Grill left on overnight

[AlexR]

I was grilling yesterday for a large group, and in the chaos, I ended up leaving my gas grill on overnight. It's plumbed into the natural gas line, so this can be a pricey mistake depending on how long it goes before you discover it.

I've done this a couple other times over the years, and my wife is now annoyed. I'd like to prevent this annoyance in the future. Is there some solution that will alarm you if you leave the grill on? It could be simply a timer, or perhaps have it trigger if it's on after a certain hour. An alarm on the phone would be awesome, but I'd settle for an audible alarm.

[LA Pork Butt]

I have thermoworks big loud alarm. Set for an anticipated time the event will be over and you will be back in the house. When it goes off go out and check your grill.

[ComfortablyNumb]

Install a light near the grill that lights up your work area, turn it on when you cook. Never turn the light off until the grill is off.

[Donw]

If you have a smart phone, a device like an echo or the google equivalent, or anything similar, just set yourself a reminder for a time after you know the cooking will be finished.

[Sweaty Paul]

i like the idea of using a reminder with an alarm tone to remind you to turn off the grill.

[Attjack]

I've done it with a propane tank at least once.

[Attjack]

I would be curious what it costs. I would like to think it would not be too expensive.

[FireMan]

I did it once & emptied a 3/4 tank of propane. It was still warm when I discovered it in the AM. Did a nice cleaning of the burner that I left on.

[Attjack]

So that's about $15 worth of propane. NG is a little cheaper.

[AlexR]

I do have lights out there (it's in a full outdoor kitchen). Unfortunately the light goes on and off for other reasons as the bar is out there as is the good ice machine.

I'll try setting a timer on my watch when I start cook, but that assumes I'm disciplined enough to do it every time. If I was that organized, then I probably wouldn't leave the grill on in the first place. It still would be nice to some some sort of fail safe.

I did find this thing which would do the job, but you need to buy into the whole alarm system.
I could probably hack something up with an arduino and some reed switches to measure the grill knob positions. Mounting them and the magnet might be tricky. Hmm, perhaps this is finally the excuse I need to buy that 3-D printer so I could fab them.

[Donw]

A man after my own heart. I told my wife I needed a 3D printer to make a part for a broken patio umbrella. Didn’t mention that I could have bought 10 new umbrellas for the cost of the printer.

[ComfortablyNumb]

I was talking about a light independent of any other light. The idea is from my neighbour. When she starts to cook she first turns on the light that is in the hood above the stove, day or night. It stays on until she is done and is only turned off when all burners are checked as off. For you it doesn't even have to light up the stove, you could have a cool neon light, for example a beer sign, the gets turned on at the beginning of a cook and only turned off when the burners are off.

[Huskee]

Done that before when I had a gasser. Great tips above. I don't know of a specific device for this. I'd suggest using a digital thermometer and just leaving it (thermometer) on and in the grill, even if youre just grilling burgers and wouldn't normally use a probe in it. Check the receiver a lot. Leave the receiver where you'll see it and can't forget to see it.

[Attjack]

So a lot of bars here have their outdoor heater on timers so you can go up and turn the knob for heat and the knob then winds down and turns itself off. You could set it for 5 minutes or for hours (IIRC). But I still suspect the cost of the NG you burned was not that much money. Probably a lot less than buying a timer for your gas supply.

[Nuke em]

Make a flag and hang in the grill. Like they have on airplanes that says "remove before flight" and hand it on a knob

[randy.56]

Man cannot turn over the grillin and smokin to wife, Set your timer on your phone an hour out passed cook time. to alarm you. Put a stick note as reminder on bath room mirror.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

So I installed a watering line on the outdoor hose bib and did this a few times, the water bill was tripled! I installed one of those click dial timers so it can only run a max of 2 hours now. So anyway, I did a quick search and located plenty of products like the one I'm linking that can be hard lined into your existing setup. https://www.bbqgalore.com/gasav-r-1-...BoCK-sQAvD_BwE

[AlexR]

Yea, that's the idea, though one hour isn't enough. I found another one that's good for 3 hours which is better, but would be annoying during longer cooks..

The nice thing this approach is that you don't have to remember to set an alarm. You have to turn this thing in order to get gas, so nothing to forget. Problem for me is that my grill is built in, and where I can get at the gas supply is very inconvenient. I wish I knew about this when I was building the kitchen.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

There's no problem that time and/or money can't fix. I prefer this option since you can't use what you want without using the device. An alarm can be ignored or missed. I'm sure a good plumber can rework your line to make room for a timer of some sort. I found some with more than 3 hours as well, though I would think 3 hours is probably the sweet spot. 1 is way too short for sure.

[fzxdoc]

I do all the grilling and smoking at our house, and have left a single burner on my gasser on overnight. It has 6 burners, and for some reason, I only turned off 5. I've done this twice in the past few years. My gasser is also hooked up to the gas line for the house. It's so annoying to find a burner left on--with the cover placed over the grill!

So I asked my husband to help out by checking the gasser after I'm done cooking and allowing the gunk to burn off. He's pretty good about it--either checking it or reminding me to. Of course since I started this new "shared responsibility" system, I have yet to leave one or more burners on. Maybe that's all it took.

Kathryn

[gcdmd]

It looks like you've given him something to remind you of the next time you get after him for leaving the toilet seat up.

[fzxdoc]

I know, AmosMoses01 it was a scary scenario. It was the second time around that I even put the cover on. That was enough. Scared the peewaddin out of me.

gcdmd,


K.

[Willy]

:Peewaddin"! That's a new one for me--I'm gonna steal it.

[Argoboy]

We have a simple solution it is called a cover, my wife prefers the cover on after use and this makes sure I turn it off and let it cool before installing the cover. I always shut the gas supply off as well. This system has worked well for us to date.

[IowaGirl]

"...that assumes I'm disciplined enough to do it every time..."

Put a Big and Loud timer in some out-of-the-way spot where you physically have to get up and turn it off. Once it starts shrieking at you incessantly for as long as the batteries hold out (and that's a LONG time!), you'll be sufficiently disciplined in all senses of the word.

"Man cannot turn over the grillin and smokin to wife..."

Oh, Lordy, if that was the rule at my house, I'd never have any smoked or grilled Good Eats. DH is a good cook in the kitchen, but leaves the outdoor cookin' to me.