A few weeks back, I was asked to try out a set of two DK BBQ Grill Mats by Diamond Kitchen. The grill mats are 15.75″ x 19.7″, non-stick, and can be used over and over again without being replaced. You can cook all of your typical grill food, plus other stuff like eggs, bacon, and veggies.
The mats arrived in a skinny box with no instructions on temperature limits or any other info about them. Just two very large mats rolled up. We have a charcoal smoker grill, so we were very leery about even attempting to use them on it. I assumed that flames coming directly in contact with the mats would melt them. The past few days have been the first days without any rain, so I finally decided to try them out by cooking some hamburger patties for lunch.
I had difficulty getting and keeping the charcoal lit for a while because it was pretty breezy. Once I was able to get it going, I got the grates in place and got the mat out. The good thing about our grill is that you can easily slide the racks around if you need to get something away from the flame quickly. I had to be careful to keep the flames down because I didn’t want them touching the mats. Once that was dealt with, I went ahead and placed the mat down.
I got warm almost immediately, yet I was able to touch it around the edges without it being too hot. I was pretty surprised when I put the patties down and they immediately started sizzling. The mat did not feel that hot at all. It didn’t even feel like there was all that much heat coming off of it, though that could have been due to the breeze. The patties moved around easily and didn’t stick at all. In fact, I had to chase them around a bit with the spatula in order to flip them. It’s not all that different from cooking in a non-stick frying pan. After the burgers were cooked about half way, I started noticing an odd burning smell, and realized that the flames were getting too high. I moved the grates over to the side & went ahead and took the patties off the mat. The underside of it was a little discolored (it turned a white/gray), but didn’t look bubbled or burned.
I finished the patties on the regular grill grates. The big claim about the mats was that you would still get the normal grill marks on the food. The patties didn’t get any marks until after I took them off the mat. As I mentioned earlier, it’s not all that different from using pan…so I’m really not all that surprised that there weren’t’ grill marks.
Overall, the mats do work. You might not get the grill marks, but I think being able to cook a wider range of food more than makes up for it. That being said, these are definitely far better suited for a gas grill, or a charcoal grill that has a deeper pan so that the flames are stilling lower. The mats are available on Amazon and are currently $19.95 (+ shipping).
I received the above mentioned product for free to help facilitate my review. All opinions are 100% my own.
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