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Yay, my kettle no longer smells like last week's cook. :)

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    Yay, my kettle no longer smells like last week's cook. :)

    I've had my 22" kettle since December, when I started on this BBQ journey. Nearly ten months of grease build up finally got to me. I opened my kettle the other day and it smelled like last week's cook, or perhaps an agglomeration of months of last week's cooks.

    I try to keep the food grate clean by brushing it after every cook before it cools down, but my brush doesn't get under the grate well. Furthermore, I keep forgetting drip pans/foil so the charcoal grate has a lot of goop on it, plus the bottom on the kettle and the ash cleaning blades.

    So this afternoon I had had enough and took the grates out and covered them liberally with oven-cleaning spray. I then used a plastic putty knife to gentle scrape the interior of the kettle and the blades. (Surprisingly, this was quite easy to get all of the goop off as well as some crusted on ash on the blades.)

    In some cleaning videos, people get the interior of their kettles back to showroom new. I might do this when it gets cooler, but right now, I just don't want it to, as I keep saying, smell like last week's cook. As I said, it didn't take much to get the interior smell-free, which meant the majority of my smell was coming from the grates.

    I bought a galvanized steel wash basin from Home Depot, filled it with water and Dawn, and went to work on the charcoal grate. The large parts of dunk came off easily and I did some scrubbing with a soft pad to attack the rest. It isn't perfect -- there still are some carbonized lumps and, to my surprise, quite a bit of surface rust -- but it is the charcoal grate after all so I didn't go too crazy with it.

    I really attacked the food grate and nearly got it back to its shiny stainless steel self. Again, a bit of surface rust, but minor and it came off easily. There is some discoloration, but that is essentially just over the part of the grate that is always over the slow n' sear.

    I'm quite happy with the better conditions of the grates and best of all -- no smell! I am never going to allow it to get this bad again. Yuck. (And especially not let it get this bad so I am having to do this in 96 degree-heat-index-weather!)

    Things are now drying....by having a chimney of charcoal go to work; seemed appropriate.

    #2
    Ha I just got fed up with my trash and recycle bins and pressure washed them. A can needs to know his limitations!

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      #3
      I'm far more lazy; I build a moderately big fire, then let it burn down to small, and pour boiling water in it to break up/flush out grease and ash build up and steam clean the grate (plus vigorous scrubbing of the grate).

      Do you have a Slow'n Sear and Drip pan? Those have helped a lot with clean up too
      Last edited by Loren; October 5, 2019, 08:38 PM.

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      • Michael_in_TX
        Michael_in_TX commented
        Editing a comment
        I don't, but I may pick one up. Wrapping it in foil would be awesome for clean up (and keeping everything clean)!

      • Loren
        Loren commented
        Editing a comment
        The drip pan and foil was a huge game changer for me; gone were the fat stalagmites from brisket cooks - much to the disappointment of my dogs

      • Mr. Bones
        Mr. Bones commented
        Editing a comment
        Yuppers to meltin th lid rollers; I've been dat guy...
        HawkerXP

      #4
      Here is a great resource for all things Weber and how I clean my kettles. http://weberkettleclub.com/weber-gri...ttle-cleaning/
      Last edited by HawkerXP; October 5, 2019, 07:31 PM. Reason: oops

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      • ScottyC13
        ScottyC13 commented
        Editing a comment
        Great link, thanks!

      #5
      I really was surprised how easy the interior of the kettle was to clean. I was thinking I was going to really have to chisel the stuff off. Nope, just came right off and into the ash catcher it went.

      Comment


        #6
        Every year i tell myself im gonna do a deep clean before putting away for the year and every year i end up doing a deep clean when i take them out.

        Comment


        • Mr. Bones
          Mr. Bones commented
          Editing a comment
          Every year, an with every kettle, I tell myself: I ain't gonna bother, on accounta Grant's already done his, so all is well, in Th Universe...

        • Thunder77
          Thunder77 commented
          Editing a comment
          What is this "putting away for the year" that you speak of?? None of that going on around here!

        #7
        Oh did it surprise me how much cleaning my kettle and adding the Adrenaline drip pan help in my keeping things clean.

        Comment


          #8
          I did a deep clean of my gasser when I got it (used). Its about time to do it again (plus I need to replace burners anyway).

          Comment


            #9
            I HAVE LEARNED NOTHING.

            NOTHING.

            I am smoking a pork loin roast tonight. I did not put a foil shield on the charcoal grate. The loin roast is wrapped in bacon.

            I FAIL. Wow, I fail so much.

            Comment


            • Thunder77
              Thunder77 commented
              Editing a comment
              🤪🤪

            • DurhamBuckeye
              DurhamBuckeye commented
              Editing a comment
              "I FAIL. Wow, I fail so much.

              Maybe so, but at least in the end you have a bacon wrapped loin roast to comfort you. I wish all of my failings ended that way.

            • Michael_in_TX
              Michael_in_TX commented
              Editing a comment
              It was very good...but now I know that a quick rinse in Dawn can get that stuff off that grate!

            #10
            Yeah once or maybe twice a year I'll give my 2 kettles (a 22 and an 18) a good scrub down with Simple Green, or if I have it, a citrus based grease cutter like Citrusolve or something similar. Gets them clean really fast, no need to spend all afternoon scrubbing away. Usually I can clean both of them top to bottom (including scrubbing the grill grates back to almost-new) in like 2 hours.

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