Ever wonder if you can boil water on a Blackstone griddle? We did. Here’s what happened when we tried it out for ourselves…

The quick and easy answer is that yes, you can absolutely boil water on a Blackstone griddle or any flat top that can heat water to a temperature of 212°F or 100°C.
The cooking surface on a Blackstone flat top can easily reach 500° to 600° Fahrenheit, so you’ll have no trouble getting it hot enough to boil water.
Side Note – if your flat top is turned on but has a very small flame and won’t get hot, check out this article to learn how to fix a low flame on a Blackstone griddle.
Why Boil Water On A Blackstone Griddle?
You can make just about anything on a Blackstone, but that doesn’t mean it makes a lot of sense. A griddle isn’t exactly the most efficient way to boil water.
It’s kind of like using a flame thrower to light your birthday cake candles.
But let me tell you a quick story. A few months back there was a big storm and our entire neighborhood was without power for several days.
With no electricity, we couldn’t use our electric stove or the microwave, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna go without coffee. So we decided to try boiling water on our Blackstone griddle.
Efficient? Nope.
Effective? Absolutely!
Or how about this? Let’s say you’re searing some chicken on your flat top and you want some pasta as a side dish. You COULD cook the pasta in the kitchen and the chicken outside, but that’s a pain because you have to run in and out to keep an eye on everything.
Instead, just cook your chicken on one side of the griddle and on the other side you can boil water and cook your pasta.
How To Boil Water On A Blackstone Griddle
- Step 1 – Light your Blackstone and set to high heat.
- Step 2 – Fill an oven-safe pot of water and place on the griddle.
- Step 3 – Keep the pot covered and watch it closely until the water starts to boil.
Once your water is boiling you can add your pasta, veggies, or whatever else you need to cook just like you’re using a kitchen stove.
A Real Life Test
So theory is nice and all…it’s clear you can boil water on a Blackstone griddle if you want to, but I wanted to go one step further and run a test to see just how well it works.
I poured one cup of water into a small sauce pan and placed it on the cooking surface of my griddle. I have a 36 inch Blackstone with four burners. I placed the pot with water directly in the center of the griddle and turned the two inside burners on high. The two outside burners were left off.
The pot of water was uncovered, mostly because I forgot to cover it until after I started the timer. Oops.
Anyway, I used the stopwatch on my Apple Watch to monitor the time and as you can see from the picture below it took 12:40.96 for the water to begin boiling.
I repeated the experiment inside on our electric stove. Same pot, same amount of water, stove set on high.
The result? The water began boiling in just 4:13.66.
Pretty crazy huh?
But not totally surprising. Here’s why:
There’s a lot of surface area on a Blackstone griddle. That means the heat coming from the burners is spread across the entire surface, even the side sections where the burners were turned off.
In other words it’s not very efficient to heat up the entire cooking surface just to heat one tiny pot because the pot itself will only get a fraction of the total heat generated by the griddle.
The Blackstone is designed for cooking large amounts of food spread across the entire surface.
By contrast, the stovetop is designed to funnel heat directly into the pot sitting on its gas burner or electric heating element. Much more efficient.
Using the Blackstone would be like trying to heat the entire surface of your stove instead of just the one section where the pot it sitting. It will work eventually, but it’s just not the best method.
A few other thoughts…
Both the griddle and the stove would have worked a bit faster if I had remembered to cover the pot. No one’s perfect.
The Blackstone probably would have worked faster if I had turned on all four burners instead of just two. But frankly, I didn’t want to waste any more propane.
The handful of times I’ve actually boiled water on my Blackstone, it was already hot and being used to cook my main dish. It’s convenient to make a side of rice or pasta outside while I’m already cooking something else.
But if I just need to boil water, the kitchen is easier and faster than a griddle.
Using Pots And Pans On A Griddle
The cooking surface of a Blackstone griddle gets seriously hot. Like 600°F hot!
Obviously whenever you’re cooking on a hot surface you want to take basic safety precautions to avoid burning yourself.
But you also have to be careful what kind of pot or pan you use on a hot griddle.
Nonstick pans are awesome because they make cleanup a breeze, but not all of them are rated for use in the oven, and if they can’t go in the oven you shouldn’t use them on a grill or griddle.
Some nonstick pans, especially older ones, can actually emit dangerous fumes when heated to extreme temperatures so you definitely want to be sure your pan is safe before using it on a Blackstone.
Stainless steel can withstand temperatures of 500°F to 600°F, and cast iron can go even hotter. Either of these will work fine as long as they don’t have any rubber, plastic, or wooden handles. Remember it’s the whole pan you need to consider and not just the part that comes into contact with the cooking surface.
It’s always a good idea to check the instructions that came with the pot or go to the manufacturers website an look for the maximum temperature that is safe.
If you go higher than the manufacturer’s specifications it could melt the handle or warp the pot itself, ruining it forever.
No matter what kind of pot you use to boil water on your Blackstone flat top griddle, never leave it unattended. Because of the high temperature the water can heat up quickly and boil all over the cooking surface.
And if you’re cooking something else on the griddle at the same time, the spilled water will leave you with a soggy mess instead of a delicious meal.
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