Cleaning smoker for inspection?

[SmoothBoarBBQ]

Hey All,

So I'm getting my first inspection on my food trailer tomorrow. I've been cooking everyday for about 8 months now, but somehow they just forgot about me. So I'm giving my trailer a solid clean and I'm wondering how much time I should devote to cleaning the smoker. It's a large hog-style smoker where the grease drains out the bottom, but unfortunately there's quite a few uneven spots where the grease clumps up.

In your experience do they have you pull the whole cooker apart and inspect everything like they do inside the food truck / food trailer? I clean it out every week but it's never going to look as good as it did when I first got it.

Any other advice or particular areas to give extra attention to would be appreciated. I work on a Marine Corps base so the people inspecting it are called Preventative Medicine and the Army Veterinarians.

[HBMTN]

I've never had an inspector dissect a cooker but they do look inside. Nothing cleans mine better than bring it up to 300 degrees and then hitting it with a garden hose and closing the lid to let it steam. Repeat that two to three times and she is in great shape!

[SmoothBoarBBQ]

Originally Posted by HBMTN

I've never had an inspector dissect a cooker but they do look inside. Nothing cleans mine better than bring it up to 300 degrees and then hitting it with a garden hose and closing the lid to let it steam. Repeat that two to three times and she is in great shape!

Thank you very much for the feedback. That's exactly what I've been doing all afternoon, so I should be good to go.

[SmoothBoarBBQ]

Passed my inspection with a perfect score. I was nervous as all hell but things are good to go. Thanks for the advice HBMTN...exactly what I did and it worked out well. Smoker is huge and a pain to break down and clean, so this was a good way of getting it super clean in a short period of time.

[HBMTN]

Originally Posted by SmoothBoarBBQ

Passed my inspection with a perfect score. I was nervous as all hell but things are good to go. Thanks for the advice HBMTN...exactly what I did and it worked out well. Smoker is huge and a pain to break down and clean, so this was a good way of getting it super clean in a short period of time.

I use a pressure washer and it does on an even better job but a garden hose works well too. Glad ya passed!