We love to bar-b-cue in our family. While I was growing up, my dad literally fired up our charcoal grill every Saturday afternoon. He’d pour some gas over the coals, strike a match and toss it into the grill from about five feet away. Remembering the sound of the “woosh” of the fire igniting still brings a smile to my face. Of course, by the time I had my own grill, I was using a propane fired grill instead of charcoal. However, I was still using the tongs and long forks as cooking utensils.
Apparently there’s you don’t need to keep track of or replace those rusty utensils any more. The last time I went over to my son’s house, he was using a Grill Glove to turn the meat on the grill. Since I wasn’t familiar with this product, he explained that this particular glove was made from food grade silicone, temperature resistant to 500 degrees F and was easy to clean up by just running through the dishwasher. It seemed like a good idea, but before I bought one for myself, I wanted to see what else was out there.
The first ones I looked at were made from leather. While leather gloves such as the Grillmark are versatile and somewhat heat resistant, not being able to clean them thoroughly is a big negative for me. Leather doesn’t really do well when soaked or scrubbed in water, so I eliminated all the leather ones from consideration. Although it would have been neat to have a set of Jim Beam leather grilling gloves, the same negatives of leather would still apply. The same would hold true of the Chef Master gloves; a great company name in the bar-b-cue industry, but the gloves have the cleaning disadvantages inherent to leather.
Weber and Steven Raichlen offer gloves using suede leather, so that to be a popular material for grilling gloves as well. While I’m sure they’re comfortable, flexible and easy to use, removing all the grease is still improbable. The Raichlen Company also offers rubber coated gloves (for food handling only), but they only give heat protection to 248 degrees F.
That left me with the Grill Glove that I saw my son using. Since then, I’ve seen it often advertised on the As Seen On TV commercials. Besides it’s high temperature resistance and ability to be dishwasher cleaned, there were a couple of more positives that made me decide to order this glove. The main thing is that being cleanable and made of food grade silicone, cross contamination of foods is limited. Also, being compatible with water, you can reach into a pot of boiling water to retrieve hard boiled eggs or anything else you have boiling. Finally, there’s the cost. Of all the gloves I saw, the Grill gloves “buy one, get one” offer was the most reasonable, plus I felt it was the best glove on the market. I ordered a pair and have enjoyed using them.
