Plastic Scraper for Cleaning Q - What do you use?


 

Rick P

TVWBB Pro
Just got my Q yesterday and read to scrape it with a plastic scraper.
What do you use? A plastic putty knife?
 
I use wood shims for cleaning all my grills. Not as wide as a plastic putty knife, but works great. And, 12 for about $2.
 
I use a steel putty knife. Sure it might scratch the inside of the cook box, but who cares. It does a lot better job on the burnt on hard carbon and food.
 
That is interesting. It might be a bit wide for a Q grill though. There are a lot of obstacles inside of a Q cook box, unlike a kettle. I think a guy could just buy a $4 putty knife and grind the blade into the curved shape as well. Or not. All you need to do is get the main stuff out.
 
I made up a bowl scraper out of some scrap 1/4”oak from my buddy’s scrap bin,just roughly bandsawed an arc on one end and sanded it down to a thin(ish) edge and screwed a back piece on for added stiffness. And, something to hold on to. It’s about time I made a new one!
 
I use a 1 inch heavy duty scraper from my mechanic days, as you can see it is well worn and rounded off. I have been using it for years to scrape out my grills after bbq sauce or what ever and never caused any damage. It works great on heavy build up.tempImage1qwryi.pngtempImageTdd6Te.png
 
I've used a Bondo spreader in the past. It worked ok but not on the baked-on gunk.

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Ideally, I think you want something with a well-rounded edge to fit the contours, like this flexible kettle scraper. This one is probably too large for a Baby Q, but you get the overall idea. If the corners are well-rounded and you modify a putty or drywall taping knife and hold it at a flat angle to the Q, you won't have any problem with gouging the aluminum, especially f you use grill cleaner to soften up the gunk first.

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Today, after putting on a white shirt (not dress white but, still white) I was tinkering around with putting some ”deck stuff“ away, I started tearing the rotisserie down and putting away those parts I looked at the “daily driver“ on the ”Overperformer” and decided that it was time to clean things up inside the bowl for winter Grilling season. I ended up using a (dull) garden trowel to chip some of the most miserable hardened stuff off, there was a lot of funk but, I got it pretty well set for the “lower use” season. I’m not an over the top fastidious guy for the grill, I figure things that can survive the preheat, can go ahead and kill me.
 

 

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