Addition made 2/4/2006 at end.
Hooboy, take a close look, maybe click on the image. See if you can find my moldy que gloves there.
While I consider myself to be a year ’round griller and smoker, there can be dry spells. And this dry spell took place during the wettest part of the year, the last few months.
Look, you’ve only got a few days left to get your menu for Sunday ready. I haven’t a clue as to what I’m doing, except for tonight. Tonight it’s Cuban Sammiches, I can hardly wait. I knew my grill needed some attention, just didn’t know how much. If you haven’t checked your grill lately, you may want to do that.
Biggles is here to help.
Go to the store and buy either scotch brite pads or the ones attached to the sponge. Buy the ones with the green pad, not the white ones. The white ones are too fine and can’t handle the job. Also get yourself a plastic scrub brush. Or if you have some of these you don’t mind ruining, use what you have on hand. Just remember these will be going in the trash when done.
Remove your grill to a portion of the yard where you can open it up and pull out the pieces without ruining the concrete or whatever.
I use Barkeeper’s friend with the scotch brite pad to clean my grill with, but any really harsh cleaner will do. Standard cleanser, automatic dishwashing solution, don’t use Pine-sol, foo. Scrub the grill good enough to get the boogers off, bulk grease & whatever else comes off. You don’t need it Superman Clean, lordy. Rinse very well.
Turn to your pit and hose the sucker out, maybe tilt on the side. Uh, you may want to close your eyes because it’s at this point you get water deflected at your head or sometimes the crotch. Use your plastic scrub brush to knock off any nasties.
See, over time the inside builds up soot and meat leavenings. And as the pit heats & cools, the metal expands & contracts. This will, over time, begin to start dropping potato chip sized ‘things’ in to your fire and more likely on your food. In fact, before I install my food to the pit I’ll lightly run a wire brush over the inside lid portion.
Do this stuff in the mid morning on Saturday, let it sit out and open. After lunch, come out and start up a good sized fire, as though you were going to cook for a few hours or more. You need to run a fire through it to make sure you burn off any unmentionables and to dry it up. Poke the fire and arrange it as though you were going to use it, put the grill in too. After the fire is ready, set the vents and close the lid. Remember, control the fire with the intake vents, not the exhaust. If you shut down the exhaust, you could smother the fire and cause creosote (brown & white smoke) build-up on your food and grill. You’ll find this more likely to happen with people using wood and/or wood charcoal rather than briquettes.
While I may not have helped your menu for Sunday, I sure as hell gave you a jump start on the hardware end of things. This way, when Sunday noon shows up you won’t get a shock like this when you open up your grill.
You’re welcome.
xo xo
Addition 2/4/2006:
After a good sleep last night, I realized there’s another way of cleaning the grill portion of the pit. Get yourself some thick, 4 to 6 mil polyethylene sheeting and cut a portion large enough to make a grill sandwich, with about a foot worth of slop on the sides.
Spray both sides of grill with your favorite oven cleaner, biodegradable or no. Remember to READ and UNDERSTAND the entire label, instructions and warnings. Cause this stuff burns !!! Ah, there’s nothing like the good burn of clean.
Close your grill sandwich and let sit for the specified amount of time, it says it on the can.
Rinse well and put in to service, spiky clean.
Oh that is way to much work! Just heat that sucker up and cook.!!!!!!!!
Heh, uh no. In the span of less than 5 weeks there is green mold in there dude!
It needs its cleaning, says I. Arrrr.
All right, “Martha Biggles”, if you get your grill to 150 degrees, you will kill all kooties. Then you take a brush or piece of foil and wipe your grill down and your ready for fun!
Uh, but I like burning my kooties with chemicals, making them PAY. Then, burning them with fire until they Uncle.
I have my ways, don’t mess.
I have spoken.
Biggles
If you had put, “I HAVE SPOKEN” in paranthesis I would surrender. According to the Wizard of Oz rules you are wrong Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Ha! Yes, exactly. However, you fell in to my trap!
You misspelled “parenthesis” and discounts your turn.
I win.
But if you want more than one parenthesis, you have to have parentheses. Two will do in this case.
This might be a tie.
Just, y’know, me being the word lady.
I don’t know, Biggles. That sounds like a lot of work to me.
You get a 700º fire burnin’ in there and them germs are going to run.
Of course, I never go more than 4 or 5 days without grilling something. Even when I lived in the Midwest I grilled all winter.
Hey Everyone!
You are more than welcome to cook your food over charred mold, go for it. Sounds like gas grill lovers with their flavor rocks. Rancid smoking meat grease doesn’t add positive flavors, in my book.
I love my highly dangerous cleaners with their power to burn.
It’s only once every 1 to 2 years, I can handle that.
Biggles
HA!!!!! “Flavor rocks.” Who do you suppose came up with that?
I have those very same gloves. Fortunately, they are not the house grilling gloves, but rather, my garden gloves. Chopper prefers the bare-handed approach; not sure why.
Sadly, not only are we expecting torrential winds this weekend (most likely accompanied by heavy rain) but Chopper’s got to be at work during the second half of the game. And here we are, just a short drive from Seattle. Hrrmph. You’d think all businesses would be closed.
Why doo yoou doo have gluoe glooves oover a coookin area yooo foooo?
Those gloves look like there waiting for a toxic dump. A grill which is seasoned is priceless. It is kind of like a cast iron pan. Dr. please write a retraction. We will forgive you!
Because flavour DOES rock, that’s why.
What the heq is a flavour rock, sounds like an excretion or a barnacle.
Sorry for being such a hippy, but I’m going to jump on the bandwagon and say that chemical cleaning is not a good thing around food. It’s not only bad for the folks that have to eat the food, YER CHILLUNS AND OLD LADY, but for the folks involved all along the chain of industry that produces the scary corosives and petro-chemicals. Use less product is what I always say. You can pool the savings and buy more meat.
Retract PLEASE!!!!!!!
Hey Everbody,
Flavor rocks are found in gas grills, on the bottom. They’re a porus volcanic rock and when falling grease from your food falls on them, they smoke and create “flavor”. This is one of the selling points for gas grills, flavor rocks. As I stated before, burning rancid grease don’t equal flavor.
On to other matters. I use automatic dishwashing liquid in my dishwasher and I use oven cleaner in my oven, both of which come in to contact with food handled materials. When rinsed properly, they’re harmless. Except for where they end up, on the lawn or down the drain.
I’ve used quite a handful of biodegradable cleansers & washing liquids to powders and found nearly all of them don’t get the job done. And the one that did, is more than 2x the cost of it’s nasty cousin.
It’s just a dumb grill, not a smoker. Me, myself and my psychosis are quite happy with themselves. If I feel my grill needs a cleaning once a year, I don’t have any problem cleaning it.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find another pair of bright red leather gloves. And some rabbit sausage and rabbit pate and hot links and salami and some fiber.
xo xo
Okay,
After careful thought and a good night sleep, I decided to put an addition at the end of the post.This is how my grandfather handled the situation.
Biggles
Its just a dumb grill? My friend, you have just committed blasphemy. Of all people, I have respect, and treat my grill with dignity. On that note I will barbeque some Dakota Sausage from Lockeford on my dirty grill and say a prayer for you. Haaaaaaaaa
Ahem, if I didn’t have respect for my dumb grill I wouldn’t have cleaned it. If you take care of your equipment, it’ll take care of you.
I still can’t figure out what to cook tomorrow and I leave for the farmer’s market in a few minutes.
Maybe I’ll get some cabbage & large red onions to smoke/grill. I’d like to stuff a leg of lamb for smoking, but feel wishy washy about it. I think if Taylor had stuffed some pork loins with bone-in, I would have opted for that.
Maybe I’ll just open a can of Dennison’s and dump it over some Fritos and call it done.
Biggles