What can I use to clean the baked on hardened grease from the bottom of my pellet grill?
I started the pellet grill yesterday, and after a while, I noticed fire and smoke. I could see a pool of liquid grease burning at the bottom of the grill. It does have a drain and grease bucket but wasn't draining.
The fire is out and I've cleaned up to the best of my ability, but there is a thick layer of burnt, hardened grease in the drain area.
What can I use to soften it and or clean it away so the drain works properly? I was thinking oven cleaner, but wondering if anyone has a better suggestion?
In the 1st pic you can see I shoved a stick up through the drain hole (after heating the grill to soften it a bit), but I can't clean it while hot, and it turns rock hard when it cools.
by Barckleyt
8 Comments
Scrape it off and shop vac it out, that’s what I do with mine. It’s not perfect, but it gets a good majority of it.
Get a putty scrapper and have at it.
Don’t soften it, scrape it out or soak it up with paper towels
And DO NOT use any form of oven cleaner inside your smoker..EVER!!
Most, if not all (even the so called citrus)
Will leave a very long lasting residue that will “taint” the taste of everything you smoke…… the steel of the smoker absorbs the cleaner unlike the porcelain finish inside an oven….
Get out your scraper, do the best you can, and then vacuum it out well !
Crumpled aluminum foil after a cook to scrape it out. Then shop vac.
I use flexible putty knife and a plastic one.
So I had this happen to me a couple years ago. I ended up taking all the grates and the plate out and ran it for like 30 minutes. The grease ended up becoming soft so I used spatulas to get it out. It fucking sucked is all I have to say.
heating things up and scraping it out with a putty knife sounds like a good solution to me.
The chemical solution would be D-Limonene. Not the yellowish product, you want pure, water-clear (colorless!) d-limonene. The yellow stuff is just chemically dried citrus rind oil. The water-clear stuff is distilled high test. If it doesn’t dissolve styrofoam it’s trash, or at least it needs distilled again, but the pure technical grade D-Limonene i bought 4 years ago is still going strong. The D is for Dextro, meaning it’s the pure right-handed version, without the lame Levo-Limonene mixed in which can cause it to polymerize.
It’s literally just the pure form citrus rind oil. It’s not just edible some people take supplements of it for some fool reason. You’d remove the residue by getting the grill hot for a while.
I wouldn’t say to “never” use oven cleaner, but I would say not to use oven cleaner unless you’re prepared to take the whole damn thing apart and scrub out all of the residue with dish soap and rinse it three times.