Are you still worried about cleaning your offset smoker but haven’t found the best way? Do you want to know the more effective cleaning method for grills and offset smokers? Or you want to clean your offset smoker in a short time and looking for the best method for hassle-free cleaning. Read the article to find the best way to clean offset smokers.
Many people spend a massive amount of money in buying smokers, and they want to purchase reliable and durable smokers that they can use for a long time. A smoker’s lifetime can also be enhanced or maximized by proper care and maintaining its cleaning before and after use. If the smoker is dirty, then food smoked by it will be unclean, unhygienic, and tainted.
The dirty smoker can also cause embarrassment for you in front of your guests. Also, if you do not clean your smoker properly, the residue that remains in the smoker will damage your smoker, and the metal may break down. So it will be a good idea for you to read the information about the best way to clean offset smokers before use so that you can enjoy seasoning, smoking, or grilling without the hassle of cleaning your smokers.
The Amazing Hack: A best way to clean offset smoker:
Cleaning your offsets smokers is essential for visual glamour, your healthiness, and care, but it also extends the life of your offset smoker. You can clean your offset smokers by using sturdy Aluminum foil. It is a hack that you can use for cleaning smokers because, in this method, you don’t need any special grilling tools or brushes to clean your smokers used for smoking. Clean out the ash from the firebox by putting out an ash pan if your smoker has one. You should also check that your firebox is empty and no ash is already present in it. By doing so, you make sure that the smoker has maximum space to add woods. So, you can enjoy your seasoning or smoking for a couple of hours by adding more wood chips in the firebox once.
If the firebox already contains ash and you haven’t cleaned it after seasoning, then it can become problematic for you at the time of your following seasoning. Because you have to clean it first before your subsequent use otherwise, there will be little space for adding wood to smoke your meat, chicken, vegetables, or many other dishes. Due to this, you have to add more wood chips to your smoker after a short time which can be challenging for you. So it will be better to clean your firebox first.
Put out the cooking grate of your smoker. Make a ball or roll of aluminum sheet and scrub the cooking grates of the smoker with this rolled sheet of aluminum foil. The aluminum sheet will easily remove grease spots and food remains from your smoker. After that, sweep out the remains from the smoker, if any are left. Stubborn gunk inside the smoker can be removed or dislodged using a putty knife. Most of the offset smokers available in the market come with stainless steel or chrome-plated cooking grates. These materials are easily cleanable thus making your cleaning easier.
Most defensive method:
This method includes cleaning your wood-burning offset smoker or grills before every smoking session. This method will help reduce the effort of deep cleaning of offset smokers, which might be difficult for you, and you must have to do it every smoking season to make smokers’ performance better.
In the first step of cleaning, empty the firebox of your offset smoker by removing the ashtray from the smoker and tipping the remaining ash into the basket. After that, remove the cooking racks to clean them. It is crucial to clean the cooking racks of an offset smoker because you place your food directly on the cooking grate. You can use different high-quality wire brushes or other tools to clean the cooking grates before each use and after cooking.
For easy cleaning of racks, apply a BBQ degreaser and leave them in hot water for about 5 minutes. After that, you can clean grates easily with a simple wire brush. Food and grease debris can be scraped out using a wire brush. BBQ degreaser makes it much easier for you to clean cooking racks. Another precaution that you can follow is to preheat the cooking racks of your smoker to avoid sticking food on them.
Another thing that you can use instead of a barbecue degreaser is oil. You can dip a piece of cloth in oil and slide it over the cooking grates. It will also prevent your food from sticking on racks. If you do not remove remains from the cooking grates for a few days, it will become difficult to clean them quickly, showing the importance of a consistent cleaning of your smokers.
Outdated or Traditional Method:
In this method, take hot water in a bowl and regular dish detergent used at your home, along with a Magic Eraser sponge or any aluminum foil. Now add dish detergent to the bowl of hot water and mix them. When detergent is entirely mixed in hot water, then dip the magic eraser sponge in the mixture and scrub your smoker with it.
To make your cleaning process easy, you should soak the cooking grates of your offset smoker in hot water. You can wash them in the sink. If the racks are more extensive than the sink, then you can soak them in a bowl with hot water. After soaking for a few minutes, scrub them with this dipped eraser sponge. Everything will remove easily.
Most people avoid using an eraser sponge because they think that the abrasive surface of the sponge may damage their smokers, but it’s not true. In fact, the use of sponges makes cooking grates shiny and cleans them very well. Before cleaning the cooking grates make sure that they are cold for your safety. Also, check the firebox is empty before cleaning your offset smokers.
After scrapping with a sponge, use a paper towel or a piece of cloth to dry your BBQ offset smoker. Instead of a magic eraser sponge, you can also use a towel. Dip the towel in the solution of dish detergent and hot water and grab your offset smoker and remove the rust inside the smoker by scrubbing with this wet towel. It is the most straightforward cleaning method that you can use to clean your offset smoker on your seasoning days.
Cleaning method used for your electric offset smokers:
Most people think about their smokers to be an investment of a couple of years. To enjoy great seasoning and use your smokes smoothly, you should maintain the cleaning of your electric wood-burning smoker from both inside and outside. It will also be unpleasant for you to smoke food in the presence of ash, fat, and sauces. So it would be great if you clean your smoker before smoking to enjoy the best foods with your family and friends.
If we talk about the maintenance of electric smokers, then the essential thing you have to consider is thoroughly cleaning it after 4 to 5 uses. You should clean your smokers if something is clogged inside them. When people buy a good electric smoker by spending a lot of money, they must look after their smokers. The first helpful thing you have in cleaning your electric smoker is its user manual.
Separation of parts of anything looks like an effortless job, but it can become difficult for you to place these things in their place or put them back in the exact order. With the help of a user manual, you can learn how to do this. You can also get help from the website of its manufacturer about it.
Things required for cleaning:
The list of required things for cleaning an electric offset smoker includes a grill brush, a mixture of hot water and soap, a sponge and a piece of cloth, boiled water, a bowl, and a paper towel. If you have a smoker with a glass window, you will need a glass cleaner. And for smokers having stainless steel material, you will need stainless steel cleaner also. You can also use Apple cider vinegar to clean smoker.
Cleaning process:
As you know that the cleaning process becomes more accessible when the smoker is hot, but it should not be so much warm to affect you. It shouldn’t be so much warmth that you can’t touch it. When you clean your smoker, always keep in mind that you don’t want to make it spotless. The smoking process darkens the smoker with each use. So it would be best if you tried to remove grease, oil, or remaining pieces of burnt food.
There is also a wood chip tray to load wood to infuse different smoke flavors in a portion of food in some electric offset smokers. After burning wood chips, ash collects at the bottom of the tray. Remove the ashtray for disposal of ash. After that, remove the cooking racks, water pan, and drip pan. Dip them in the bowl of warm water for a few minutes, and then use a grill brush to clean. You can also use a scraper to scrape out grease or burnt bits of chicken or vegetables. Due to the smoking process, the whole interior of the smoking chamber of your smoker becomes more greasy and sticky. It is due to all the residue left in the smoker after each use.
Scrap the rusted food and any other things clogged inside the cooking chamber, and then discard the interior with a piece of cloth or sponge dipped in a mixture of hot water and soap. Scrub the interior with the sponge. Remove all the lumps and grits from the top to the bottom of the cooking chamber. Don’t use a metal scraper to clean your smoker’s glass window if it has. A metal scraper can scratch the glass by using pressure.
Reassembling of your electric offset smoker:
When the interior of your electric smoker is thoroughly cleaned, assemble it and clean from the outside. It is effortless to clean the electric smoker from the exterior. Dip a sponge or a piece of cloth dipped in a mixture of warm water and dishwashing detergent throughout the smoker. Don’t forget to clean the door seal. If your smoker has a stainless steel exterior, you can also use a stainless steel cleaner.
Usually, detergents used for cleaning can cause dullness, watermarks, or stains on your smoker. But glass cleaner or stainless steel cleaner will recover the shine of your smoker and provide visual glamour fantastically. Keep in mind that after several uses, your smoker will not provide you with the absolute glamor that it has on the first day. But after cleaning, it will be better to use. You can reassemble your smoker’s parts with the help of its user manual. You should not close the door, left for 1 or 2 hours, and let it dry.
The alternate method you can use to dry your smoker is to set the maximum temperature for a few minutes and turn it on. By doing so, the water drops will evaporate, and the smoker will dry completely. When the smoker dries completely, let it cool down, dips a paper towel or piece of cloth in oil, and moves it over the cooking grates. The oiling of cooking racks prevents your food from sticking and, rusting can also be avoided.
Latest technology-based method:
This method is helpful for those people who are fond of smoking but do not have enough time to clean their smokers. Grillbot automatic grill cleaning robot is used in this method for cleaning your offset smoker’s grates. Firstly you should clean the firebox. Use a brush to collect the wood ash into the ashpan. And open the ashtray to turn it into the basket. While doing so, you should be careful. If the ash is not completely cold, don’t dip it into the plastic basket; otherwise, the basket may burn.
Once the firebox is cleaned, the next step is to clean the cooking grates. You don’t need to remove racks from your smoker in this latest technology-based method. Place the Grillbot automatic grill cleaner on the grates and turn it on by pressing the button. Grillbot automatic grill cleaner is a battery-operated cleaner that provides you the new facility of cleaning your grates without any effort. It does all the things for you.
Just turn it on and set the time on a timer you want to clean. You can set the time of cleaning between 10 to 30 minutes. Then close the lid of your offset smoker and let the Grillbot do cleaning for you. The onboard computer chip randomizes the Grillbot with three brushes, ensuring the full coverage of your grill and deep cleaning of each corner.
This method is more interesting for people interested in robotic things because it’s just like a robot that does cleaning for you. Its performance is incredible, and you can use it before and after each smoking session. Just turn it on and let it do its work; meanwhile, you can enjoy your delicious food with family and friends. The quick-release brushes save you dishwashers. And its easily rechargeable battery, make sure that your Grillbot is always ready for cleaning. You can say that this is the best way to clean offset smokers. It is just a great way of cleaning your offset smokers or grills without any effort.
Deep cleaning method:
Heavy-duty cleaning of an offset smoker is one of the more effective ways of cleaning. You should carry out this method once after several uses. It’s a little bit time-consuming cleaning method but not much. Firstly, remove the cooking grate from the cooking chamber and the firebox in this method. You can also use a piece of cloth or a small brush to sweep ash into the ashpan. With brushes, ash can be easily connected to the ashtray.
There might be large wood pieces or charcoal in the firebox. Collect them with your hands to prevent charcoal or wood pieces from sticking into the ashpan. Put out the ashtray and tip of the ashes into the basket. Different types of wood or charcoal produce ash of different amounts, so ash collected in the ashtray might be a lot, or it can be a little bit. Once the firebox is thoroughly cleaned, put the ashpan and cooking grate inside the firebox.
After that, use an oven cleaner if you have to spray the cooking grates and inside the smoker. After this spray, mix hot water and dishwashing bar or dish detergent. Dip a rag towel or any spare piece of cloth into the mixture of warm water and dish detergent and use it to scrub your offset smoker thoroughly from the interior and exterior also.
Also, use this solution for cleaning the cooking racks and scrub the cooking grates with this towel. To avoid using hot water to clean racks, you can clean them after smoking. You have to clean shelves as early as possible. If the racks are hot after finishing cooking, you can clean them more efficiently with a simple, soft wire brush. Heat becomes more practical for scraping the remaining food debris and makes the cleaning process much easier for you. After scrubbing, rinse off the smoker and cooking racks with clean water and finally let it dry.
Apart from this if you are interested to know about How To Use And Set Up Offset Smokers then visited our Blog category.
Conclusion:
Cleaning of smokers is essential for maintaining their shine and their performance and so you must know the best way to clean offset smokers. Rust and debris of food affect the smoking abilities of your smoker. Dirty smokers will produce unhygienic food and damage the metal of your smoker, so look after it for your health fitness, safety and prolong its lifetime. A cleaned smoker provides enchanting sight also. So you should maintain the cleaning of your smoker to enjoy great smoking with healthy food.
