Don’t Ignore Your Pellet Grill: A Complete DEEP Clean Tutorial
Clean Pit, Better BBQ
Looking for the maximum smoke flavor from your pellet grill? Download my free "11 Secrets to Maximize Smoke on a Pellet Grill" guide.
Introduction
The Complete Pellet Grill Deep Clean: Supplies, Tools, and My 45-Minute Routine
What's up BBQ fans! Today on the patio, we're giving the Pitts & Spitts Maverick 2000 its first deep clean after about 10 cooks. It honestly wasn't that bad, but that's kind of the point—I want to show you what a real-world pit looks like, the supplies I actually use, and how to get it back to looking new in under an hour. Let's get into it.
How Often Should You Deep Clean?
If you cook year-round like I do, plan on a deep clean four to six times a year. How often really depends on what you're cooking. If 90% of your cooks are hot-and-fast grilling, there's not much fat rendering out. Pork butts, briskets, and big rib cooks? That's a lot of fat, and it needs more attention.
The Cleaners
The first thing I love about the Pitts & Spitts is that it's stainless steel, so it cleans up easily. Here's the lineup:
Zep 505 – Your new best friend on anything stainless or unpainted. It's the best degreaser I've found, and it's cheap.
Citrusafe – For painted surfaces. Any citrus cleaner is easier on paint.
Bar Keepers Friend – Phenomenal on stainless. My pots and pans are 15 years old and look new. Pro tip: buy it at Home Depot for about $2, not on Amazon.
Sheila Shine – Not really a cleaner. It's a protector that leaves a light coat of oil and makes stainless pop.
Simple Green – An oldie but a goodie. Mix it with water: 1:1 for heavy duty, 1:10 for general, 1:30 for light cleaning.
PBW – For soaking the diffuser plate. The label says 1–2 oz per gallon of water, but I'd double or triple that if it's bad and let it soak 24–48 hours. It's expensive but goes a long way. Do not use it on aluminum. I learned that the hard way on a set of grill grates.
The Tools
Microfiber rags so you don't scratch the stainless. Trust me, once it's scratched you won't get it back without a polisher and skills I don't have.
Heavy-duty scrub pads. The ones from the Citrusafe kit are like the green scrubbies on steroids.
A shop vac. Mine's a cheap Home Depot Bucket Head I bought for my Yoder about four years ago, and I just used it on my Komodo Kamado too.
A scraper, plus a drill brush for regular grates.
Gloves. The Clean Space Project 5 mil nitrile gloves don't tear, and you can get a case of 1,000 for about $89 through my link. The discount doesn't show until checkout, so it looks like $139 until then. Thank me later.
Cleaning the Inside
For a quick clean, run the pit at 450–500°F for a few hours. That takes care of the grates but not the firebox.
The grates had a light coat of oil and were in good shape, so a quick scrub did it. Seasoning is flavor to a certain extent, so I don't need them perfect.
On the diffuser plate: I used to foil it, and after a couple of years I decided it was too much of a pain. Foil keeps the plate cleaner, but you get rust underneath. Now I let it build up and clean it every month or two. To stop rust, spray a very light coat of Pam or canola oil and run it at 400–500°F for a few hours to season it like cast iron.
Keep the RTD probe clean. If it gets gummed up, it insulates the probe and throws off your actual temps.
Then the firebox. Here's my trick to avoid vacuuming after every cook: when I'm done, I leave the lid open and let it run at 250°F for about 15 minutes to burn out the firebox, then close the lid, turn it off, and let it do its shutdown cycle. After four or five cooks, there was barely any ash. A quick vacuum and it was done.
When the diffuser goes back in, set it on the ledge, push it flush against the channel, and center it. It controls heat left to right, so move it an inch and a half to 2 inches at a time, not 3 or 4.
Cleaning the Outside
Zep 505 on the lid and shelf. No editing magic—the crud came right off. The worst buildup is near the stack, and if you let the 505 sit for a minute it breaks it right down. Pro tip: do the lid first and finish with the shelf, because everything runs down.
Finish with Sheila Shine. It's like putting carnauba wax on your car—a little goes a long way, and it adds a layer of protection. Only use it on the outside.
Final Thoughts
The whole job took about 45 minutes, and that was the first deep clean. Stay on top of it and it's even faster. Whether your pit is stainless or painted, there's a product for you. And get yourself a cover: mine stays covered about 90% of the time unless I'm cooking.
If you want to see what this pit can do once it's clean, check out the video where I loaded it with six 2½ lb racks of ribs to settle wrap vs. no wrap. And if you're looking to take your pellet grilling game to the next level, check out my Pellet Grill Mastery Bundle.
Thanks For Watching
Whether you're a seasoned pitmaster or a novice, these tips will enhance your cooking skills and leave your family and friends raving about your delicious, smoky creations. Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for more step-by-step videos, and let's together become the barbecue heroes we were meant to be!
*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. You will pay the same price, but I will earn a small percentage, which will help support the channel.
