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Separate Stovetop Grates for Dairy and Meat 

Some people are lenient and use the same stovetop grate to cook milchig and fleishig one after the other. Although it?s possible for some of the contents of a pot of to run over, or spill onto the grate, and thereby cause the next pot placed on the stovetop—if it?s of the opposite category— to become treife, it can be argued that this is not a concern for two reasons:  1) Since the grates sit directly above the fire, when we turn on the fire it burns off everything on the grate, in essence koshering it. 2) The halachah of shtei kedeiros is that taste does not transfer from one surface to another unless there is liquid on either surface. (In this case, the taste would not transfer from the grate into the pot unless there is actual liquid either on the grate or on the bottom of the pot.) However, if one uses the same grates for milchig and fleishig, they must make sure that the grates are totally clean and dry; food should certainly not be placed directly on the grates for warming up. 

Nevertheless, it?s recommended that separate grates should be used for milchig and fleishig, for the following reasons: 1) The fire usually does not burn off all the food residue absorbed within the grate, surely not the residue that is at the center of the grate. (If for example, a milchig pot is placed on a hot grate that has some meat on it, the pot becomes treif.) 2) Regarding shtei kedeiros: firstly, it does not apply lechatchilah, only bedieved (after the fact), and secondly, very often there is liquid found between the grate and the pot, thereby allowing the taste of the food absorbed in the grate to transfer to the pot and its contents. #425