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MOLD.....BLEACH......oh my!!!!


 
J

JimV

TVWBB All-Star
Hello all.....Well it is getting harder and harder to find a good pure Genesis 300 series front control to restore and flip these days. So many of them lately have been warped from grease fires or the rust on the shelf that eats through the legs etc etc. I dont like flipping a grill that I have to make excuses for. So I picked up a Geni 335 front control today for $50 in Espresso Brown. I committed sight unseen due to the good inventory around here has slowed to a crawl. She was asking $35....I said I will give ya $50...I have a truck.....I can load my self. Well that won me a mold monster. I get there and it looks great....even the grates were stainless and looked perfect. Once I removed the grates and the bars it was mold central. It has rained here in Virginia for about 12 days straight and it has been very muggy. This grill obviously has not been used for a few months and just sat with a good slathering of grease in the box and in the large grease tray. So there was mold along the bottom slanted edges of the cook box which wasnt horrific but it was there and the large grease tray was literally a science project of green spores. I was always under the impression that high heat will kill mold so I just loaded it up. So I got the grill home and was wondering if........question #1. Will working with this mold cause it to get air born and make me sick? It was stuck in heavy grease so I dont know how it would get air born. I did wear a decent quality face mask but I have no idea if it was good enough to protect me from mold. I razor bladed all of the greasy mold from the large grease tray and wiped it clean. I then followed that with a couple coatings of a bleach mixture and let it sit for a while before wiping it dry. The grease tray looks brand new at this point. As for the cook box I first removed the heavy grease and mold with razor blades and putty knives. Once I got the box 85% scraped down I sprayed it with the bleach and water combo and let it sit and stew. I then went back in for another scraping w putty knives and razor blades to get the box to 90% clean and sprayed it again w bleach and water. I let that sit for about 20 min then sprayed it with a electric pressure washer to get most of the bleach good and diluted/rinsed. Tomorrow I will get the box to its final stage of 98% scraped clean of grease and debris and probably give it one last mist of bleach and water. So finally here is question #2.......I am wondering if anybody made it this far....but if you are still here.........Do you think that a 30 minute 600 degree series of 3 burn offs will be sufficient to call this grill safe?????
 
Jim, likely the mold is not a health risk. If you walk through the woods, you are literally walking on a carpet of mold. I think you went above and beyond in your mold remediation. A half hour on full heat should take care of anything remaining. IMO.
 
Thanks Bruce. My motto is to never sell a grill that I wouldn't feed my family from. I make them safe and reliable. I have cleaned numerous mouse nests out of grills in the past and made sure those were crazy clean through high heat cycles. I appreciate your feedback.
 
Hey Cody......dang I should have taken before pics.......there is nothing to see anymore. Green/gray and fuzzy mold is what I saw. I have seen mold in many grills but never this much. It accumulates on the grease. Heck there was some mold in my big grill on my Weber cast iron skillet because I am always using my Weber Q that the big girl 335 doesnt get used much.
 
Roger that.......yep this is not that. I have seen the green or yellow dust on bars as well. Just imagine the entire grease tray looking like one of those ponds covered in green sludge
 
I am not following your last question. Just saying it was the most mold that I have ever seen in a grill. The vast majority of it was in the grease tray which cleaned up very easily. The remaining mold was in the bottom edges of the cook box which I have removed and treated.
 
Ohhhh I follow you now. Well here in Va it has rained like 12 days in a row and it has been extremely muggy. Grills tend to sweat on rainy muggy days so I assume thats where the water part of the mold happens. This is a green/gray fuzzy mold that is attached to the thick grease. Like mold on bread or cheese.
 
I am still trying to finish this grill. I only have the hood and the warming rack to go. But I did come across the lower heat shields today and snapped a pic of the mold. On these shiels its just on the edges but right below these shields the entire grease tray had this mold in the grease. See pic I have it all cleaned up now and will be doing several burn off's tomorrow.
 

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JimV said:
I am still trying to finish this grill. I only have the hood and the warming rack to go. But I did come across the lower heat shields today and snapped a pic of the mold. On these shiels its just on the edges but right below these shields the entire grease tray had this mold in the grease. See pic I have it all cleaned up now and will be doing several burn off's tomorrow.
Click to expand...
I guarantee you. If you eat any food cooked in that grill and survive NOTHING will ever kill you :D
 
Yeah. That’s pretty gross. I can deal with all sorts of nasty. But mold always gives me that, ugghk and occasionally a few legit heaves.
 
Now u guys are making me double think what the heck I am doing. For one those lower shields did not go back in the grill but I did clean them right up like new and spray with bleach and water to use in another grill down the road. As for the grill the vast majority of the mold like 90% was in the large grease tray. It looked like a flat sheet cake in the grease tray just like the edge of those heat shields. It cleaned up effortlessly as it was just surface mold on top of a layer of grease. Once the grease tray was cleaned like new again I sprayed it with a bleach and water mix and wiped clean twice. The grease tray is spotless. Inside the grills cook box had some fuzzy mold down towards the bottom of the box. I razor bladed all of the grease and mold from the box then treated with bleach and water twice. The grill has fantastic bones like a 9 out of 10 with brand new Weber Brand burners, new lower heat shields, new flavor bars, and like new stainless grates. Tomorrow I plan on several high heat burn off's at 600 degree's. Do you guys believe that the grill will be good to sell after the burn off's?
 
Ahhhhhh.........helping move back to the other direction. :) I feel pretty darn confident that nothing can survive 600 degrees for 30 minutes X 3 sets. Now that brings up another question......will my non high heat plain ole Rust oleum 2x cover paint survive these heat cycles? I will send pics of the inside of the grill so the rest of you folks dont think I am crazy.
 
If the paint is on the cook box or end caps, I would be very skeptical that it will handle that heat. If it is just on the frame, you might be OK. But, better to find out now than after a customer calls you in a couple months.
 
Ya I never paint the end caps. I just sand and paint the sides of the cook box when they looks so sloppy with grease that I just cant present them to someone looking like that. So its basically 4 or 5" of cookbox on the sides and it will get blazing hot. It has survived every time I have test run to max temp my grills prior to sale. But I have never blazed them over 600 for 30 min.......I think it will survive but it will brown a bit.....I have seen that happen a little bit.
 
Well, that is good to know that it will withstand that much heat. I would have thought that it would start bubbling and peeling by the time it hit 500 or so.
 
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