Baked on gunk on center grill portion on Master Touch

[insightsono]

 Hi there everybody! I purchased a master touch about a month ago. I have had only three cooks since.  My first was ribeye and chicken legs, second was a very thick ribeye, and it was very easy to clean the grill with my Weber steel brush.  My third cook however was a different story. I made marinated kebabs, beef kebabs, and the central removable grill portion on my grill had this encrusted  black hard  gunk that wouldn't come off even with post  cooking  heating  and brushing.   Soaked it overnight in a soap solution. Didn't budge. I had to physically take my steel brush to this thing and spent 15 minutes cleaning it off. What did I do wrong? How can I prevent this from ever, ever happening again?  Thanks in advance, Weberites!

[1911Ron]

Did you have any sugar in the marinade by chance?   

[insightsono]

Did you have any sugar in the marinade by chance?

Straight teriyaki sauce. That's it. We were running late, so it only soak for about a half hour.

[1911Ron]

Did you have any sugar in the marinade by chance?

Straight teriyaki sauce. That's it. We were running late, so it only soak for about a half hour.

Teriyaki sauce has sugar in it, so it sounds like it burned on your grate.

[Harleysmoker]

After I cleaned my cooking grate real good, I tried to season it like a cast iron pan using vegetable oil. I let it heat up and cool off about 3 times doing this. Seemed to help, I don't know.

I also spray Pam cooking spray on the clean grate sometimes before adding food and that seems like the burnt left overs come off easier with a grill brush.