Tips For Cleaning Your Smoker

You have done a few smokes on your smoker and it is time to clean it. Where do you even start? These are a few items that make cleaning my smoker so easy. I clean my smoker every 3-4 smokes depending on how long they were. If I do a 8+ hour smoke I will clean it before I do another smoke.

A small shop vac

Don’t try and just scoop out the ash and left-over pellets. It’ll take forever. This small shop vac is easily portable and will zap those right out of there for you! It will also clean up all the other ash in the smoker barrel quickly. Tip: make sure the pellets aren’t hot. They will melt through the bag.

Tin foil

So, you don’t have to do this but under my grill grate is a pan that is slightly tilted to catch grease and slid it into the grease bucket. Some people just let this go and eventually scrap it off or turn the smoker up really high to burn/melt it off. But that risks a grease fire if you leave it go to long and also using more pellets to burn it off. I wrap that pan with tin foil. Takes a few minutes to pull the old off and wrap it with new and then you have a fresh, grease free smooth surface for your newly made grease to land on. No wasting pellets or worrying about a grease fire! And yes, those can happen in a smoker. And you will know when it does by the amount of smoker it is producing. It’s A LOT.

Grill Brush

This is a topic I have seen brought up more recently because of people getting pieces of metal stuck in their food from grill brushes. I am honestly not sure how that happens because how would the piece of metal get stuck to the grate if you are getting all the grim and grease off of the grate when cleaning? I have never had this issue, so I just use a typical metal grill brush for cleaning. Nothing fancy. But if you are worried about a grill brush for safety don’t worry! They have some great bristle free options out there.

No chemicals

I do not use any chemicals. Just water and soap when needed. I mentioned in my other post some people like to keep their grill seasoned. That is what we do as well but also clean. So, we just scrap off the grate with the brush but do not wash it. That way there is still a little bit of seasoning left. But when it gets badly built up or has some bark on it or the pan underneath gets some grease on it through the tin foil, I take both off and clean with soap and water. It is so important to not use chemicals when cleaning if you have pets. At some point they may get into that grease bucket. Our dog has and though there was a good amount of puke she was fine the next day. Because no chemicals!

My step-by-step cleaning

1. Open the lid and thoroughly scrap the grill grate with a grill brush. This lets all the crusty pieces fall onto the pan below. Once the grate is cleaned to your liking remove it from the smoker and set aside. I recommend on a surface you don’t mind getting dirty because there will still be some grease on it.

2. Remove the grease pan. You may wear gloves if you aren’t into getting grease on your hands. Once removed, take off all tin foil. Wipe down the pan or clean with soap and water if any grease got to the pan through the in foil. Rewrap the pan with tin foil. I do a piece on the right side, then an overlapping piece on the left side so the grease down leak between the two pieces.

3. Remove the pot cover so you can see down into the burner pot. Take your shop vac and vacuum out ALL of the pellets and ash from the pot. Make sure you get all of the walls of the smoker too.

4. Wipe off the temperature probe and if you have meat probes plugged into your smoker those too.

5. If any grease got on the front of your smoker during your last smoke wipe that down too. Though not necessary it just helps with longevity of the smoker and makes it look nice. Honestly, I do not do this every time.

6. Put it all back together! Pot cover first, then grease pan, then grate. You’re ready to smoke! Let it run with the lid open until you start to see smoke. Then close the lid and let it get to temp. Then you’re ready to rock!