Cleaning Your Pellet Grill

I’ve always had Weber propane or charcoal. Turn it on high and brush the grates- done

I recently got a RecTeq pellet grill. It puts out some awesome food but have to admit it’s much more time consuming to clean. I understand cleaning out the ash that’s pretty easy.

I’m specifically referring to the main drip tray. So far I’ve been using a bucket of hot water and a plastic scraper to clean the drip tray between each use. Otherwise it seems to make fowl smoke from burning off all the drippings.

Am I missing something easier? How do you do it?

Totally depends on how much possum sh!t is on it.

Don’t you line the drip tray with aluminum foil? I use the wide aluminum foil so there are no seams to leak.

I have a Pitboss and as far as the cleanup on what I believe you are calling the drip try, I only pull it out a few times a year and scrape off the contents and spray it off with a hose. After each use I normally turn the temp up to the highest setting and allow the drippings to burn off. I’ve never notice a spell or taste from the burnt off drippings. Not sure on the Req-tec ( Excellent choice by the way. My next one will be a rec Tec ) But on the pitboss they have a rail system that drains the majority of the grease off into a bucket on the side of the unit. This bucket fills rather fast when doing Pork Butts

I also have a RecTeq. Line the drip tray with heavy duty wide aluminum foil. Replace it every one or two cooks.

lindyrig79 wrote:

Otherwise it seems to make fowl smoke from burning off all the drippings.
Am I missing something easier? How do you do it?

I would burn off the excess dripping after each use. I don’t think it would effect the smoke or taste on the next cooking at all. That’s what I do on mine anyway. I could not imagine cleaning it after each use. I use mine far to often

If you want to clean the outside, simple green concentrate works wonders on the grease.

For the drip pan I scrape it between cooks with a plastic paint scraper down to the grease hole and that’s it. Occasionally will line it with foil on long fatty cooks. No issues yet. For the pellets, you only need to clean out the ash every 5 cooks or so, or after real long cooks.

The foil is a good idea. Seems most issues are going from a low and slow cook then next going with high heat. Seems like you’d want to get most of those drippings out and the foil would make that easier thanks.

Pitboss specifically tells the user to NOT use aluminum foil on the drip tray. I scrape my drip tray every time I pull it to vacuum the ash out, usually after 10-12 hours of use.

A plastic scraper works great and I’ve yet to use any chemicals on my pellet grill.