Glad to hear it my friend! So glad you got yourself the Blackstone, I know that you'd been wanting one. Let me know how your first cook goes and have a hefeweizen for me!
All 3 companies came for you, Johnny. 😂 This is great information. I still don’t have a griddle yet. Been trying to stay on top of watching informational videos to make sure it’s something that I will use so channels like yours are so helpful!!! Thanks for the information and the way you present it for those of us who don’t know much about this!
I found Johnny's vids after my got me one for father's day, but let me tell you, it is amazing (I only have a 2 burner). You can cook an entire pound of bacon at once. Even on the smaller one, I can cook enough pancakes for the whole family, instead of having to cook a few at a time and then keeping them warm. If you've watched some vids on seasoning and cleaning and a recipe or two, you know all you need to, heh. Pull the trigger!
i recently got a blackstone 22" griddle with wheels and folding legs on sale at walmart online for$147....it is a very good deal....i just checked walmart online 1/27/25 and it is still on sale
@@billmongiello4885 That is a good deal! The folding legs are really nice if you want to put it in the garage for winter. That's what I used to do with my 22 inch. Also I only have a honda accord but when folded up it fit in the trunk no problem.
Incredible video. Helps make the cook aware that it can happen. Prepare them for when it happens. How to deal with the situation and not panic. Thank you for the information. Griddle “Boy Scouts”, Be Prepared.
Hi Johnny. I have my water heater set at140 degrees. When I clean my griddle I warm it on low only warm it, then I use hot water form my faucet so I’m not putting cold water on a hot griddle. Just like we do our cast iron pans. Have a great day. Oh I have a 28” Blackstone.
Great timing for this, I was thinking about making breakfast outside this weekend but it's been single digit temps and I wasn't sure how to preheat properly. Thanks!
Personally, and as a beginner (I've owned my griddle since October so around 3-4 months) I would just buy a new griddle top if this happened to me. Most manufacturers sell pretty much all parts of the griddle as replacement parts. I looked it up and a 32-inch griddle top can go for 50 - 60 bucks on average, upwards of 80 - 90 for an expensive brand. That's not too bad of a price if you end up actually warping the griddle top. It's a lesson learned, and the likelihood that you'll ever do it again is pretty low. Thankfully I watched your videos before I ever got a griddle, so I knew about warping and have always been super careful about it.
That's a good idea too. I never thought about just purchasing the top. Well I'm glad my videos have been helpful with your new griddle. Thanks for watching
First Blackstone seasoned it as per the TH-cam Blackstone guy. Warped so I tried to straighten using a press. Then had a valley. Eventually Blackstone sent a new one, I paid shipping. Seasoned the same way, as per Blackstone and warped again. Told two friends with theirs to season on low. No problems. I will try the boiling buckets to attempt to level mine out. Good advice about cooking. I do the same as you, mostly cook on med low and let cool a bit for cleaning with water. Thanks. Keep you recipes coming.
Interesting that it warped right off the bat. They do get super hot and you really only need to get to 500 to burn off oil. So I'm sure seasoning on med or low is plenty hot enough. Good thing you wanted your friends. Thanks for watching and I hope boiling pots of water works for you.
My Blackstone is crowned high in the center right out of the box. I’ve considered press strengthening it but I now put shims under the back legs to allow melted butter to pool in the corner. I use A LOT of butter on my griddle. I like that I can have melted butter ready to use.
@@chriscarter7182 ya sometimes having a spot for stuff to pool up isn't bad at all. Same concept with some bacon grease would be nice too. Or I bet you could shallow fry back there with a decent amount of oil. Maybe some country fried steak or something. Also I'm with you on the butter, no such thing as too much.
I think the biggest contributer to warpage is due to extreme high heat for a while (expanding) to extreme cold product (contracting/shrinkage). This is the thermo shock... just like pouring hot water on an iced over windshield. The bigger the shock, the bigger the warpage.
Don't want your griddle to warp? Cook everything low and slow. All burners on low or just above low. Never put water on your griddle. Scrape when you're done cooking, pour your oil of choice on it, whipe the hot oil all over the surface of the griddle and turn your burners off, and close the lid
Thanks Johnny this is info everyone needs to know. Its the extreme temp change that does it. I learned years ago the hard way. I had my chef pan ( expensive one ) from restaurant supply place locally. Cranked it up to high as I usually would do before cooking BUT took a HUGE ham steak directly from fridge and through in pan and Blamo ! warped pan. Luckily I was able to fix by getting extremely hot and placing bricks in it and then letting it cool. Any way great info Johnny. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Bryan I'm glad you liked the video and I appreciate you sharing your similar experience. I'm glad you got it straightened back out but now you made me want to go buy a big ol' ham steak lol! I haven't cooked one of those for a while. I love them at breakfast on the griddle cooked in a little bit of syrup.
These are great videos you are putting up, Johnny. I am a guy who likes to build stuff snd I want to build a griddle to go on top of my propane grill.. Maybe you can tell me how thick the material on your griddle tops are. I have a 3/16" plate and would like to know if that is close to the thickness of the ones you have. I've become a smash burger fan since watching your videos. Thanks. Keep posting griddle stuff.
Thanks so much. That's be cool if you made one yourself. I don't know the thickness of my griddle and couldn't find it on the camp chef site. Im sure they have it in there somewhere I probably just missed it. Thanks so much for watching.
i use hot tap water in a travel mug so i can open the spout to pour water also i let the griddle cool to about 350 F. still works very well for steam cleaning. i did put frozen hamburger patties in my 17 ln. black stone while camping and it warped. since then it has slowly flattened back out again. good video brother ty for the tips.
That's good to know about the frozen burgers. I think I might do a video dedicated to just that bc I think a lot of people want the convince of throwing some frozen burgers in the griddle. I appreciate you watching.
@JohnnyBrunet I almost wonder if my 17 in. black stone was very hot and it being so small with 8 frozen patties contributed to it warping. I did reseason it in a 500 degree F oven after that warping. and it seems like it isn't warped as bad as it was.
My Traeger popped during a taco cook. One corner probably was up 2-3 inches. Now I keep a set of cleaned metal 25 pound dumbbells nearby and if it pops up again, (which it has), I just set them vertical in opposite corners of the grill surface. The weight will bring it back down flat so the food will cook evenly. Plus, they don't take a lot of space. I have added even heavier.weights. In the future, I may take the flat plate down to a welder and have him add vertical flat bar in an "X" orientation to the bottom to add bracing and maybe prevent this from happening.
My grandpa once told me that griddles are like women. You’ve got to get them properly warmed up before putting the meat in. I think he also said it’s not good to use frozen meat.
Any tips for heating up a griddle that at 32 degrees? Hey. Don’t judge. I had a fire pit going to keep me warm and sometimes you just need to griddle while say… watching a college football championship.
My griddle came out of the box pretty warped, everything I’ve seen online from blackstone claims it should work itself out, I’ve only used it twice (three times including seasoning) but so far no change. When it’s hot it does level out mostly (probably 90%), but when cold it’s noticeably wobbly. I’m wondering if anyone thinks I should reach out to blackstone at this point? I really don’t want to re-season but I also don’t want to have a defective product blamed on me if I ever do contact them for it in the future. Also: it doesn’t even seem like it’s flat on the surface, scraping the griddle or laying a spatula on it there is an obvious gap between the middle of the spatula and the griddle.
I would definitely contact them. If you have pictures of it initially send that and then what it looks like now. That way there is at least a line of communication if it doesn't fix itself or happens to get worse. I hope it evens out on its own for you but I would definitely document it just in case.
My Loco warped on right side. I made a video about it. Contacted them and they shipped out new top. I babied it for longest time. Last week turned it up to to 450 to sear steaks coming off traeger and it warped in exact place. It wasn't even in "sear" mode. Gonna Contact them again.
Ya I would immediately contact them for sure. And I baby mine too but you also want to crank the new one up to sear right away and see what happens. If you wait too long they may give you a hard time about it. I hope you get it all squared away my friend.
@JohnnyBrunet seriously, all good tips, and greatly appreciated. I ruined my first one trying to season it... full blast and I walked away for a minute. Never again
ya I'm not sure that's kind of what I was getting at. Blackstone says to use "small conentrated amounts of water" and that's kind of vague in my opinion I don't know what means. I personally just squirt down what I need out of a bottle but never dump a large pot or cup or water on the hot griddle.
@@JohnnyBrunet I do the same. I was commenting on Blackstone's use of "concentrated" amounts water. Seems like a company which builds one of the better units available could hire a better semanticist for their customer support. I enjoy watching your channel, when the internet is working properly in rural Texas!
@@oldgandy5355 Oh sorry I didn't understand. ya I totally agree, you would think they wouldn't be so vague considering they sell more griddles than anyone else. Well I guess I shouldn't complain because it gives me the opportunity to help people out and clear things up. I really appreciate you watching my friend. And that stinks about the internet but as I look outside at all the snow on the ground here in Ohio, rural Texas doesn't sound to bad to me lol
If you want more griddle tips and tricks plus over 100 recipes grab my $15 ebook here: bit.ly/GriddleEbook
I finally burned in my Blackstone and had absolutely no problems thanks to your advice.
Thanks Johnny, I appreciate ya!
Greetings from Germany 🍻👍
Glad to hear it my friend! So glad you got yourself the Blackstone, I know that you'd been wanting one. Let me know how your first cook goes and have a hefeweizen for me!
This is why johny is the indisputed. Griddle king
Thanks Scotty!
All 3 companies came for you, Johnny. 😂
This is great information. I still don’t have a griddle yet. Been trying to stay on top of watching informational videos to make sure it’s something that I will use so channels like yours are so helpful!!! Thanks for the information and the way you present it for those of us who don’t know much about this!
🤣🤣 thanks for watching and I hope you end up getting one.
I found Johnny's vids after my got me one for father's day, but let me tell you, it is amazing (I only have a 2 burner). You can cook an entire pound of bacon at once. Even on the smaller one, I can cook enough pancakes for the whole family, instead of having to cook a few at a time and then keeping them warm. If you've watched some vids on seasoning and cleaning and a recipe or two, you know all you need to, heh. Pull the trigger!
i recently got a blackstone 22" griddle with wheels and folding legs on sale at walmart online for$147....it is a very good deal....i just checked walmart online 1/27/25 and it is still on sale
@@billmongiello4885 That is a good deal! The folding legs are really nice if you want to put it in the garage for winter. That's what I used to do with my 22 inch. Also I only have a honda accord but when folded up it fit in the trunk no problem.
Great tips, also nice to know that if you do mess up and warp it there is hope of it correcting itself. Thank you.
Great info! I haven’t warped mine, but I’m glad I saw this so I know how not to!
Incredible video. Helps make the cook aware that it can happen. Prepare them for when it happens. How to deal with the situation and not panic. Thank you for the information. Griddle “Boy Scouts”, Be Prepared.
Thanks Jeff!
Hi Johnny. I have my water heater set at140 degrees. When I clean my griddle I warm it on low only warm it, then I use hot water form my faucet so I’m not putting cold water on a hot griddle. Just like we do our cast iron pans. Have a great day. Oh I have a 28” Blackstone.
That's a great way to do it Cecil. I might have to check what my water heater is at now. Thanks for watching my friend.
Invaluable information, Thanks a bunch!
Great timing for this, I was thinking about making breakfast outside this weekend but it's been single digit temps and I wasn't sure how to preheat properly. Thanks!
You're welcome.
Personally, and as a beginner (I've owned my griddle since October so around 3-4 months) I would just buy a new griddle top if this happened to me. Most manufacturers sell pretty much all parts of the griddle as replacement parts. I looked it up and a 32-inch griddle top can go for 50 - 60 bucks on average, upwards of 80 - 90 for an expensive brand. That's not too bad of a price if you end up actually warping the griddle top. It's a lesson learned, and the likelihood that you'll ever do it again is pretty low. Thankfully I watched your videos before I ever got a griddle, so I knew about warping and have always been super careful about it.
That's a good idea too. I never thought about just purchasing the top. Well I'm glad my videos have been helpful with your new griddle. Thanks for watching
Good video for something most of us don't think about!! 👍
First Blackstone seasoned it as per the TH-cam Blackstone guy. Warped so I tried to straighten using a press. Then had a valley. Eventually Blackstone sent a new one, I paid shipping. Seasoned the same way, as per Blackstone and warped again. Told two friends with theirs to season on low. No problems. I will try the boiling buckets to attempt to level mine out. Good advice about cooking. I do the same as you, mostly cook on med low and let cool a bit for cleaning with water. Thanks. Keep you recipes coming.
Interesting that it warped right off the bat. They do get super hot and you really only need to get to 500 to burn off oil. So I'm sure seasoning on med or low is plenty hot enough. Good thing you wanted your friends.
Thanks for watching and I hope boiling pots of water works for you.
My Blackstone is crowned high in the center right out of the box. I’ve considered press strengthening it but I now put shims under the back legs to allow melted butter to pool in the corner. I use A LOT of butter on my griddle. I like that I can have melted butter ready to use.
@@chriscarter7182 ya sometimes having a spot for stuff to pool up isn't bad at all. Same concept with some bacon grease would be nice too. Or I bet you could shallow fry back there with a decent amount of oil. Maybe some country fried steak or something. Also I'm with you on the butter, no such thing as too much.
I think the biggest contributer to warpage is due to extreme high heat for a while (expanding) to extreme cold product (contracting/shrinkage). This is the thermo shock... just like pouring hot water on an iced over windshield. The bigger the shock, the bigger the warpage.
Even on a one burner indoor griddle I found it's best to preheat between 225 - 250.
Don't want your griddle to warp?
Cook everything low and slow. All burners on low or just above low.
Never put water on your griddle. Scrape when you're done cooking, pour your oil of choice on it, whipe the hot oil all over the surface of the griddle and turn your burners off, and close the lid
Thanks Johnny this is info everyone needs to know. Its the extreme temp change that does it. I learned years ago the hard way. I had my chef pan ( expensive one ) from restaurant supply place locally. Cranked it up to high as I usually would do before cooking BUT took a HUGE ham steak directly from fridge and through in pan and Blamo ! warped pan. Luckily I was able to fix by getting extremely hot and placing bricks in it and then letting it cool. Any way great info Johnny. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Bryan I'm glad you liked the video and I appreciate you sharing your similar experience. I'm glad you got it straightened back out but now you made me want to go buy a big ol' ham steak lol! I haven't cooked one of those for a while. I love them at breakfast on the griddle cooked in a little bit of syrup.
@@JohnnyBrunet LOL. Delicious for sure.
Valuable information, thanks!
Awesome stuff Johnny! Thanks for sharing, have a great weekend brother 🔥🍺🔥
you too brother!
These are great videos you are putting up, Johnny. I am a guy who likes to build stuff snd I want to build a griddle to go on top of my propane grill.. Maybe you can tell me how thick the material on your griddle tops are. I have a 3/16" plate and would like to know if that is close to the thickness of the ones you have.
I've become a smash burger fan since watching your videos. Thanks. Keep posting griddle stuff.
Thanks so much. That's be cool if you made one yourself. I don't know the thickness of my griddle and couldn't find it on the camp chef site. Im sure they have it in there somewhere I probably just missed it. Thanks so much for watching.
Good tips, and nice hat, dude!
Thanks brother!! Had to put it in a video.
i use hot tap water in a travel mug so i can open the spout to pour water also i let the griddle cool to about 350 F. still works very well for steam cleaning. i did put frozen hamburger patties in my 17 ln. black stone while camping and it warped. since then it has slowly flattened back out again. good video brother ty for the tips.
That's good to know about the frozen burgers. I think I might do a video dedicated to just that bc I think a lot of people want the convince of throwing some frozen burgers in the griddle. I appreciate you watching.
@JohnnyBrunet I almost wonder if my 17 in. black stone was very hot and it being so small with 8 frozen patties contributed to it warping. I did reseason it in a 500 degree F oven after that warping. and it seems like it isn't warped as bad as it was.
@@wildernessman760 ya I think that was probably why. That's a great idea to throw that in the oven for seasoning. I never thought of that.
My Traeger popped during a taco cook. One corner probably was up 2-3 inches. Now I keep a set of cleaned metal 25 pound dumbbells nearby and if it pops up again, (which it has), I just set them vertical in opposite corners of the grill surface. The weight will bring it back down flat so the food will cook evenly. Plus, they don't take a lot of space. I have added even heavier.weights. In the future, I may take the flat plate down to a welder and have him add vertical flat bar in an "X" orientation to the bottom to add bracing and maybe prevent this from happening.
That's good to know I hadn't heard of anyone having problems with the traeger yet. And welding and X on the bottom is a great idea
I always heat the griddle with both burners on low
This video has some very useful information in it , THANK YOU FRANK FROM MONTANA.......
You're welcome Frank! Hope all is well my friend.
My grandpa once told me that griddles are like women. You’ve got to get them properly warmed up before putting the meat in. I think he also said it’s not good to use frozen meat.
🤣🤣🤣
Good info, thanks
Any tips for heating up a griddle that at 32 degrees? Hey. Don’t judge. I had a fire pit going to keep me warm and sometimes you just need to griddle while say… watching a college football championship.
Hahaha heck ya brother nothing wrong with watching the Buckeyes win a championship! Heat it up on low and stay hydrated!
Thanks didn't kno this was a thing, oh dry January sucks. Congratulations to ur OSU😂😂😂
Thanks man. It was a heck of a run
Yes, God Big 10! (Warping is my biggest worry about our griddle.)
Also Johnny, don't put frozen food on a super hot griddle! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
My griddle came out of the box pretty warped, everything I’ve seen online from blackstone claims it should work itself out, I’ve only used it twice (three times including seasoning) but so far no change. When it’s hot it does level out mostly (probably 90%), but when cold it’s noticeably wobbly. I’m wondering if anyone thinks I should reach out to blackstone at this point? I really don’t want to re-season but I also don’t want to have a defective product blamed on me if I ever do contact them for it in the future. Also: it doesn’t even seem like it’s flat on the surface, scraping the griddle or laying a spatula on it there is an obvious gap between the middle of the spatula and the griddle.
I would definitely contact them. If you have pictures of it initially send that and then what it looks like now. That way there is at least a line of communication if it doesn't fix itself or happens to get worse. I hope it evens out on its own for you but I would definitely document it just in case.
My Loco warped on right side. I made a video about it. Contacted them and they shipped out new top. I babied it for longest time. Last week turned it up to to 450 to sear steaks coming off traeger and it warped in exact place. It wasn't even in "sear" mode. Gonna Contact them again.
Ya I would immediately contact them for sure. And I baby mine too but you also want to crank the new one up to sear right away and see what happens. If you wait too long they may give you a hard time about it. I hope you get it all squared away my friend.
So what your saying is...DON'T DO THE JOHNNY ! (LOL).
🤣🤣🤣
I how about using rich water? 😅
Making sure you're drinking hand isn't empty is how I make sure mine stays flat. 🤷🏼
That's a true pro tip!!!
@JohnnyBrunet seriously, all good tips, and greatly appreciated. I ruined my first one trying to season it... full blast and I walked away for a minute. Never again
@@charleswunder4205 oh man, hopefully they sent you a new one when that happend.
What is "concentrated" water? Reference time stamp 2:32 minutes.
ya I'm not sure that's kind of what I was getting at. Blackstone says to use "small conentrated amounts of water" and that's kind of vague in my opinion I don't know what means. I personally just squirt down what I need out of a bottle but never dump a large pot or cup or water on the hot griddle.
@@JohnnyBrunet I do the same. I was commenting on Blackstone's use of "concentrated" amounts water. Seems like a company which builds one of the better units available could hire a better semanticist for their customer support. I enjoy watching your channel, when the internet is working properly in rural Texas!
@@oldgandy5355 Oh sorry I didn't understand. ya I totally agree, you would think they wouldn't be so vague considering they sell more griddles than anyone else. Well I guess I shouldn't complain because it gives me the opportunity to help people out and clear things up. I really appreciate you watching my friend. And that stinks about the internet but as I look outside at all the snow on the ground here in Ohio, rural Texas doesn't sound to bad to me lol
I’ve done two of the three things on my blackstone. Oops
My Grilla grill warped both the 2/3 and full griddle on first use and they stayed arched ,, just a bad design imo
man that stinks, I've never used the grilla grills before.
Johnny, you might want to edit your video. Pour not poor.
Well it's too late now lol. You can't edit it once it's on TH-cam. Thanks for letting me know though!
Or you can buy a Halo griddle and you can crank it up 700 degrees plus and it will not warp.
They even make them anymore
Great info.