Cleaning PG 500 or PG 1000

Here is what I do. I will take a putty knife and knock down the black bits on the walls of the smoker. I will then scrape any grease in the drip tray and get that all clean. I take the pans out and clean them. Scrape the bottom of the smoker with your putty knife. The fire pot gets a vacuum every other smoke so not much to clean. I will empty the hopper and vacuum as much dust as possible once a month.

I think one of the most important things you can do is take the side panel off the hopper. I think there are 8 or 10 screws. Look inside and you will probably find a bunch of dust in there. Vacuum it out and do that once a month. I didn't know this and went 18 months before I opened it because my fan stopped working. What I found was a loose wire and a 2 foot pile of dust on the housing.

I scrape my grill before every cook and wash the grill once a month. I never wash the direct side grill and I never wash the interior of the smoker. I do spray cleaner on the outside and try to get it shiny every once in a while. Otherwise, it's a smoker. It's supposed to be dank, dirty, and black on the inside. "Seasoned".

Enjoy the new deck and post pictures so we can all drool with envy.

Thanks and I will post before and after with pride.

I use a lot of foil to help minimize the cleaning work.

You can take the four screws out of the top of the firepot, pull it out a short distance and vacuum the air chamber. I do that every couple years.

I also, like MM, use foil on the grease slide and in the warming cabinet.

quote:

Originally posted by Padrefan98:
I think one of the most important things you can do is take the side panel off the hopper. I think there are 8 or 10 screws. Look inside and you will probably find a bunch of dust in there. Vacuum it out and do that once a month. I didn't know this and went 18 months before I opened it because my fan stopped working. What I found was a loose wire and a 2 foot pile of dust on the housing.

Padrefan98, I would check your hopper seams or back of auger hole and reseal as needed. After your earlier post in another thread on that, I checked my PG500 and found only a 1/4 cup or so of pellet sawdust, with my grill being about 3 years old and used 3-5 times per week all year long.