Cleaning the inside of the center section and lid


 
Sean M.

Sean M.

TVWBB Fan
Hello
I am starting to get a flaking on the inside of my 18.5. I have had this for 12 years and never really scrubbed it.
What is the best way to knock this down?

Wire brush?
High power water (car wash)?

How clean does it need to be?

I looked around on all the resources, and could not find an answer.

Thank you.
~ Sean
 
You can get the flaking to come off with a sturdy wire brush. There's no need to remove anything more than that...unless you really want to. If that's the case, scrub it down with the brush to remove all the loose material and then give the interior a good coating of oven cleaner. This will loosen the baked on material and you can then scrub that off with a synthetic scouring pad. Rinsing with a pressure sprayer will get you the rest of the way home.

But, like I said, you really only need to remove the loose, flaking material with a wire brush.
 
Ditto Chris / Enrico.

This morning I cleaned the charcoal bowl of my 14.5, after a pork shoulder cook yesterday. Quite a lot of drippings found their way there. After discarding the ash, and scraping with a plastic putty knife the majority of the drippings, there was still a film of grease in the bottom. Got a couple of scoops of the ash and threw it over the greasy areas, & left it for 5 minutes. Perfect. The ash soaks up the grease and it can be brushed out with a paint brush. No water, no mess.
 
I recently "wiped" the lid out using a scotch brite no scratch pad. Worked great!!! Also seems to work well on the cast iron.
 
You could always remove the water pan throw some wood (5 to 8 larger chunks or so) on hot coals and leave the door and lid off. It will convert the gunk to flakes. The just brush them off with a grill brush. It's also a good time to put both rams on the bottom support and burn them off.

Also if you have a little breeze point the door in to the wind slightly off center. It will make a neat fire tornado inside the body. I'd remove the silicone temp probe grommet if you have one.
 
Last time I reduced the gunk, I used the thin end of a cedar shingle.
It has a little flex and conforms to the curvature inside and will not scratch the porcelain
Set it on top of some news paper to catch the crud and protect the edges of the mid section - when done, roll it up & toss it

Except for the time where I let it go W-A-Y-Y too long between cleanings and had moldy gunk inside.
That time, it got the full scrubbing with a brush and dish soap after the initial scrape-down.
 
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