Spring Cleaning!

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okjsmoker

StickBurners
Original poster
Jun 21, 2006
108
13
south central Kansas
Hi all, Spring has sprung... well almost. I decided I need to give my smoker a good cleaning, Ive never really cleaned it out before since it has always drained well. But I noticed that on the last few smokes that the drain plugged up.

So I broke out a couple different sizes of putty knives and got to it. There was quite a bit of sludge in the bottom, ended up filling a 2.5 gallon pail. Took a good hour to get it all scraped out.

When it was all said and done, I looked like a chimney sweep, should have worn gloves for sure. Now I have black stains on my hands that wont wash off.

Ive got 80# of brisket and 10 racks of spares just waiting to be smoked, Before I smoke them Im going to run a hot fire for about an hour to help any remaining grease liquefy and drain out. Now Im good to go!!!
 
Yea I would re-season it too why you have scrapped off all the old flavor makers. Then you have one heck of a smoke to get into also. Please don't forget the Qview.
 
One thing I have found works really great for removing the grease from something like that is Dr. Bronner's Hemp Soap.
http://www.drbronner.com/

That stuff is amazing AND doesn't contain any of those terrible chemicals that most soaps contain.
 
Even though I scraped off all the gunk, It still has a nice layer of grease on it, I didnt use any cleaners on it at all. Im thinking I can just run it nice and hot for an hour to burn it out and I will be good to go.

That bucket of "flavor makers" sure did stink, real pungent stuff. Time to start some new layers of flavor makers.

From now on I will make sure the drain stays unclogged.

Oh I almost forgot... I went to a restaurant supply place today to pick up a steam pan, I will be using it as a water pan placed right up next to the firebox. I had one before but it was just plain aluminum and after a bit it would develop holes. Thr steam pan is Stainless so it should last a long time. I will have to get some pics of it.

Didnt get any pics of the cleanout since my hands were black, but yeah gonna do some Qview on the big smoke coming up hopefully thins weekend.
 
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