Just lurking since I do not own this type of range. That chrome griddle is the only reason I did not buy a kitchenaid range & went with a different brand in the end that had a cast iron griddle/grill. I'd love to see how everyone chimes in on how to cook & keep it correctly. (&, hopefully, won't wish I could switch to a kitchenaid range in the end!) I already picked out a kitchenaid refridgerator and was looking at their dishwashers in comparison to a couple other brands. They make some beautiful appliances! Good luck! I hope you get some good advice!

I have the Jenn Air but it’s a chrome griddle as well. I use this kind of spatula when I make burgers/sausages, things like that. I don’t see any scratches. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001VZAKGM/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1 As soon as I’m done cooking I run it over the “burnt on” bits, loosening them up. Then I let the griddle dry completely. Sometimes this can take an hour. I wipe it up with a sponge and just a little Dawn. Then I shine with a dry microfiber cloth to get it nice and shiny. If I cook something especially sticky, and it’s not coming clean, then you heat it back up to 300, and pour a cup of water on it once it’s heated. It should sizzle and the rest of the junk will come up. I’ve had it over a year and only had to do that once. Also, use Pam or similar spray before cooking, it says it’s nonstick but I’ve never not used a spray, especially when doing eggs or pancakes or something without fat.

I use the thin rubber spatulas when making eggs and pancakes.

IMHO, not being able to scrape a griddle makes most cooking styles completely impossible. Griddle cooking is all about scraping. The only exception would probably be pancakes. But that's a very expensive investment if it is only good for pancakes.

Commercial chrome griddles are supposed to be impervious to scraping. You should be able to treat them just the same as carbon steel, stainless steel, cast iron, or aluminum griddles. But that requires a solid steel base and a thick and strong chrome coating. I have no idea whether residential griddles are built to the same standards.

The warning in the manual about only using wooden or plastic tools really have me disturbed. That doesn't bode well for how sturdily this product is built. It sounds as if Kitchenaid put more emphasis on looks than functionality.

I did some line work in a coffee shop, if your burgers stick; your heat is wrong and or you are “fussing”. Correct heat and time, your burgers won’t stick, often too hot of a grill, and trying to turn too early, also not enough oil on the grill before cooking.

Do you have a thermometer for your grill. An IR heat thermometer may cost ~$20.

Have you had success cooking burgers before? If so, try to use that process on your griddle.

FWIW, unless you use your griddle on a daily basis, you maybe more “romantic” than practical. A $50 electric Teflon Griddle might have been a better option

eta: Based on M’s post. I worked on probably cast iron, each day, someone had to “scrub” the surface with a brick sized block of pumice.

I think, because you own it; use it. If it doesn’t work then either don’t use it or replace it.

How many are you cooking for?

We got one of these for our beach house (as per Jim Mat's comment above... definitely a "romantic" pic -- my husband had visions of vacation pancake breakfasts :D ). I'm finally using it, after a year (see: romantic) -- but only for pancakes and grilled cheese so far. I use plastic spatulas, and I clean it when it's still hot using a wet rag and plastic tongs. My husband did try seasoning it, and it didn't really work. TBH, I think I'd go for a cast iron grill pan the next time -- but the pancakes and grilled cheese cook really nicely on it, and honestly, since one of my kids is vegetarian, I'm not expecting to cook meat on it anyway. Let me know if you end up using metal on yours -- I'm curious.

Thank you all for your comments.

I'm back, and with some data. I've now cooked burgers on the griddle for 3 nights in a row (for science!). I agree with M, who said "not being able to scrape a griddle makes most cooking styles completely impossible. Griddle cooking is all about scraping. " With that in mind I went ahead and used a metal burger spatula on the griddle. My general philosophy about that was that I'd rather have a scratched up grill that I actually used than a pristine one that I never use. The metal spatula absolutely solved the issue of being able to flip the burgers while keeping the crust attached. I also used avocado oil instead of butter, maybe this helped too.

The verdict: No scratches whatsoever! Granted, I've only used metal twice now, but I did even do some light scraping as part of the clean up process. We'll see how things progress after I keep using metal.

Emily, I'm not telling you that you won't scratch yours with metal, but I am saying I didn't scratch mine :).

I'm still getting the whitish residue after each use and that keeps increasing. Next I have to figure out how to get rid of that. Maybe with some food grade polishing powder?

Jim, I actually do have an IR thermometer which I use all the time, but it doesn't work well on the chrome griddle, it's too reflective. I set mine to about 380 for the burgers and when the light indicated it was there I tried the thermometer, that said about 115. My finger tips agreed with the 380 assessment - so that's that. Once I have some crusties on the griddle the thermometer starts working again, so I do use it for clean up temp.

I've cooked plenty of burgers before, but now I'm working on the "smashed" method, which is new to me.

Funny thing about the $50 electric griddle. I've had one for years but never took it out of the box. I never wanted to find a place to store it in the kitchen. That's why I've always wanted a built-in. I typically cook for 4, so when previously preparing steaks or burgers in a pan , I've always needed to cook in batches or on multiple pans. That's one more reason I wanted the griddle.

So far I'm very happy with it. Decent cooking space and seemingly very even heat. Once I figure out how to get that whitish crap off there, I'll be even happier. Still need to try some non-burger meat though.

I'm glad to hear you have a good update! Nothing worse than buying an (expensive) appliance and then not fully enjoying it. That would stink so it is good to know you've had good success with the griddle so far. I'd be curious to know how it handles breakfast foods.

Thanks for the ir thermometer report.

Have you tried a “press”? They come in different weights, used for bacon to steaks. Bacon to prevent curling (lightweight) Steak/Burgers (heavy) to get that crust.

Use an inexpensive vegetable oil. Butter will burn, I used a commercial product labeled: grill oil. The advertisement/claim of the product I used: made for flattop grilling, contains no ????? ( I do not remember what the grill oil did not contain), which can damage some grill surfaces.

Re whitish residue: some towels contain petroleum products, when used on a hot surface, the heat melts the petroleum.

I was told, while working in a kitchen, be careful of salt on stainless steel, it may pit. Have you tried Barkeepers Friend?

Try ghee, it has a wonderful taste and no milk solids so it will not burn like butter does. Also, many (not all) people with dairy allergies can use ghee.

Barkeeper's friend is actually a pretty aggressive chemical. It will damage stainless steel, if you leave it on there for an extended amount of time. So, same as with regular salt, it is fine to use it briefly while cooking. You just don't want to leave it on there. Clean up after you are done, and you should be fine.

Whoever buys my house will get a brand new, never used griddle! If Wolf had offered an 8 burner version of the 48" range, I would have gone with that, but they only offered the 6 burner with griddle or grill. I cook my burgers on the grill outside. Next house I am going with a 36" and skipping the griddle/grill.

Jim, yes, I did also buy a press. In fact that's what I used for the super sticky burgers where I lost the crust. I bought the press that has lips (like Smashburgers) thinking that might be better ( https://www.amazon.com/Cuisinart-CISB-111-Smashed-Burger-Press/dp/B07SZFHKVZ ). I think that in addition to only butter, I also used too much meat for the press so ended up really compacting the meat on the griddle with just butter as the fat (plus the burgers were lean - not 80/20). I'll definitely try the press again with less meat and better fat.

Lucky, I will try ghee. I've used that before when searing steaks on high heat.

M, I have had folks tell me about Barkeeper's friend, I'm worried that it's a bit caustic as well. I think there's a different white power one that's not abrasive, but I can't recall the name.

chispa, use that griddle!

White powder: bon ami. ??

Yep, it's Bon Ami. It's on my shopping list now. Thanks.

Bumping this up to see if anyone else has had experience using metal on the jennair and kitchen aid chrome griddles with no scratches or most importantly no permanent damage to the griddle? I too was pretty bummed to see the warning about only using plastic and wood as I've got one arriving in a couple weeks and the griddle is one of my favorite aspects of the whole range!

I'm the original poster. I bit the bullet right after I asked this question and have exclusively used metal spatulas on my griddle. I try to be careful and not use the corners of the spatula. I haven't noticed any sort of meaningful scratches on the griddle what so ever. With that said, the griddle definitely looks well used in terms of discoloration. Nothing to do with the spatulas though, I just can't clean it so it looks like it did when it was brand new. I'm ok with that considering it gives me the best burgers ever.

Thanks AK this is what I needed to hear! Though it sounds like maybe it would be safest to not break out the paint scraper for proper shake shack burgers! https://youtu.be/8NsNoEgbB40

For the last 7 years, we've been going to the same teppanyaki restaurant for my son's birthday. Couldn't go this year because of quarantine, so we recreated it at home using the KA grill -- fried rice, and grilled steak, chicken, and salmon. We did not attempt the onion volcano ;) but the rest of it turned out great!! I was really happy with it. We *did* still use plastic spatulas, however.

Ahhh, Emily, i was hoping you were going to say it was all with metal. I just don't want to feel like i need to baby this thing. Otherwise i would have just gone stainless.

Abbrian, I think that paint scraper might be more of a gimmick than anything else. I do pretty much always do smash style burgers and use the metal spatula to scrape the burger when flipping it. There's no way to do that with plastic. I also don't feel like the paint scraper would do much more than the regular metal spatula I already use, but who knows, I could be wrong. The first time I used the griddle was with plastic and I was extremely disappointed because all the goodness came off the burger (and stayed on the griddle) when I tried to flip it. Doesn't happen any more with the metal. This is the set I got off amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072QT1LYY/

Maybe next time I do it I'll shoot a video.

Every household should own a good metal bench scraper and a couple of different types of spatulas. They are all cheap but essential utensils. I wouldn't know how to do any of my flour-based dishes (pasta, bread, cookies, ...) without my trusty bench scraper. And if I did have a griddle, I wouldn't hesitate to use a metal scraper. That's the perfect tool to clean it, as professional chefs will confirm as well.

Thanks M. I would tend to agree with you but the whole genesis of this thread is that kitchenaid and jennair manual says NOT to use metal. Definitely not what you want to read after dropping a small fortune on these luxury ranges.

AK I think you are right about the paint scraper. Happened to be picking up at a shake shack just yesterday and they were using a regular metal spatula to flip. As for the video i'm sure you could rack up a bunch of hits. There are virtually no videos of people doing real cooking on these things. It's all gentle tasks like crepes. I wanna see a huge cheesesteak get prepped!

I wish the manufacturers would tell you "why" they don't recommend using abrasive tools. Is it going to permanently damage the griddle and make it unusable because the coating comes off? If so, then that's important to know and will require babying the appliance.

Or is it, because sharp tools will result in permanent visual blemishes? If that's the only reason, then I couldn't care less. It's a tool. It gets used. Of course it'll look used after some time. As long as it cleans up easily, I don't mind if it doesn't look as if it came fresh from the assembly line. And I'd rather use it to its full potential than worrying about some scratches.

M I could not agree more you've hit the nail on the head!

"As long as it cleans up easily, I don't mind if it doesn't look as if it came fresh from the assembly line. And I'd rather use it to its full potential than worrying about some scratches."

Yep, this was exactly my thinking too, after trying a plastic spatula one time. It was totally unusable for smash style burgers the one and only time I tried. I'm not sure when I'll get around to shooting a video (currently my only instructional video is a very specific arm-bar escape technique, so a cooking video may be a stretch for me), but I'll see if I can take a picture of what the griddle looks like after 8 months of all metal spatula use.

Here are the pictures from my latest burger night.

• Lower right is the starting point
• Upper left shows that a regular metal scraper style spatula does a good job at keeping the crust on the burger with no crust left on the griddle (no paint scraper required). The plastic spatula failed this test
• Lower left shows the nice crust on all burgers
• Upper right is the griddle after I've cleaned it. I think the photo actually makes it look worse than it does with the eye. There are no real scratches, but plenty of discoloration.

This is the method I use to clean it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHuWT1_a2to

I don't know what kind of magic the lady in the video is wielding to get her grill so clean. I guess she does say the process may need to be repeated which I never do (who's got time for that).

I can't believe I was bored enough to watch that. I have a terribly sad life. :D I call fake news on whatever she had on that griddle -- it just washed gently off with barely a wipe. Definitely no caked-on crap like on mine!! ha I will say that my grill is very clean and shiny -- but I use serious elbow grease. After the first two times we used it there was a weird yellow-y residue on it that was kind of freaking me out, but it's gone now.

If you look at her griddle, there definitely are scratch marks. I think she uses a metal spatula.

I call fake news

I wouldn't necessarily say "fake news". But she definitely picked her contaminant very carefully for this demonstration. Instead of building up a fond from frying meats (which is what most people would do on their griddle), she used "toffee sauce". That's essentially just caramelized sugar. And with enough effort and exposure to heat, caramelized sugar fully dissolves in water. She also made sure to only increase the temperature to 300°F which is well below the temperature when sugar burns at about 350°F.

In other words, this was about the easiest challenge she could have picked.

I guess it was my mistake to think that cleaning video was a tutorial video, rather than a marketing video ;).

Emily, what's your cleaning method that you can get your griddle clean and shiny?

I just purchased a Jennair range with the awesome chrome griddle. Tonight was my first night making chicken on it and I also noticed the annoying white marks left (spoken about repeatedly above) which after some Internet research I realized is called ghosting. its pretty common, especially when cooking meat. All you need to do to get rid of it is mix one part white vinegar to two parts water and the solution takes it right off with minimal elbow grease. You’re welcome: )