You’ve seen them everywhere. TikTok, your neighbor's driveway, or maybe lurking in the back of a Lowe’s. The Blackstone 36 gas griddle has basically become the unofficial mascot of backyard cooking over the last few years. It’s big. It’s heavy. It’s kinda intimidating if you’ve spent your whole life just flipping burgers on a rusty wire grate.
But here is the thing.
Most people buy these things because they want to look like a hibachi chef, and then they realize that keeping 768 square inches of rolled steel from rusting is actually a bit of a commitment. It isn't just a "set it and forget it" grill. It’s a piece of industrial kitchen equipment that happens to have wheels.
The Cold Hard Reality of the Blackstone 36 Gas Griddle
If you’re looking for a delicate sear on a filet mignon, stick to your cast iron pan inside. The Blackstone 36 gas griddle is built for volume and chaos. We are talking about 30 burgers at once. Or two pounds of bacon, a dozen eggs, and a mountain of hash browns that would make a Waffle House cook sweat.
The core of the machine is four independently controlled burners. They pump out 60,000 BTUs. That is a lot of heat, honestly. Because the surface is solid steel, you don't get those flare-ups from grease hitting a flame. Instead, the grease slides into the rear management system—which, by the way, Blackstone finally fixed a few years ago because the old side-drain design was a total disaster that leaked down the leg of the grill.
The heat distribution is... interesting. You’ll hear people say it’s perfectly even. It’s not. There are hot spots right over the burner tubes and cooler zones toward the edges. But that’s actually a feature, not a bug. You want a cool zone. You need somewhere to shove the finished pancakes while the raw ones are still bubbling in the middle. If the whole thing was a uniform 450 degrees, you’d be burning half your breakfast before the other half was flipped.
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Steel vs. Grates
Why do people choose this over a traditional Weber or a Traeger? It’s the Maillard reaction. When you smash a ball of ground beef onto a flat, hot steel plate, you get 100% surface contact. That crust—that salty, brown, crispy edge—is something you just can't get on a traditional grill grate where half the meat is touching air.
The Learning Curve Most People Ignore
You can't just unbox this thing and throw a steak on it. If you do, it’ll stick, it’ll taste like factory oil, and you’ll regret the $400 you just spent.
The "seasoning" process is a rite of passage. You have to scrub the shipping oil off, then heat it up until the silver steel turns blue and black. You apply thin—and I mean thin—layers of oil, letting them smoke off completely before adding the next. Most beginners use too much oil. They end up with a sticky, brown gunk that peels off like a bad sunburn. You want a hard, black, non-stick patina. It takes about an hour and half a roll of paper towels.
Dealing With the Weather
Steel hates water. If you live in a humid place or near the coast, the Blackstone 36 gas griddle is constantly trying to return to the earth as iron oxide. You have to be diligent.
- Scrape it clean while it's hot.
- Apply a tiny layer of oil after every use.
- Buy the hard cover AND the soft cover.
- Don't let water sit on the surface. Ever.
If you’re the type of person who leaves your grill messy for three weeks until the next cookout, this machine will punish you with a layer of orange rust that requires a wire brush and a lot of elbow grease to fix.
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Is the 36-Inch Too Big?
Honestly, for some people, yeah. It’s a beast. It takes up a lot of real estate on a deck. But the 28-inch model often feels cramped once you start moving food around. The 36-inch gives you four zones. You can have the far left on "sear," the middle two on "medium," and the far right completely off just to keep things warm.
That versatility is why professional chefs like J. Kenji López-Alt have advocated for flat-top cooking. It’s about control. You’re not fighting the fire; you’re managing a surface.
The Accessories Trap
Blackstone is a genius at marketing accessories. You’ll think you need the specialized spatulas, the squeeze bottles, the egg rings, the bacon press, and the specialized cleaning bricks.
You don't need most of it.
Get two decent-sized metal spatulas with some flex to them. Get a heavy-duty scraper. Get a couple of cheap plastic squeeze bottles for water and oil. That’s it. The rest of the "pro kits" are mostly just clutter for your garage. The one thing you should invest in is a good infrared thermometer. Since you can't see the flame, knowing that your surface is exactly 375 degrees makes a massive difference in how your food turns out.
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What Nobody Tells You About the Propane
This thing eats gas. With four burners blasting, you’ll go through a standard 20lb tank way faster than you would on a two-burner Char-Broil. If you have the option and the permanent spot for it, converting the Blackstone 36 gas griddle to natural gas with a conversion kit is a total game-changer. No more mid-cookout runs to the gas station because your flame flickered out while the onions were mid-caramelize.
Better Than a Kitchen Stove?
In the summer? Absolutely. Keeping the heat and the smell of frying fish or onions out of the house is worth the price of admission alone. Plus, cleaning a griddle is actually easier than cleaning a bunch of cast iron pans and a greasy stovetop. You just scrape everything into the trap, wipe it down, and you're done. No soap, no scrubbing in the sink.
Real World Performance
Let’s talk about smash burgers. This is the "killer app" for the Blackstone. You take a 3-ounce ball of 80/20 ground beef, put it on a 400-degree surface, and crush it flat with a heavy press. The fat renders instantly, frying the meat in its own juices. In two minutes, you have a burger that beats anything you can get at a fast-food joint.
It’s also surprisingly good for "fridge clean-out" fried rice. Throw some day-old rice, a couple of eggs, frozen peas, and whatever leftover protein you have onto the hot steel with some soy sauce and toasted sesame oil. It’s done in five minutes and tastes better than takeout because the high heat gives the rice those crispy bits (the guoba) that home stoves struggle to produce.
Making the Final Call
The Blackstone 36 gas griddle isn't a status symbol, despite what some backyard influencers might think. It’s a tool. If you enjoy the process of cooking—the scraping, the seasoning, the flipping—you’ll love it. If you want something you can turn on and ignore while you drink a beer, you should probably just buy a pellet grill.
Actionable Next Steps
- Check your space: Measure your patio. The 36-inch model is roughly 62 inches wide with the side shelves up. Make sure you have the clearance.
- Order the right oil: Pick up a bottle of avocado oil or flaxseed oil for the initial seasoning. They have high smoke points and create a more durable finish than standard vegetable oil.
- Find a flat spot: Because of the rear grease drain, the griddle needs to be level or slightly tilted toward the back. If your patio has a steep slope for drainage, your eggs might slide right off the front before they set.
- Buy a secondary tank: There is nothing worse than running out of propane when you've got half-cooked chicken on the steel. Always have a backup tank ready to go.