like this: (5:12 pm)

But do not stop halfway through. Continue to use the paper towel as if you were cleaning the Foreman regularly from top to bottom.

The underside of the paper towel will look something like this: (5:12 pm)

If you cook something like chicken or porkchops, you may disappointed by the results (with steak, this reveal is jaw dropping), but fear not, it is not as bad as it looks: (5:12 pm)

Yeah, that does not look all that clean. Have Faith though.

Step 6--The Wet Wipe

Those who are better than us, but not fantastically awesome enough to have a bidet, use baby wipes to wipe their ass after taking a shit. And you need to treat your Foreman with the same type of affection a multi-millionaire treats his or her bunghole. But not with a baby wipe. That shit is expensive. Baby's have it so fucking good. What a joke. Wait, back to the foreman thing. Wet another paper towel or too, and wipe down the Foreman again. If you are particularly frugal, you can use the same paper towel that was draped across the Foreman for an hour, just refold it (as you do your dust rag when you do that dusting chore once a year) to the crap encrusted upon it is on the inside.

And hey, its starting to look better: (5:13 pm)

Step 7--The Dry Wipe

The common man uses normal toilet paper, with no bit of moisture to its name (though I suppose one could wet it in the sink first, but then one would use eight times the normal amount of TP for wiping. Not that I have charted this or anything). The common man should not compromise on the number of plys though. It has to be at least two. Worst thing about shitting in public is the recycled sandpaper single ply they make you use. Fuck that shit. Sorry, got distracted again (this fucking post is taking me like three goddamn hours. This is why I never post).

So take your dry paper towel and wipe down the grill. Bear in mind, a little bit of elbow grease is needed to make sure you are getting in the cracks and up against the grilling grooves. And I took a picture of this for some reason: (5:13 pm)

Looking pretty good there Stud! There is still a little work that needs to be done in the corners, but all will be cleared out in the next step. Promise.

Step 8--The Roof, The Roof, The Roof is on Fire. We Don't Need No Water, Let the Motherfucker Burn!

Yes, I have talked nothing about cleaning the lid. A relatively non-grimy lid will look like this: (5:14 pm)

Usually you get some burned shit up there. I just lower the lid, and blindly scrape all that shit off with the plastic scraper they provide. This way, most of the remnants fall onto the bottom surface of the grill, rather than into the hinge cracks or underneath it. Just makes it easier. Plus, the top is fucking easy to clean. So after scraping, I usually do another dry paper towel run on the bottom and the top.

If that does not get it clean, the one more Wet paper towel, dry paper cycle should get the shit clean, so you have something sparkling like this: (5:14 pm).

And that, is the All Clean photo. Note that it took three minutes for me to clean (5:12-5:14) after the hour long cold compress.

I hope this helps you in all of your fat reducing fake grill cleaning endeavors.

Please note: I seem to recall that chicken leavings are a bitch to clean. I will cook chicken tomorrow and update this on Thursday if I feel that my step-by-step directions were in anyway shitty in the means of cleaning chicken goop.