Here is something different to chat about....question for the pro's


 
J

JimV

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Hello all.....I am back for more knowledge. I will make this short and sweet. I was prepping a 335 for delivery and had only the cooking grates to finish up which in this case were stainless steel. Lately I feel the cooking grates are my least favorite part of a resto. Done right like all of you guys do it takes probably 40 min to and hour to go from filthy with a little bit of rust to fantastic and amazing. Anyway heat tends to speed up the grill grates clean up process and today ( here comes the question ) I decided to use one of my soon to be parts grills as my heat source. So I went to fire up the grill which I have no knowledge of its history......I hook the regulator up and fire up the beat up 335 Genesis.....she immediately comes to life flame thrower style! I immediately realized woops...homeowner just slapped a reg on a NG grill. Ehhh I thought.....heck I am not cooking on this thing why not use it to heat my grates but just use it on the low setting. Even on low the flames were dancing outside of the flavor bars but yet under control. So in the end this worked very well to get my grates cleaned and I even did two sets while I was in the mood. Ohhhh...the question? So I noticed black smoke coming from the rear of the flavor bars.....red flag.....Im like how the heck is black smoke appearing from propane running through a metal burner????? I mean it looked like I was burning plastic. I put a strong fan next to the grill to blow the smoke away from me because I knew it wasnt good.......yet I should have just cut the grill off and called it a day.
So let me see if I can get the answer correct. I it possible that a NG grill running on propane will not burn " clean " or " completely " thus this is why I saw black smoke? Just how toxic could that dirty burn be?
Thanks pro's
 
LP running like that will will make black smoke and soot all over everything. Normal and to be expected
 
Do you think it was toxic to me......burning in that fashion? Just curious, cause if its bad for me I wont use the old NG to clean my grates anymore.
Thanks
 
Sure if you're standing over it breathing the stuff in. It's like anything else burning fossil fuel in the wrong mixture. Tons of CO, CO2, hydrocarbons, particulates and so on. But if you're away from it and not ingesting it. You're fine
 
Thanks Larry......I was doing my best to step in and scrape then step out. I had the fan running on high to push the fumes away. Yet another learning experience in the grill resto game.
 
JimV said:
Do you think it was toxic to me......burning in that fashion? Just curious, cause if its bad for me I wont use the old NG to clean my grates anymore.
Thanks
Click to expand...

Propane is a simple gas C3 H8 and when burnt with sufficient oxygen is a clean burning fuel leaving behind C02 and H20

If there is too much propane burning for the available oxygen you get soot, and possibly Carbon Monoxide.

Yeah, don't breathe it.
 
Thanks Dan. I think I will just retire the ole NG 335 for parts and come across a propane grill for cleaning grates.
 
I would like to see pics of your beat up 335 and the
back story. They started making those in 2017 or so.
Can it not be saved?
 
I will see if I remember to get a pic today. It has a faded hood....a small hole in the cook box from the sear station missing the box shield and of course a rotted out bottom shelf. I am finding that it is getting harder to find the 335's without cook box warping....or grease fire...or heavy oxidation.
 
I've been cooking on a Genesis 1000 all summer that had a cookbox so warped that the grates were falling into the grill. I was able to straighten it out with a pipe clamp and scrap pieces of wood.
 
Interesting. I found a pretty good donor grill but after a good scrape down of the cook box I saw that a grease fire had rounded out or drooped the cook box edge where it dumps into the grease trey. I took a vice grip clamp and thought I could just nudge it back to straight......the vice grip clamp is only about 4" wide. I gave it a little wiggle and the cook box snapped right off :( on to the next donor :( . I would definitely cook with a warped box but I dont like selling a grill with a warped box.
 
I've seen more than a few pictures of that series of grill with what would probably more accurately be called a melted cookbox. I doubt there is much of anything you could do on those. The cookbox on a 1000 series is definitely a little more robust to say the least.
 
I have seen lots of warped cook boxes on the Genesis 1000 and Silver B grills. But the newer grills are much more subject actual melting of the cook boxes.
 
Bruce said:
I have seen lots of warped cook boxes on the Genesis 1000 and Silver B grills. But the newer grills are much more subject actual melting of the cook boxes.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the left offset of the bottom pan / drip pan probably contributes to this. If a fire starts and progresses to the removable drip pan, then the flames will superheat the left side of the cookbox.

I believe that's what happened to this one.

20230908_112953.jpg
 
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