Grillbot Automatic Grill Cleaner Review
The Grillbot is an automatic grill cleaning robot that makes cleaning your grill a little more convenient. It’ll take care of most of the work and allows you to spend your time doing other things around your home while your Barbecue Grills get a cleaning.
Prime grilling season will be here before you know it and if you love to grill but don’t really love to clean, the unattended operation can be an attractive feature. The Grillbot uses 3 independent and motorized rolling brushes to scrub your grill clean without you there. Three timed settings of 10/20/30 min cycles are available by pressing the button 1/2/3 times. An LCD gives you a visual indicator of what time setting you’ve chosen.
Specs
Grillbot measures 8.35 x 3.27 x 8.66 inches and weighs 3.6lbs. Similar to the size of an iRobot vacuum cleaner. Power is supplied from a 7.4V Lithium-ion rechargeable 1000-1400 mAh battery. Initially you should charge the battery a minimum of 4 hours and will take approx 8 hours to fully charge. The battery is gauged to last up to 8 years but an additional battery can be purchased at $24.95 from Grillbot.
In the box you’ll find the Grillbot, battery pack, charging wall adapter and 3 brass brushes already fitted onto the Grillbot.
Brass, Stainless Steel and Nylon replacement brushes are available depending on what type of grill surface your barbecue has.
- The Brass brushes that come with the Grillbot are best for the majority of grills out there as it isn’t too hard or too soft. They work well for stainless steel or porcelain coated grill surfaces.
- The Stainless steel brushes work well for cast iron or expanded steel grills that need a little more scrubbing power but are strong enough to withstand the extra stronger brushes.
- The Nylon brushes are softer for more delicate surfaces. It’ll take a little longer to clean but it also won’t scratch your grill grates and will last a bit longer than the Brass and Stainless brushes.
How to use the Grillbot
First and foremost, allow your grill to cool down. If you don’t the Grillbot will stop working and yell at you with a 15 second alarm. You don’t want to throw this puppy onto a hot grill. You can use this on a traditional home gas or propane grill or your charcoal barbecue.
Press once, twice or thrice for 10/20/30 min cycle and place the Grillbot onto the level grill surface. A 5 second delay gives you time to close the barbecue lid and let it go, it’s that simple. It will even put itself to sleep after 60 seconds of no activity.
Always be careful of the brush tips when handling the Grillbot or changing brushes. The brushes are also top-shelf dishwasher safe for easier maintenance. Removing the brushes requires you to push the button on the end and slide the brush off being careful not to puncture your finger or hand with the brush tips.
How does it perform?
Ever slam the lid on your barbecue by accident? A Grill is an echo chamber as it is and when you place the Grillbot for a run, it will be clanking around in your grill with a expectedly unpleasant sound. It’s able to at some point in the bouncing around get to the corners of your grill. You’ll still want to hand clean the crevices of the grates as the Grillbot won’t get it completely 100%. It does not damage the grill or itself during the cleaning process.
Our test grill is on a Weber Genesis 330 a very popular and typical grill size for many homes. The Genesis barbecue grill comes with a dual side cook area that measures roughly 40×16″ or about 637 sq inches of grill surface to clean. The cooking grates are made of cast-iron but are porcelain-enameled so it’s important to be aware of that when cleaning the grill.
Depending on your grate finish/material you may need to change which brush type you use but the default pre-installed Brass brushes are compatible for the majority of grill grates.
After a 30 min cycle, the brass brushes seemed to do a decent job of cleaning off the burnt materials. Since we haven’t used the grill in a month or so, I decided it might be best to heat her up a little and let it cool down to remove any excess moisture that might be there. If you have a lot of sticky barbecue sauce still left over you may want to heat up the grill a little so you don’t end up with sauce on your Grillbot brushes.
The Grillbot will work best on round charcoal style barbecue’s and does a decent job of getting the bulk of the grit and grime off the grates. It’s not anything a little elbow grease couldn’t and doesn’t normally do but if you hate cleaning the grill that much and can deal with the noise the Grillbot produces, it’s not a bad gadget to have around. You’ll need to sneak in there and do the corners of the grating and maybe flip the grating upside down and run it again to pick up all the burnt on drip on the underside if you want to go that far.
Conclusion
The Grillbot Automatic Grill cleaning robot is a convenient time-saving way to automatically brush off your grill so decrease your pre-grilling and post-grilling cleaning rituals. The Grillbot bundle includes everything you need including a hard resin plastic carry case along with 3-sets of brushes and the Grillbot unit. If you or someone you know is big on barbecuing the Grillbot makes a cool gadget gift for the holidays.
Grillbot Automatic Grill Cleaner bundle $159.90
(includes Grillbot, Hard Carry Case, 3x Brass Brushes)
Brass/Stainless Steel/Nylon Replacement brushes $14.95 for set of 3
3-year warranty