How to clean my Q100

Hello all I'm new to posting but a long time lurker. I have a q100 and the other day I made burgers and after taking them off I went inside and came back out and had black smoke billowing out. I quickly shut off the grill and realized I had a small grease fire from the burger grease. No danger or anything but the black smoke got my lid all dirty and I tried greased lightning to get it out but it didn't do much at all. Anyone know of anything good I can do to get my lid clean? Thanks guys! I'll definately start posting here I do alot of cooking on my q.

Welocme to the board Al!

A couple of members give Q cleaning tips here.
See the posts by Davo and Phil.

Enjoy your Q!

Hi Al
Welcome to the forum Mate.
I see your from San Antonio, I visited there on one of my trips to the USA and went to the Alamo. I got the shock of my life when I found my hero - Davy Crocket - looked effeminite and that David Bowie's famed knife looked like a scrap of iron with a handle attached. It actually brought me back to reality and I realised how hard it must have been for them and they were all laying their lives on the line for a cause that they so strongly believed in and supported.

Sorry I digress - back to your problem.
Can I reccommend that you clean the base of your Q regularly and empty/replace the driptray regularly as well. This will stop those fires.

For really baked on stains that I can't remove with regular cleaning products I will spray the lid with oven cleaner and let it sit for 20 minutes. You need to be careful doing this as the oven cleaner softens the powder coating on the lid. after sitting for 20 minutes gently hose off the oven cleaner - do not scrub. after you have hosed it off and let it sit for 20 minutes to harden up wipe it down with fresh water and a soft cleaning cloth. You may need to repeat the process a few times for really stubborn staining. This method is not recommended by Weber.

cheers

We had a Coleman gas lantern get out of control in the family Airstream when I was a kid. Dad tossed it out the door before any major damage was done, but the ceiling of the Airstream was blackened by the soot. He tried everything to get the ceiling clean, but to no avail.

Finally, he tried a product called "Janitor in a Drum" - full strength (it probably was supposed to be diluted something like 20 to 1) - and the stuff cleaned the ceiling like magic.

The product used to come in a green plastic bottle that had ribs around the outside kinda like a 55 gallon drum. I haven't seen it in years, but then again, I haven't looked for it.

If you can find some, it might be worth a try!

Good luck!

Pat

The only thing I can offer is brake cleaner. I've had luck with brake cleaner when all else failed. It shouldn't hurt the powder coat, but you'll want to keep it away from any plastics because it melts some kinds of plastic. You'll want to spray it on a rag first before applying to avoid getting it anywhere you don't want it. Work fast, and in a well ventilated area away from flame because it evaporates quickly.

Hi Al,
Sadly, the blackening of the inside of the lid is pretty much there to stay as the smoke and juices splashing up into the lid cavity kinda makes it's way into the pores of the cast aluminium.But that's not bad though, it's really not much different as seasoning a grill but it's very hard to get rid of. I've used a degreaser on mine and hit with a high pressure water cleaner at 1500 psi and still couldn't shift it.
I find that the lid on the Q's do stain quite readily just don't scrub the painted surfaces on top of the lid too hard or paint will peel nor put a high pressure water cleaner nozzle too close to the painted lid .

As Phil stated, every few cooking sessions, when the grill cools off, take of the grill grate and scrape the inside of the cooking bowl area with a plastic scraper (just a cheap plastic cake icing spatula will do)and scrape the excess grit into the tray area underneath and discard and replace with a new foil tray.

I also found something else with the weber Q's, and I don't know if it's because the grill bars are so close together or not but under the grill grate will need a good scrubbing when doing the qtr yearly clean-up as a lot of grease accumulates under the grill bars. I think it's when you scrape the grill bars with a brass brush at the beginning and end of a cooking session,much of the gooey grime gets pushed inbetween the bars and just hangs underneath and builds up so under the grill grate is the biggest pain in the a** job of the whole unit...the rest is pretty easy.

Cheers

Davo

Thank you guys!! I know I should clean my q more often and I will from now on beleive me. I will give these ideas a try and hopefully I can keep my q looking brand new for years to come. It's been the best gas grill I've ever owned hands down.

Janitor in a Drum is still on the market, but it's listed as "Professional Sales Only". I am sure any business could order some.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Gary McD:
Janitor in a Drum is still on the market, but it's listed as "Professional Sales Only". I am sure any business could order some. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
You can get it here, but it's only sold as 4/1 gal jugs per case (Case of 4). Little pricey but... Janitor in a Drum

i did kind of a smoke in mine first when it was new. i also sprayed it with pam before the first cook. that put a nice layer over the raw metal and so far it seems to clean rather easily. time will tell though.