Grease maintenance and cleaning on large brick pits

[waterman7474]

Those of yall that have one, or have had experience with one in an establishment that runs a fair bit of volume through them, I could use your input.

I am looking at purchasing an old bbq restaurant of sorts in central Texas that has two large brick/stone pits. Both are large (25 and 30ft), 4ft across with double sided, counter-weighted lids, were built in the 60's and 70's and even thoough they have been idle for the better part of 15 years, they have been taken care of and are in fantastic shape. They are essentially a reverse flow where the fire "box" is at the same end as the chimney with large plates running the length.

While I am pretty skilled at most types of smokers, including large barrel types (and have a jambo) and I understand that I am going to spend a lot of time (during construction and renovation) just running wood and learning the personality of them, I really don't know much about cleaning and maintaining, particularly the grease accumulation. I metal pits have a drip/drain system but this is another ballgame.

At their height of use on their last large event, they can run 2k pounds of meat and while I doubt that I will be running that kind of volume anytime soon, I am concerned about the drippings volume, hell my jambo this weekend ran a brisket, 3 racks and 5 chickens and produced almost a half-gallon of drippings.

Do most use trays (hotel pans) or some sort of catch system?
Vacuum it out once a week?
I really don't want to deal with a grease fire or some sort of runaway grease problem.

Thanks yall.

 

[Hotch]

There are quit a few of that style pit around Texas. Most I've seen are not a reverse flow. Most are a straight draft across with the heat source at one end or coals spread across the pit floor.
A few cook in them and others use them like a warming / serving cabinet after the proteins come off of a traditional pit or rotisserie. And a couple do both. I believe Hard Eight BBQ is one of those that does both or they use a draft system.
I am by far no expert on this, just my observations over the years.
Would be better to see a picture or two of the actual pit and fire location.
Good luck with your new venture. Where about in Texas will it be? :mrgreen:

 

[waterman7474]

I'd rather not say where it is just yet as I'm still negotiating funding and don't have the property locked up yet (if someone recognizes it, please keep it to yourself...).

I'm not as worried about it's operation as it worked fine for many years and I'll just have to trial and error it for a while but this shows one of them.

Both are similar in design but you can see an access on the second pit in behind the one in the foreground. I can probably use that to clean out but I think we are gonna have to climb in to the other one.

 

[Czarbecue]

With a pit like that, you’ll need some sort of system to unload trays of grease and unfortunately it may be just shuffling meat around while you access the trays. What you don’t want is to clean it “at the end of the day” because you’ll surely get into grease fire territory with briskets dripping on it all day. You’re in central Texas so brisket is a must :thumb:

 

[Hotch]

I see what you were stating above.
I'll bet there is someone local you could speak with that has worked there in the past.
They would have more insight than anyone else. Or maybe you could always remove the plates and go straight draft like Kreuz in Lockhart.

Good luck, :mrgreen: