New member, new grill


 
A

AMerwine

New member
Hello, picked up this genesis gold C at a local auction. Got carried away with bidding and spent $130.00. Seemed to be in good shape and I hoped it wouldn’t need too much repair except for elbow grease.
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SS grates and good flavorizer bars, tank and cover all looked good. And a smoker.

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Started the cleaning, and scraping and cleaning. Wasn’t too bad at all, yeah. Don’t think it was used much, or better yet, was taken care of.
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Here’s my finished project. Two days to complete. Took me longer to figure out how to get photos on here! Had a heat wave in Pennsylvania and ready to grill!


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BTW, I read 38 pages of posts thinking I was going to have problems, but this grill is solid along with all the solid advice I read along the way.

BUT. As I was scrubbing the grill, I noticed that the serial number label on the frame said this was a natural gas grill OMG, now what! A regulator hose was attached along with a propane tank. So back to the forums I go, looking for answers. Was this grill properly converted at one time?

This is what I did, fired it up, checked the flames, looked good. On high it went to 500+ no problem. Turned it to medium, went to 400 and stayed there. Turned to low, 300 - 350. Did not take out manifold to look at it.

I’m hoping this grill is OK, let me here your thoughts.

Thanks,
Annette
 
I think if the conversion was improper, you would have been at MUCH higher temperatures. Propane burns hotter per unit volume than natural gas, so you need a smaller volume of propane than natural gas to produce the same amount of heat.

End of the day, your temps sound good and I think you should be OK.

There are others here who are much more expert than I, although I did convert my propane to NG thanks to a manifold provided by a very helpful forum member!

If you REALLY want to be sure, you can look at the orifices in the manifold, but again with those temps it sounds good to me.

Now go grill! I'm doing some sausages tonight in Pennsylvania, we had 80 degrees today!
 
It looks like you have a good base to work with there. Don't sweat the NG vs Propane thing. I am sure it was converted at some point. I had one of those last year. If it fires up and the flames look good, then you are good. Good luck and make sure you post some good before and after photos of that bad boy.
 
Really nice grill. I think $130 is reasonable given that it's in such good condition. It's much better than anything you could buy new for under 200 bucks and probably better than any newer grill period.
 
Welcome to the Forum:D! You did a great job and have a very sharp grill. I think well worth it for the extra nice condition. I wholeheartedly agree with Greg that you have a WAY BETTER grill than anything you could buy for $200 - or even a good bit more - at one of the big box stores.

Enjoyed your pictures. Now let's see that smoker box in action cooking something really good:wsm:!
 
Thank you for everyone’s vote of confidence. My previous Weber spirit was lost in “The” divorce. Been using a crappy $100.00 grill from Walmart that was given to me. I’ll be glad when that thing goes out in the trash!
Going to the local Weber store to pick up a grease catcher tray and look into a better grill cover. The one that came with it is very stiff and split in a couple spots. Not sure what I’ll find that will fit the extra length of burner. I’m going to need something to hank the tank on. Just some type of angle iron hook thing. I’ll just roam the isles of the hardware store looking for something.
As far as the smoker, I’ll give it a try. It does take up the grilling area.
Thanks again,
Annette
 
The issue you have is like mine (almost same grill but w/out side burner). LP is run at higher pressures 11" WC vs 7" or less with NG and carries more BTU per cu ft. So orifices on NG manifold are larger than LP manifold. The other issue is inside the valves. The low and medium openings are larger on NG vs LP. So was your grill properly converted? given your posting perhaps not. The low/med temps are a bit on the high side. Though that shallow box grill tends to run higher temps across the board than the deep box grills which tend to have better overall control. Safety issue? No. Just a convenience issue. I am only running LP temporarily until I put the grill over to NG in the spring/summer while my other grills take their turns getting refurb'd Bottom line if LP is going to be your permanent fuel you might want to get an actual LP manifold. You can find them pretty easily on flea bay and such. But again you did well. Maybe just get the proper LP hanger/scale and set it up the way it should be is all
 
Yep and the fact that the grill doesn't have the hanger for the propane tank further indicates that it started life as a NG burner. Have you fired it up to see how it burns?

Oh, and rather than going to a "Weber store", you might want to look on line. I am guessing you will be able to find significantly lower prices online than a "Weber Store" and many times even lower than some of the retailers that carry weber stuff. Weber does make covers for the grills with the extra burner, so, you should be able to find either a Weber brand or off brand one.
 
Suitable covers for a Silver/Gold C

Weber 7552 = ~$60 w/ shipping
King Kong 7552 = ~$40 w/ shipping

I have the King Kong version for my Gold B that I converted to a C. It's pretty nice.
 
Here's a cover I bought for my Silver C. It is not the most elegant but seems strong. I haven't had it long enough to comment on durability. $25 price with free shipping is great, for sure.

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B01J99HV0Y/tvwb-20

The Weber brand cover can be found on eBay, usually about $60 as JKim notes. If you can get a special savings on eBay or find an anxious seller you might bring that down a little. The new Weber covers breathe better and aren't as susceptible to drying out and cracking. However, I think any Weber brand covers for this grill will be their older style which look nice and have the Weber logo but which don't like the sun over time and don't breathe as well.
 
I have a 1000 that was nat gas all they did was stick a regulator on it. When I first fired it up it went to 700 plus it was like a blow torch Jon helped me out with a manifold and the difference is amazing. Larry is the guy on the conversion here but if your in that 500 plus range maybe you are okay mine was unusable. I believe that grill had the continuous or whatever valves so the orifices only need to be changed.

Here is a trick I learned on a nat gas orifice if you have a piece of 16 gauge wire I had some sprinkler wire laying around it will fit if they changed the orifices they will not fit in the hole. Only a 18 gauge piece of wire will fit in a propane orifice.
 
Thanks again for your continued support!

The local Weber store had nothing but grills, grates, flavorizer bar and 20 varieties of brushes and such. The man who assembles grills gave me a piece of angle iron that he bent in the vise to work for the tank holder. For $2 it will work for now till I get a tank scale.

Jon that grill cover is in my shopping cart on amazon, looks good. I have a huge pine tree that drops sap on everything, otherwise the grill will be under the house overhang.
Brian, thanks for the wire tip, going to try that when the weather breaks
Larry, I have read all your posts on manifolds. You are the conversion king. Safety is my number one priority, so I’m sure I’ll have some questions when I tear the grill apart.

I have a deck project coming in the spring, before the grill has its final resting spot.

Another question, do any of you use a grill mat under your grill? I want to keep the new boards free of grease.

I will do a couple cooks and check flames and temperatures before I take out the manifold.

Thanks again,
Annette
 
Annette. I have a nice mat for my grill(s) but I have never even unwrapped it. It was a Christmas gift from two years ago. I won't put one down on my deck because it would just trap moisture under it leading to problems with mold and rot. Sure, I could pick it up each time after I get done using it, but that just ain't gonna happen. The same pretty much goes for my grills in my garage. I could use it when I grill in the driveway, but again, it would just trap moisture and I am not going to put it down and pick it up every time I want to grill.

I don't typically make a big mess when I grill and when it gets right down to it, if I drip a little steak grease or BBQ sauce on the ground once in a while...who cares.

I have my fingers crossed that your grill already has the correct manifold/orifices for propane. Good luck with your new baby.
 
To further Bruce's comment, as long as the lower pan and the drip tray are kept reasonably clean, you probably won't have a lot of drips reaching the ground. I haven't had any drips go further than the drip tray. Keeping those parts clean avoids grease fires too.

One last thing, when you are temperature checking your grill, don't rely 100% on the thermometer in the lid. I've put a new thermometer into each grill I've rebuilt, and tested them in boiling water to be sure they are close to accurate. The new ones are, but they only last so long.

OK, that is more than two cents!

Tim
 
RE: grill thermometer. I don't use any of those grill thermometers during a cook. They may be accurate, but they are not accurately giving you the cooking level temps. Your steak laying on the cooking grates is likely receiving a much different amount of heat than is up in the hood. They work great to tell you when your grill is warmed up/cooled down, rising in temp or falling, but not a great indication of cooking temps. For general grilling it is fine, but if you are doing any slow and lo BBQing that requires a small temp range, you should look for a thermometer with wired probes that you can place on the grates at food level.

A lot of these rehab grills have the thermometers missing when you find them anyway. A lot of people dont realize the thermometer on the older Silver and 1000 grills where they are mounted on the right side of the hood are easily removed. This is by design. They double as food probes for measuring the internal temp of the food you are cooking. They tend to get lost over time. I find them missing in about 1/4 of the grills I find for rehabbing.
 
I agree Bruce, but what I was alluding to is that the temps reported in the first post could be off. Maybe not, but they might be. I agree, accurate temps are important to know. It's also good to have an idea how hot it is inside the grill as you have stated.
 
Oh sure. Those therms are very prone to being innacurate. I tested one last summer. I heated the grill up and then pulled the original thermometer out and put in a different one. It was like 80 degrees different. The reason I did the test is the original had some discoloration inside the readout, so I figured it might be damaged and it was. I suspect a lot of the 10-20 year old thermometers have lost a lot of their accuracy over the years. When I rehab a grill, I always do a burn in before offering it up for sale and do a quick check on the thermometer readings. But if it looks at all close, I don't worry about it. I have had to replace a couple due to clearly being OFF. Stupid things can get expensive to replace if you have to go with new. It all adds up when trying to make few bucks on a rehab.
 
Hello again,
Picked up a new oven thermometer to do a more accurate reading. Ordered a cover also (thanks Jon).

Thinking the grill mat would be a pain moving it every time I grill. My crappy $100 grill leaks and splatters grease everywhere.

Gonna fire the Weber up next week and will let you all know how it goes. I remember to take photos.

Thanks again,
Annette
 
Annette,
Sounds really good! Maybe you can post pics of your first cook:).

I hope the cover works out well for you. They include a pair of tongs and a basting brush, but don’t expect too much out of them::rolleyes:!

Jon
 
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