Cleaning product to clean your grill & grates?


 

Anthony@TO

TVWBB Member
First attempt at restoring/cleaning an older grill

Hi,

I recently picked up an older grill that seem to have been neglected of being cleaned for years. I was wondering if there is a miracle product that will help me clean off those gunks that's been build up for years with more ease. Rehab'ers, what do you guys use to make those older grills spanking clean again?

Thanks
Anthony
 
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A lot of people use a wire cup brush on an angle grinder for the inside of the fire box. Inside the lid, you can use steel wool for the top of the inside (it is porcelain enameled). On the outside part of the lid, #00 steel wool and simple green. Same for the control panel. Then it's just cleaning the outside and painting if that is the direction you are going in. As for the grates, what I would do is heat the grill up really good for about 20 minutes, then scrape them clean. This will get everything down to ashy, and it should clean off more easily. Again, depending on what direction you plan to go you might end up replacing the grates so in that case, you don't have to do anything to them!

Good luck,

Tim
 
Anthony, please let us know what type of grill it is. A kettle is going to be a little different than a gas grill.
 
Thyde is right on for the gas grills. And if you are just cleaning it up to use it, no need to wire wheel the inside of the cook box. I wouldn't bother to do too much work to clean the inside of the lid either. Us rehabbers do that to maximize resell value. But it really adds little to performance or life of the grill. Depending on what type of cooking grates you have will determine the best way to deal with them. Sometimes, it is just best to buy a new set. If you shop around you can replace all the internal parts for reasonable prices.
 
For a cleaning product i like simple green. I buy the concentrate and reconstitute it myself. Use 20:1 for general light duty and 10:1 or 5:1 for the tough stuff. It's very inexpensive when you reconstitute it yourself.

For my 2 grills all i used was the simple green, rags, and steel wool. And muscle.
 
THyde: Funny you should mention that. I was grinding rust on my latest rehab and three times I let out with some really bad ones. You know how the angle grinder and brush sometimes grabs the edge of what you are working on and yanks your hands one way or the other??? Well, it did it twice in a row to me and not only bent the piece I was working on by slammed my thumb each time. It was like hitting your thumb with a hammer and I didn't hold back. The second time was a lot worse than the first. Then, I forget what happened by I whacked my hand really bad while using the angle grinder and was about ready to start tossing things all the while cussing. I finally regained my composure and was happy when I looked around that there wasn't a neighbor or anyone else within ear shot. Especially the young neighbor kids. That would have been embarrassing. A drunken sailor had nothing on me.
 
Thyde is right on for the gas grills. And if you are just cleaning it up to use it, no need to wire wheel the inside of the cook box. I wouldn't bother to do too much work to clean the inside of the lid either. Us rehabbers do that to maximize resell value. But it really adds little to performance or life of the grill. Depending on what type of cooking grates you have will determine the best way to deal with them. Sometimes, it is just best to buy a new set. If you shop around you can replace all the internal parts for reasonable prices.

I agree with Bruce on that. I admit I did the whole 9 yards for my “patio queen” Syline project but only because I wanted to have some great pictures to show off and keep and a short time to cherish my dream grill before I put it in service. I am getting ready to put together a Platinum I picked up a while back. It will replace my Silver C as an everyday work grill so I can then sell off that one. I want the Platinum to look decent, but a little seasoning is actually good, and no matter how clean you get it, it will have grease and soot all over the inside in no time. Time probably better spent on flip projects.
 
With my search for a bigger grill, I was on the hunt for a Summit S670 initially. But after reading about the rust issues with the Summit, my search got derailed and I ended up with a Crown Verity instead.

The seller said it’s about 7-8 years old. This thing is suppose to be made of 304 stainless steel so I need a product to make the exterior shinny again. The previous owner left it exposed year round outside (he gave me the cover that was still folded in its original packaging).

The warming rack and grates are made of 304 SS as well but they look to be in bad shape. I took a piece of the grate and baked it in the Weber for about 10 minutes. I was able to clean off the edge of the garage for the most part, but no luck in the middle part of the grate where most of the cooking was done. Will simply green or any other product be able to loosen up that baked in gunk?

As for the internals, I would like to clean it up for some pictures so I can keep them for memories, just like Jon.
 
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Take an angle grinder with wire cup brush to the grates if they are that bad. If you really want to clean up the inside of the cook box, then you will want to use the angle grinder there as well.
 
I’m not much of a handy guy and I don’t have an angle grinder unfortunately. Hmmm...Maybe I can borrow one from a neighbor.

I took some pics but don’t know how to post them up.
 
Just use EasyOff or some type of oven cleaner. If it is really high quality stainless (which I believe the CV is like my Wolf) oven cleaner and, scotch brite pads and perhaps a pressure washer should get it presentable. Do not use steel wool or brillo pads etc. on it though. It will leave little bits of steel that will make the grill look like it has little orange dots like ground black pepper all over it
 
Here are some pics of the grill:

EL5M0j5.jpg


The grates
tyuaNkn.jpg

qy9zosy.jpg


Warming rack
2iupdPT.jpg
 
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Just use EasyOff or some type of oven cleaner. If it is really high quality stainless (which I believe the CV is like my Wolf) oven cleaner and, scotch brite pads and perhaps a pressure washer should get it presentable. Do not use steel wool or brillo pads etc. on it though. It will leave little bits of steel that will make the grill look like it has little orange dots like ground black pepper all over it

Larry, are those grates on the Wolf original with the grill?

I gave a section of the grate a good scrubbing tonight and it looks like they have seen better days. Some of the rods looked as if they were melted, have pours and noticeably thinner.
 
My original grates were cast iron and finally gave up the ghost tot he point I could not use the grill any more. Wife let me order custom grates from RCPlanebuyer (AKA Dave Santana) so they are now indestructible. In your photos those certainly look like heavy stainless grates so not sure what you're seeing about melted grates. I actually once went to look at and possibly buy a Viking grill a while back. It had OEM porcelain coated heavy steel rod type grates. That thing had gotten so hot because of a grease fire in actually melted those 3/8" grates.................literally MELTED and it even melted the heavy steel gas manifold behind the panel. It was a pie of scrap metal. Guy said "I'll come way down on price I told him he'd have to pay ME $200 to take it" LOL
 
RCPlanebuyer custom made the grates for your Wolf? How do I contact him other than eBay? I think my eBay account has been deleted for being dormant.

You can't see the pours on the 3 left rods?

Larry, how big is the cooking surface on the Wolf?
 
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Are you sure those are pores and just not really baked on carbon? I forgot which thread I saw it in but I got hold of him though the San Francisco Craigslist. Cooking surface is about 21.5" deep and 31 inches across. The grill is classed as a 36" but the actual side to side is about 31" I can tell you they ain't cheap but a good investment
 

 

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