Crazy easy way to clean your gas stove grates

Anyone else have incredibly dirty well used grates on top of their gas stoves? I've tried to clean them. I honestly wipe them down each time I clean the stove. I've tried soaking them in soapy water, even letting them soak all night. But no matter what I do or use, that grease coating refused to budge.

That is until I learned this little trick - ammonia. Yes, ammonia. The kind you probably have under your kitchen sink. In the way back. Take a look. I think my bottle may be 15 years old, and seemed almost full still.

First let me say, I'd recommend trying this with one grate to begin with, just to be sure it does not strip any paint or coating off and leave you needing to purchase 4 (or more) new grates. This happened to my mother-in-law, who happened to have specially coated grates. Mine were just the plain dark gray type, and had no problems with the ammonia.

before / after cleaning with ammonia

Directions:

1. Dump 1/4 cup of the ammonia in a large resealable bag.
2. Place your grates in the bag and seal tightly. This step is important. The fumes are toxic, so you don't want any leaking out. Trust me.
3. Store the bag in a sink or bucket somewhere out of harms way for 12-24 hours. I placed my bag in a wash bin in the laundry room sink, and let it sit overnight.
4. Rinse the grates in soap and water, and then you'll just need to wipe the grease off with a sponge or dish cloth. The grease really does just fall off at this point. No need to put a lot of muscle into it, or pull out the heavy duty scrubbers. The grease came right off when I wiped it. 

That's it! It's truly that easy. I didn't realize how dirty ours were until I saw how beautiful they became once all the grease was removed.