How often do you clean your smoker?

[McSpazatron]

After each cook as soon as the meat comes off I wire brush the top and bottom of the grates. After it cools off usually the next day I clean out the firebox and use a plastic scraper to scrape the tuning plates and the bottom of the cook chamber and wipe out with paper towels. At the next cook once the cook chamber comes up to temp I do a quick brush of the grates. So far that's it.

Ive settled on doing the same routine. Even though i store my stickburner inside, i dread the idea of strange mold growing. When I did a pig a couple of years back, there was some crazy looking orange stuff growing on the dirt where the fat landed. I know thats on dirt, but that at least says that fat makes great food for crazy looking mold. That's why Id rather keep the offset clean, than have to worry about disinfecting such a huge cooker. The bottom of my smoke chamber probably doesnt get hot enough to rely on heat alone to kill mold and spores.

Smaller cookers that can get sufficiently hot are a different story though. My weber kettles only get scraped out every few years. Even then, it's mostly removing carbon build up so i can free up the damper. It gets hot enough to crisp everything up real good.

 

[dport7]

My little okie joe, hardly ever. I use it mainly for smoke drying peppers and jerky.
The big smoker, that sees 10 to 15 butts and as many chickens, I wait till i'm ready to use it,
then I will pull the grates and give them a good wash. We have a "do it yourself car wash"
right down the road, so it an easy chore for me

 

[aawa]

My UDS gets the grates brushed before and after each cook while they are still hot.

The ash gets emptied before each cook.

The inside of the drum get a quick scraping about once every 4 months and a burn out once a year.

The outside of the drum doesn't get any love.

 

[NickTheGreat]

I have cleaned my WSM once fully. And a couple times after getting that nasty white moldy interior.

I scrape my grates before each cook. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Evil-g]

On my 270 I use the grill brush after every cook while warm and again as it comes up to temperature. Once a month I give it a steam bath, I get it up to 400° or so and pour water down the back chimney into the water pan.

 

[markdtn]

I do not understand folks who think that "cleaning" a stick burner is necessary...

Clean the grates after every cook and scrape the gunk from the bottom once or twice a year...

X2 I agree

 

[pitbossJB]

I am not familiar with that term. :shock:

 

[bram03]

Before every cook, just scrape down the sides and the grate

 

[HawgHeaven]

Clean is not conducive to BBQ. Chit gets dirty. Just brush it off and carry on.

 

[rwalters]

I am definitely in the scrape your grates and occasionally putty knife the walls camp. I've never had a smoker that has accumulated large amounts of gunk when performing this simple style of upkeep. With that said, I am also one to lay strips of heavy duty foil at the bottom of my smokers... makes cleanup sooooo much easier. KISS

 

[Mikhail]

rwalters, that is what I plan to start doing. Although I have found that my PK keeps a better temperature, higher, when I have an 8x8" pan of water in the cool side.

 

[rwalters]

rwalters, that is what I plan to start doing. Although I have found that my PK keeps a better temperature, higher, when I have an 8x8" pan of water in the cool side.

Although I have never cooked on a PK, I have cooked many times on ceramic kamado's. Both being nicely insulated, it should be very easy to take the temp on your PK up to 600-650 and park it there for 30-40 minutes. Doing that every once in awhile should keep it very clean... kind of like a self-cleaning oven

 

[Enrico Brandizzi]

WSM cleaning therapy:

- grates evry cook
-inside walls never. Almost never. Maybe 1 time in 2 years using aluminium ball and scraping walls gently.
STOP.

 

[Smoking Piney]

Assassin:

Grates with a dry wall knife / balled up aluminum foil every cook.

Sweep the ash out of the bottom and make sure the fire box opening is clean before every cook.