Cleaning my RF Smoker

[gary s]

[h1]Cleaning your Smoker[/h1]
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When I am finished smoking, and everything is done I build my fire up again and get my temp up around 300. I leave it for a while to heat up. Then I get the water hose with my sprayer, open the lid and spray the grates and everything inside. This gets rid of the stuck-on meat, sauce and everything stuck to the racks. It also helps with the grease build up. After I have sprayed it out real good I just let it continue to burn and heat back up and give it a good wire brushing. The next day or so after the coals have cooled I clean out the fire box. The next time I get ready to smoke, while I am lighting my Coal's I take my Weed burner torch and go over the racks and inside the smoker. Helps heat it up and makes sure if anything was missed it's clean before I put on the meat. I have had a few people tell me that they never clean their smokers. Don't think I want to eat anything they cook. Lucky they have not had a fire in the smoker. This works for me, but if anyone has a different or better way I would appreciate the feedback.

Gary S.

 

[sunman76]

I brush the racks everytime but I only steam clean about every three to four smokes

 if it starts looking rough...

 

[pineywoods]

Since I don't use mine a lot I leave all the gunk and junk and grease in it when I'm done and then wire brush the grates then steam the whole inside when I go to use it again. I feel leaving all the grease and stuff in it helps keep things like the grates from rusting. I also get a lot of blowing dust around here so even if I had cleaned it when I put it away I'd have to clean it again before using it.

 

[more ice]

I raise the heat,let it get good and hot wire brush it when every thing gets crunchy. Then make it steam. Close the lid for 5 to 10 min and hose out the water pan/reverse flow plate. 

 

[dragons breath]

I with you gary s, except burning out the inside with the weed burner. Sounds like a good idea that I might try. After 3 or 4 smokes I remove the grates to scrape the reverse flow plate. It gets really burned on grime. I found that a thick build up on the RF plate will insulate the smoke chamber from the fire box. Temps go down and require more fuel with a dirty RF plate.

 

[trekbiker61]

I slide the grate out of mine and power wash it and the entire inside of my smoker.  Doing it soon after cooking makes it easier to get the burned on grease and juice off of the RF baffle and the bottom of the smoker.  The few times I've been lazy and didn't wash it it started smelling gamey sitting in the summer heat.

 

[gary s]

I forgot to mention, that when I remove my grates I do use a scraper and scrape down my reverse flow plates. Just a note when we built my smoker we made the RF plates removable.

Gary S

 

[gary s]

I am careful not to wash away everything. But over time you do accumulate buildup, this is what I wash away. If you don't get too carried away you should not have a problem removing the excess. I to am funny about bacteria, that is why I really pay special attention to my grates. The weed burner does two things. After your smoker has set for a while there is always a slight chance that you may have missed something  your last cleaning, so this should take care of this as well as getting your smoker up to temp. quicker. Again I have friends that say they never clean their smokers because they don't want to remove any of that seasonilg. Trust me there is plenty left after you clean. You can walk by my smoker any time and raise the lid and get that wonderful smell. I do know one guy who took his smoker to a car wash and REALLY cleaned it, soap water high pressure the works. even though he washed away most of all the layers of his seasoning and got some of it down to bare metal, the next time he fired it up he re-sprayed the whole inside with a combination of bacon grease and Wesson oil. His meat ( Ribs and Pork Shoulder) turned out fine good flavor. He did say he would probably not do that again. Just get it hot and use the water hose and wire brush on the grates. 

 

[ribwizzard]

I leave mine dirty until ready to use it again. I pull the grates while im preburning my fire and wash them off. As far as cleaning the cooking chamber, I use full size baking sheets to catch the drippings and just rinse them off as well.  My new build is somewhat of a reverse flow design, but instead of making a drip pan with a drain, I used a solid 1/4 inch plate and two full size sheat pans will fit on top of that perfectly.  poor a little water on them while they are still hot and they usually rinse off easily. This should keep the inside nice and clean. I dont think it will hurt the convection feature of the reverse flow too much either.

Oh yeah, I never smoke mullet or wild hog in it .