Preparing for summer fun? Then you might be breaking out the grill again! With the weather warming up, grilling season is approaching fast and, boy, are we ready! If your grill has been in storage all winter, you may be pulling it out to find it’s a bit dirty. You’re not the only one who sometimes puts the grill away with a bit of a mess left on it. Even after a good scrub with a wire grill brush, the grill will still look a bit grimy without a deep clean. So, how would you go about doing a deep clean for a grill?

How to Deep Clean a Grill

There are a lot of steps to deep cleaning a grill, so we’ll simplify.

Cleaning the Grates

The first step to deep clean a grill is cleaning the grates. There’s a fun hack you can use, as recommended by Family Handyman, using coffee! Simply pour a couple pots of coffee into a shallow basin and let your grates soak in it for an hour. The acidity in the coffee breaks down all of the buildup on your grates easily. Then, you just need to rinse and scrub them with some soap and water in the sink. The scrubbing is much easier after the acidity has weakened and loosened the cooked-on gunk.

If you don’t keep coffee on hand, you can also clean and degrease the grates by scrubbing them with a solution made of 4 parts water, 1 part dish soap. However, without that presoak, it will take a bit more elbow grease.

Cleaning the Exterior

The exterior is much easier to clean than the grates… usually. It’s easy to miss the grime on your grill’s exterior when putting it away for the winter. After all, you’ve grown used to looking at it. However, when you pull your grill out for the spring, you might be surprised to find it’s not as shiny and clean as you remember.

Washing the exterior of your grill should generally be done with soap and water, especially if it’s painted. Just remember, don’t use anything abrasive on your grill’s painted exterior. Use a soft sponge without any netting or scrubbing surface on it. Otherwise, you can easily scratch or chip your paint and lead to rusting.

Cleaning the guts

The interior components of a gas grill can be very complicated to clean without damaging them. Certain parts aren’t too pleased with liquid getting in or on them. Plus, there’s the matter of safety and knowing which cleaners are okay to use. If you must clean it yourself, be sure to disconnect the gas first and wear gloves. Then, find a suitable cleaning solution for use with the components more directly associated with gas and fire.

Professional Grill Cleaning Services

Don’t want to deep clean your grill all by yourself? Most people don’t. It’s hard, dirty work, and it doesn’t smell very nice either. Get some assistance from Ashton BBQ Pros and you’ll have a clean grill in no time. Call us if you have questions about our services or scheduling.

Do you love a good barbecue? Is grilling one of your favorite ways to enjoy a hot meal? If so, you want to keep your grill in good shape. Nothing is worse than preparing an entire meal for the grill only to find your grill won’t start. Fortunately, it’s easy to prevent a dinner disaster by maintaining a proper grill care routine. What exactly is a grill care routine? Let’s see what’s involved.

Clean After Cooking

The #1 thing you should do to protect your grill is to clean it after cooking on it. So many people leave their grill dirty after using it, it’s shocking. However, leaving your grill dirty is the first step in a cycle of neglect. If you want to keep a proper grill care routine and keep your grill in good shape, show it some love by cleaning it.

Cleaning your grill is easy once you get used to it. Simply buy a metal brush, let any food on the rack cook off, then get to scrubbing at it. After removing the charred food from the rack, empty all of the ashes and burnt droppings from the base. Cleaning your grill keeps small critters from trying to get inside to get to the foods they smell. Plus, it keeps your food tasting great because each meal is cooked on fresh bars.

Oil Your Rack

Speaking of fresh bars, when you’re done cleaning your grill rack, you need to oil it. Simply get out a brush like you would use to paint on some barbecue sauce, and brush on some cooking oil. This oil keeps the pours in the rack metal moistened and sealed. This prevents rust and also ensures food cooked on your grill doesn’t taste like metal.

Cover Your Grill

Next up, protecting your grill from the elements. If you don’t have a grill cover, or something that can work as one, you should buy one. Covering your grill keeps out moisture, preventing rust. It keeps out wind, preventing erosion. Furthermore, it discourages bugs and small animals from getting inside your grill to hide.

While storing your grill in your garage or shed may do a fair job at protecting it from weather and animals, a cover still helps. If you’re keeping your grill on a deck or patio, a cover is 100% necessary. Otherwise, your grill will break down much faster than you want it to. It’s a very expensive kind of neglect.

Always Store Properly in Winter

Likewise, when winter comes, you should always move your grill inside somewhere and disconnect any gas. The cold weather of winter is really bad for the more technical components of the grill. Leaving your grill outside years after year can have it wearing down way faster than it should. Instead, store your grill in your garage or shed. Better yet, bring it inside and put it in the basement if possible. The more temperate the conditions, the better for it. Additionally, you should always disconnect any gas from your grill when storing it, for safety.

Professional Grill Repair

If your grill is looking a bit worse for wear, professional grill cleaning or repair may be the answer. Fixing the wear and tear yourself may be an undesirable pain. However, having someone else get the job done can give you a fresh start, allowing you to begin a grill care routine to prevent future damage. Give us a call at Ashton BBQ Pros if you have any questions about our services.

Owning a grill means a lot of happy evenings gathered with friends and family. However, upkeeping a grill can come with some real head-scratchers. For example, you might find the inside of your grill is peeling. What does it mean? Is your grill getting damaged? Let’s find out why your grill is peeling inside and how to fix it.

Is a Grill Peeling Inside Cause for Concern?

If you see the inside of your grill peeling, you might be quite alarmed! Is your grill sustaining damage from the heat of the flames? Is this a vital lamination peeling off? Worry not. The peeling isn’t from the grill; it’s from the food! That is, your grill doesn’t have any paint or lamination on the inside. The stuff you see peeling – that looks remarkably similar to paint or sealant – is actually carbonized grease. It’s pretty harmless.

What Causes a Grill Peeling Inside?

So, carbonized grease: what causes it? Well, while you’re grilling, a lot of smoke and fumes collect in the lid of your grill. In the smoke from your cooking food, there’s aerosolized grease and carbon. Over time – and many great cookouts – your grill forms a layer of this grease and carbon, and the two harden together. As they harden and repeatedly cook, the grease carbonizes. The layer can begin to bubble or peel.

While this layer of bubbling, peeling, carbonized grease may look and feel like flaking paint, it’s not nearly as dangerous. It’s actually completely harmless, even if it gets in your food. Though, your food may not taste as nice with charred grease flakes added to it for seasoning!

Removing Carbonized Grease

If you’re not a fan of that crispy, flaky layer on your grill lid, you’re in luck. Carbonized grease can be removed fairly easily with a little elbow grease.

1. Using a steel-bristled brush, scrub any loose bits of carbonized grease from the inside of your grill lid. You should be able to remove most of it with this brush alone.
2. If the brush isn’t cutting it, get yourself a scraping tool and get a bit more aggressive. There may be some particularly tricky spots that you have to fight 1-on-1.
3. Finally, to finish the task, use some grill grate cleaning fluid and give your grill lid a final scrub. This will loosen any remainders and collect any of the carbon dust left on the lid.

Full Service Grill Maintenance

If you’re not finding that bubbly, flaky mess to be particularly appetizing, but don’t find the work to be either, get some assistance from the pros. Ashton BBQ Pros do full service grill maintenance and can come right to your home to get it done. Your grill will be in perfect working order – sans grease flakes – in no time. Just give us a call and we’ll work out a good time to pay you a visit.

As summer comes to a close, so does grilling season. While some of us will grill into the fall, winter will eventually arrive and force us all to put our grill away for a while. However, some people aren’t in the habit of storing their grill, or cleaning it before doing so. BBQ Pros are here to offer you some unsolicited, but very valuable, advice. Here’s why you should clean your grill before storing it.

Prevent Bacteria Growth

The same way you wouldn’t eat meat that had been sitting out for months, you shouldn’t consume old grease or other remains from the meat you’ve cooked. The reason being, bacteria really love meat and all things pertaining to meat. If you grill up some burgers and leave your grill covered in hamburger fat, that fat will harbor tons of bacteria and allow it to thrive. Leaving it to grow and thrive for months while your grill is in storage is a no-go. Clean your grill so that it’s ready to use when you pull it out again.

Stop Grime From Hardening

While bacteria growth is unpleasant to think about, it’s not likely to kill you if you’re heating your grill to hundreds of degrees fahrenheit anyway. What you will die from is regret when you take your grill out months later and find the grime on it has hardened like cement. Good luck getting it off now!

If you want to prevent your grill from being permanently coated in charred-on food, get the remains of your grill session off before putting the grill away. This is true of every night you grill, even if you aren’t putting the grill away for the winter. Just like the food on your dinner dishes, it’s much easier to get off before it’s had time to set.

Prevent Rusting

The winter is a great time for your grill to rust. It’s left alone, everything is damp, and you’ve got your back turned for the holidays. If you don’t properly clean your grill, there’s even more opportunity for it to rust, as it’s not been properly prepared.

Before storing your grill each month, you should do a deep clean, then brush the metal grate with oil to protect it from the cold and moisture. This is good practice between uses as well, as it prevents rusting. Furthermore, it will keep the grate seasoned and keep food from sticking during use.

Keep From Attracting Pests

If you think bacteria enjoy bacon grease, you can imagine how bugs and mice feel about it! Always empty the contents of your drip tray before storing your grill. The charred remains on your grate along with the grease and bits of food in the drip tray are mighty alluring to a pest. Free food in winter? Yes, please! Prevent pests from getting into your grill by removing all food particles from it.

Professional Grill Cleaning Services

If you’re ready to hang up your apron as well as your grill brush, we can do the dirty job for you! BBQ Pros offers grill cleaning services to all of Toronto. Let us know when you’re ready to turn your grill in for the winter and we’ll get it ready to store. Just give us a call and we can discuss the details.

Winter is over, and as the weather starts to get better, it’s time to start thinking about BBQ cleaning in Toronto. When you’re doing it yourself, you could end up trying lots of different products before you find one that does the job. Along the way, there are certain cleaning products you should steer clear of. In this post, we’ll tell you what they are.

Products to Avoid When Cleaning Your BBQ

• Pressure Cleaning Cans – Using pressure cleaners might seem like a good way of removing grease and grime for your BBQ. In reality, it’s a terrible one. This is because it can do more harm than good. Using pressurized air in this way doesn’t remove grease. Instead, it simply moves it around. This causes it to end up in hard to reach places. Later down the line, it could mean your BBQ needs professional maintenance.
• Wire Brushes – Cleaning brushes with wire brushes should absolutely never be used to clean a grill. If you do, you could end up biting off more than you can chew. The wire bristles can break off and stick to the grill. From there, they can be easily transferred to food and be eaten by unsuspecting BBQ guests. This can cause choking, pain and severe discomfort. In cases when they can’t be removed, surgery may even be required.
• Corrosive Cleaners – If left for too long without cleaning, BBQs accumulate a large build-up of stubborn grease that can be extremely difficult to remove. Fed up of scrubbing and scraping, some people turn to corrosive cleaning products. While these will certainly cut through the grease, they’re not suitable for BBQs. These products can cause burns if they come into contact with the skin or eyes. It goes without saying that they should never come into contact with food.
• All-Purpose Cleaners – All-in-one cleaning products often contain substances which can be dangerous. This can include ammonia, carcinogenic nitrosamines and nonulphenol ethoxylates. In simple terms, they can be harmful to your health. They can irritate the skin, eyes and throat, cause migraines, and even have implications for reproductive health. It’s best to avoid all-purpose products and instead use something that’s specially-formulated for cleaning BBQs. That way, you don’t have to worry about potential health issues as a result.

Get the Best BBQ Cleaning in Toronto

If you’d rather save yourself the trouble of cleaning your BBQ yourself, you can hire professionals to do it for you. We offer a number of services for BBQ cleaning in Toronto. The first is a basic cleaning, to make sure all of the parts are free of dirt and fit for use. For those looking for a more thorough service, we also offer an ultimate cleaning. This involves removal of up to 95% of all dirt and grease, followed by a complete repaint and polish. After that, your BBQ will be sparkling. To book our specialist cleaning services, contact us today.

One of the best features of summer is undoubtedly the BBQs. There aren’t many better feelings than cooking your own food al fresco surrounded by the ones your love, but it does come with one major downside – cleaning it. But BBQ cleaning in Toronto is incredibly important and something you won’t want to skip – here’s why.

BBQ Cleaning in Toronto – Why You Shouldn’t Skip It

1. It Will Only Get Worse

We all know the feeling – you’ve probably eaten one hamburger too many, and right now all you want to do is lay down. Cleaning the grill can’t be further from the list of things you want to do. But, if you neglect it, it’ll only get worse.

There’s no denying that – whilst it may be a chore – cleaning one use’s worth of burnt-on food is much easier than leaving it for several uses before you attempt to clean it. Don’t get to the point where you have to buy a completely new grill rack – clean it after each use.

2. Flavour Contamination!

If you’re sitting down to enjoy a hotdog cooked on the grill, then it should be a hotdog that you taste – not the remnants of last week’s cook out. Not only will it taste bad, if you’re catering for people that have specific dietary requirements then it could lead to several other problems down the line. Don’t eat last month’s food today – clean your BBQ!

3. Shorter Lifespan of Your BBQ

BBQ cleaning in Toronto is not just done to help your food taste better – it will save you money too. If you’re not on top of your cleaning, then the rust, oils and food pieces that come with using your BBQ could see your grill breaking down and becoming unusable.

Cleaning your BBQ is definitely a cheaper option compared to buying a completely new one, so make sure you’re on top of it if you want it to last as long as possible.

4. Potential Carcinogens

Grilling food on a BBQ comes with a certain carcinogenic risk. Whilst this is manageable through steps such as higher-quality meats, marinating it and grilling sensibly, a further great way to reduce the amount of carcinogens is to clean your grill.

Carcinogenic residue builds up on the grill over time, so by cleaning and scraping it off, you’re reducing the amount that may transfer over onto your food.

5. Illness

You wouldn’t eat off a food-covered plate that’s been outside for weeks, so don’t do the same with your grill. BBQ cleaning in Toronto will remove harmful bacteria, helping you prevent anyone who eats from your grill from getting sick.

Worth the Effort

Nobody looks forward to cleaning a grill, but after reading about the consequences of not cleaning, we’re sure you agree it’s the lesser of two evils. To save money and keep those who eat from your grill in good health, make sure to clean your BBQ after each use.

Cleanliness is key to keeping your BBQ, one of the centerpieces of your home, from falling into disrepair. Keeping your BBQ clean will extend its life and allow it to keep producing delicious food fun and easy. Cleaning a BBQ can be time consuming, laborious, and unpleasant, however, if it is not done correctly. Below you’ll find several essential tips of what and what not to do in order to keep your BBQ looking and running pristinely.

What NOT To Do

• Don’t Overuse Cleaning Agents – Chemical sprays marketed as BBQ cleaning agents should be avoided. Besides spraying possibly harmful chemicals into the air when used, they can severely affect the taste and cleanliness of food cooked on the grill.
• Don’t Use Pressure Cleaners – High pressure cleaning devices are small spray cans that spray highly pressurized jets of air and are said to help clean BBQs by spraying away grease. In actual fact, the air jets will simply push the grease further into the inner workings of the BBQ, gumming up the works.
• Don’t Be Rough with Your Stainless Steel – Use of abrasive chemicals or rough scrubbers like steel wool during BBQ cleaning can permanently damage your BBQ’s premium stainless steel finish. Only using soap, warm water, and non-scratch scrubbers is advisable.
• Don’t Remove the Burners – Although BBQ service experts can do this, it is not advisable for the layman cleaning their BBQ. The burners can be extremely complicated to reattach correctly, and failure to do so will cause safety hazards.

What To Do

• Turn Off the Gas – Safety is the #1 concern when cleaning your grill, and leaving the gas running is a bad idea.
• Clean the BBQ While It is Still Warm from Use – This allows you to clean off residue before it cools and hardens. After cooking, you can leave one of the burner tubes on and close the lid to keep everything from cooling if you want to come back a little later and do the cleaning.
• Use Your Dishwasher – Get more use out of your dishwasher by letting it clean your dirty BBQ parts! All parts are dishwasher-safe, and dishwashers are guaranteed not to leave chemical cleaning residue. Be sure to spray parts with cooking oil and heat them after reinstalling them.

These are just a few of the many tips that one should be aware of when cleaning a grill. All in all, cleaning can be a huge chore, and hiring our BBQ cleaning experts, available throughout the Toronto area, may be easier and safer.