You Should Definitely Clean Your Charcoal Grill
I have always resisted cleaning things outside. Dirt lives outside – if you will, it is the “home turf” of mud. But now that I live in a house that has its own little slice outside, I can see that cleaning these outdoor spaces is necessary, especially now that I am doing a fair amount of cooking outside .
In addition to sweeping the patio (a scam I can’t escape from) and tending the garden (lazy and rather bad), my most common household chores involve my Weber kettle.
In short, a dirty grill is disgusting. It’s so disgusting that it rejects weaker men (like this one ) from cooking, perhaps because these men are used to women cleaning up after them. In any case, a clean grill is important. Dirty gas grills are slightly more dangerous than their charcoal counterparts, but grease can catch fire wherever grease is present, and rough grates and bowls can spoil the taste of your food and – if left dirty long enough – lead to the build-up of all kinds of bacteria. Fortunately, cleaning your charcoal grill is easy. (If you have a dirty gas grill, read this .)
Clean the wire rack at the beginning of each cooking.
There is nothing better than a cleansing fire. Instead of trying to clean the grates while they are cold and sticky, let them heat up for at least five minutes each time you light the grill, and then scrub them thoroughly with a wire brush, wrapped in foil, or other grill cleaning. tool of your choice. Strong heat will carbonize the adhering residue and it will flake off immediately. Do this every time you grill and you never have to deal with bulky savings.
However, humans are not perfect, and I would never judge you for allowing a huge amount of accumulation to accumulate. I never let this happen (because I only had my grill for a few months), so I didn’t have a chance to test the cumbersome methods for cleaning deposits , but The Kitchn tested four different grill cleaning procedures and found that both Easy-Off and a mixture of baking soda and dish soap worked really well, so try them if hot heat doesn’t work.
Don’t forget the bowl
After a long session of smoking or a particularly hard picking up hamburgers, the bowl of your charcoal grill (the part under the grates) will need some attention. You don’t need to wash the bowl after every grilling session, but preferably once a week or a month, depending on how much you grill. If it starts to look and smell greasy (you know the scent), wash it.
Start by getting all of this ash into the ash catcher. The Weber has a neat little sweeping system, but I’ve found that it can skip some spots, and I usually have to brush the remaining ash into the holes with a grill brush or paper towel.
Then take a bucket of warm, soapy water (I used Dawn) and scrub the bowl. If stubborn residues are found, use a steel wool swab.
Wipe off the soap with a damp cloth and resist the urge to get your grill “perfectly clean”. You’re just going to dust it up again and it’s clean enough.
Show me some love outside
I don’t know what your outdoor environment is like, but mine contains a lot of dust and pollen, and these substances love to accumulate on my lovely charcoal baby. A Swiffer or microfiber cloth is usually enough to give it a look, and a little glass cleaner is all it takes to give it back its shine, and I really love the way it shines.