The post you all have been waiting for. Pork, Briskets, Ribs, Burgers.. no. It’s the cleaning post. It’s okay, it’s been highly requested (lie), and I know it’s been keeping you up at night.
There’s a couple reasons I thought this would be an interesting read. I don’t know too many people who show what a mess it can be, and also the embarrassment of not having cleaned it in awhile. I show you it all – learn what I do, should’ve done, and haven’t done. I don’t expect anyone to copy what I do – I just hope you all learn from it. That being said, I was going to post the Trailblazer on here also – but it’s just the Bull in mini-form, so I don’t need to repeat myself.
I also don’t think I needed to put the Blackstone process in here – because you should be scraping and oiling after every use anyway – so nothing much to add. You’ll see the condition my Bull was in – and why it necessitated a post. Learn from it, my friends – do as I say, not as I do!
RecTeq RT-700 “The Bull” – Takin’ Care of Business
Go check out my main work horse: https://www.recteq.com/RT-700-Wood-Pellet-Grill
This is the main tool that I use. How pellet grills work – Real quick and dirty: The wood pellets get auger-fed to the fire pit, deflector plate distributes the heat, the drip tray keeps it “clean” and the grates hold the product. When I first got this beauty, I spent time lining the drip tray in foil. As time went on, I stopped doing so. I don’t suggest one way or the other – but I’ll say when you build up the drip tray and you blast thing to 500+ degrees (FUL) – you’re gonna burn up your flavor. You’re gonna smoke up your yard (Proof of it in the “Meat District Burger” post). You don’t have that problem if you’re swapping the foil after every cook. Pick your poison. (Bonus points if you get the “Takin’ Care of Business” name of my grill)
In this case, I regularly scrub the grates before/after each cook, but I do not scrape the drip tray. This is probably most of winter built up on here. This is the embarrassing part of the post – don’t do as I did. REGULARLY CLEAN YOUR SMOKER.
Seriously. Keep your appliance clean – Keep your workstation in working order. The smokes did just fine, but have a little bit more pride than I did. Let’s peel back them grates and zoom it in for you.
Black build-up. I don’t know how many different cooks were on this thing, but it was enough. This is the result of the meat drips, the “stay” (where it didn’t drain out the side), and then the high-temp burn. It just built up and burned – and then built up some more, and burned even more. By this time, you DID absolutely get some burnt-ass flavor. I noticed this particularly when I high-temp’d a pizza. I knew then I had to clean this thing immediately.. not so much on the low-and-slows, but definitely when maxing it out.
Once you remove the grates and drip tray, you’re left with the shell and the deflector. The deflector doesn’t take much to clean…just a rough wipe, if that. However.. you’re burning wood pellets – there is going to be some ash. As efficient as pellets have gotten, they don’t burn completely clean.
You can see above to the right – that’s the fire pit. Just above that is a good inch, inch and a half of ash build up. This should never get this high. In fact – let’s look at the basin:
Way too much ash build up. I don’t know how many pounds of hickory, oak, cherry, apple, mesquite, pecan etc wood was burned up in here, but it was bad. Also – I smoked a lot of food. This site isn’t for show, I actually did some serious work with this thing.
As far as the clean goes – I’ve seen a lot of people take a ShopVac and clean her up. The reason I don’t is probably 80% My shitty shopvac and 20% I think hand cleaning is better. I put on some disposable gloves and got in there. Hand-scooped out the fire pit, and took handfuls of ash to the trash. This is a good time to make sure your temperature probe is clean of grime. Continue around the edges, put a scrape to that drip tray on the right, just apply some elbow grease.
Sure, it’s not a shiny finish, but it’s considerably better than it was. (Taking photos with all this ash floating around wasn’t fun, by the way). When you’ve got it the way you want – don’t forget an easily missed step for you pellet poopers. Prime your fire pit. Take a 1/4 Cup or so pellets and drop them in the pit.
I don’t add any solvents, soap, or other cleaners. Hell, I don’t even add water. It’s just scooping out the ash and grime and move on. I just realized I didn’t take a picture of the finished drip tray, but this where the elbow grease really came into play. I have a pretty heavy-duty scraper I bought for the Blackstone – the one with the extra leverage button on top, so I got to scraping. And kept scraping. Once you dropped a handful of pellets in the pot, replaced the wiped down deflector, put that drip pan down – give a little more attention to the grates. You’ve gone this far, use your favorite tool and give it another once over and you’re back in business.
The biggest prank RecTeq played on its customers – the light. I found this useful for 1 cook, 2 max. The thought was there… Ray and Ron – thank you for thinking “inside the box” – but it was never going to work.
Lazy hacker tip – I used to take the guts of the RecTeq to the quarter car wash – the do-it-yourself high-powered hose spray kind – and gave it a go. You car wash owners probably aren’t going to like that I said that, but I did it. Since we’ve moved and there isn’t one local, I’ve resigned to the hand clean.
Gave the stainless steel a little scrub with that LA’s Awesome cleaner and she’s good to go. After every scrub (I know what you’re thinking – “both times you’ve cleaned it?”) – I fire it up to 225 for 10-15 minutes, then to about 450 for 10-15 minutes and then wind it down. For you gun guys, I “dry-fire” the pellet grill to make sure it’s in working order before putting it into service. Some additional RecTeqniques:
- Get into the smoke stack and remove debris. Also under the chimney, you’ll get a little bit of build up that needs attention.
- The temperature probe is on the left side when you’re facing it – give it a soft polish and make sure it’s clean.
- Test and remove any debris from your casters while you’re here. You’ve gone this far, why not.
- I like to ensure the wires in the control box in the shelf are secured. They always are, but a double check doesn’t hurt.
- If you’re running a dry hopper at clean time, clean out any dust that may have accumulated. I use a strainer/sifter when I scoop my pellets from the Kingsford Kaddy, so I try to get the dust out of there before I add to the hopper.
Again, don’t let your smoker get in the condition that I did. There was way too much build up and thus too much avoidable hazards. Having been a firefighter for nearly a decade, you’d think I know better. Also having fought fires is why I can’t sleep well when I let a brisket go overnight. MrsForensicBBQ found this out the first night we spent together I think. She knew what she was getting herself into.
The Arsenal – Tools of the Trade
I’m curious to what y’all use to hold all of your utensils. I found this cheap ol’ outdoorsman’s trunk at Home Depot on sale, and thought it’d be perfect. It kept the garage (kinda) clean so MrsForensicBBQ didn’t have another reason to berate me and kept everything in one place. I would love a nicely organized cabinet or something – but I don’t know anything like that that’s been built (Million dollar idea).
The first thing I did was transfer it all to another container and cleaned the hell out of the trunk. It wasn’t terrible, but there was some dust, some food bits (meaty bits!), loose disposable gloves, foil balls – you name it. If it’s been awhile and holds a lot of stuff- it has things you don’t want in there. You’ll see my old Fire glove in the top left of that picture. I wouldn’t advise using the same glove you put structure fires out in to also handle your cooks – but it’s been awhile. And them gloves were expensive – ain’t gonna let them go to waste.
Here’s a quick snap of some of the tools I have in there. From what I can tell – I got an infrared temp gun, butane torch, burger paper, tenderizer, some cedar planks.. potato corks – what a hodgepodge of tools. Have and not need, need and not have, right?
So I attempted a minor organization, but we all know how long that will last. I have a pile of spatulas and tongs, more than I need – but it does help. When I first got my smoker, I bought a nice looking “suitcase” of tools – and that quickly got tossed out. I’ve worked out the essentials real quick – then it went towards the specifics. Got some freebies along the way. A lot of gifts, which is always appreciated. Bonus points if you spotted the Chuan and Hoak and knew exactly what they were called. I’ll tell you what I use the most in no particular order:
- Okay, this one is in definite particular order: A Thermapen. I have both the classic Thermapen and the Thermapen IR, and they’re magnificent tools. I use the probes built-in the RecTeq, I have an InkBird, but nothing beats the Thermapen. Check them out there and don’t settle for anything less: https://www.thermoworks.com/shop/products/Thermapens
- Heavy-Duty Sturdy tongs. When you’re flipping ribs, you want a long set – but also sturdy.
- Spatulas/Flippers/Turners – Have a couple on hand for when you’re moving large meats – Briskets, Butts, etc. Start cheap if you must, but you’ll quickly turn to quality.
- If you’re Blackstone’ing, have a solid SET of these spats/turners. That stubby you see on the right in that last picture.. is a workhorse. Your long flat spats are fine for light foods, but when you’re smashing a burger – surface isn’t as important as strength. Have a selection to choose from.
- Lastly, if you got yourselves the GrillGrates – Make sure that branded spatula is your next purchase. I don’t know if they come with them – I spent a couple grand on the mega RecTeq bundle – so it came with it – but I use that thing ALL the time. It fits between the grates and makes the turn so much easier – and makes for a CLEAN flip. Not sponsored (but listening) – just a handy tip.
Let’s call it there. Hey, not your usual beautiful smoky post – but a necessary one nonetheless. A couple things you didn’t see on here – the aforementioned GrillGrates, the RecTeq Matador, my actual Kingsford Kaddies full of pellets (7 of them), my Victorinox knives, collection of cutting boards, my foil/butcher paper/glove station, seasoning rack.. I have a kitchen worth of stuff in a garage, like most of you. I had to make a website, stickers, and create a following to convince MrsForensicBBQ we needed an outdoor kitchen – and we’re almost there.
Thanks for letting me share my awful, unclean, embarrassing smoker with you all. I hope you learned to NOT do what I did. Go back to my first post – The Frozen “Meat District” Hamburgers and see what happens when you have a drip pan full of “flavor” and get the RecTeq to 11 (FUL). We’ve come a long way.
So we’re getting bigger! I’m excited to watch this site/community/family grow (Those on instagram – or who saw the last post, you saw MrsForensicBBQ’s first post! We’re growing, not like a fungus or bacteria – but like the cayenne pepper plant in the backyard.