How to Clean Green Mountain Pellet Grill?: The Right Way!

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Nobody likes to cook on a pellet grill crusted with carbonized grease and spills.

Proper Cleaning of the grill keeps it in the best possible condition and enables it to work at its highest efficiency to produce the best-flavored food possible.

The cleaning of the pellet grill also crucial for safety reasons.

So, if you are an avid BBQer who owns a Green Mountain Grill, you should know how to clean the Green Mountain pellet grill properly.

Before you grab your tongs and spatula for your next recipe, you have to get your pellet grill ready.

Let’s get to know here everything about the cleaning of Green Mountain Grill.

Why Cleaning of Your Green Mountain Pellet Grill is Important?

When you cook food on your grill, it collects some amount of ash every time.

Over the period of time there is a lot of ash and grease gets build up after each use of the grill.

It affects the efficiency and lifespan of the grill. You should keep your pellet grill clean for the following reasons:

Avoid grease fire

When a fire pot comes into contact with grease there is grease fire occurs. Too much grease in the drip tray causes grease fire.

So, it is essential to clean the grease in the grease trap as and when needed.

Keep your food clean

If there is more ash gets accumulated in the firepot, there is more ash circulate inside the smoker during cooking your food.

The black residue inside the chimney also causes to ruin your food.

Keeping your Green Mountain grill clean ultimately helps to get your food clean every time after grilling.

So that the dirt inside the grill won’t be part of your food.

Maintain the good airflow

Keeping the pellet grill clean inside helps for better airflow and ultimately achieves better temperature control.

Too much ash build up in the fire-pot leads to reduce airflow inside the grill or causes more temperature fluctuations.

The proper temperature control is essential to achieve the best results with your pellet grill.

Perfect Grill Function

The dirty grill causes too many problems such as auger will not stop running, temperature blinking, grill flame out or grill catching fire, etc.

Regular cleaning ensures the proper and effective function of the grill.

How Often to Clean the Green Mountain Grill?

Regular cleaning of your pellet grill helps to achieve the best results of your cooking.

It also prevents many functional issues of the grill and enhances its lifespan.
But now the question is, how often you need to clean the Green Mountain grill?

As per Green Mountain Grill, you should clean out the grill about every 2–3 bags of pellets.

It is a good benchmark as it works for everyone, no matter how often you use your grill.

Here the only exception is storage. If you don’t plan to use it soon and put your smoker into storage for some time.

But it is a good practice to always clean your grill and then store it.

What Can You Use to Clean Green Mountain Grill?

You need certain things to clean out your Green Mountain Grill such as you to require some tools for scraping off grease, washing surface or cleaning ash, etc.

Here we are listing out to make it simple.

A brush or scraper

You can use a wooden paint stirring stick or a non-metallic bristle brush as a scraper. You’ll need small brushes to clean little nooks and crannies and a large brush to remove scaling from a wall of the chamber.

Paper towel or cloth rag

You need a soft cloth rag for wiping off and a clean white paper towel for cleaning the grease drip tray or grease bucket.

Degreaser

For cleaning the interior and exterior of the grill you need a good degreaser.

The Simple Green degreaser works like a wonder for the Green Mountain pellet grill.

As it is a non-toxic cleaner, a good option for cleaning inside of the grill.

You can also use warm soapy water to clean out your grill but the degreaser works best overall.

But make sure your grill cooled down before applying the degreaser on your pellet grill.

Shop-vac Cleaner

shop vac can easily remove ash build-up inside your pellet smoker.

If you do not have a shop vac, you can use the handheld vacuum cleaner.

Nitrile gloves

You should use the higher gauge, nitrile gloves to protect your hands while cleaning. It also helps to keep your hands clean.

Scotch bright pad

You need a scotch bright pad to scrub off the grease or dirt on the surface of your grill.

For cleaning out the grill, you do not need any fancy tools. You can use the tools as per your choice and availability.

How to Clean a Green Mountain Grill?

Before going to start cleaning your grill make sure the grill is completely cool. Unplug the grill from its power source.

Ensure there are no pellets in the hopper. It prevents the pellets from getting wet or coming into contact with cleaning agents.

Before going to start the cleaning process of your Green Mountain grill, you need to wear hand gloves to protect your hands.

Cleaning the grill grates

You need to clean the grill grates with a wire brush. So, take a wire brush to scrape off the dirt or grease on grill grates.

Take out the top rack of the grill grate. Then scrape off the dirt bottom rack with a wire brush.

Then flip the grill grates and scrape off underneath the grates.

You can also use an old camper’s trick of wadding a piece of aluminum foil to clean the grates and Gently rub it on the grates to clean it out.

If you want to clean the grease completely, you have to take out grates and place them in the dishwasher.

You can also spray the grates with oven cleaner and clean the grease.

But I don’t prefer to clean out the grease completely as the grease acts as a non-stick coating.

So, if little grease is left after cleaning, there is not much issue.

Cleaning of the Grease Tray

Like any other barbecue, there is a possibility of a grease fire exists.

To lower this possibility, you should regularly clean the grease tray to prevent flammable grease.

For this, you need to line the tray with aluminum foil or use grease tray liners.

You can use multiple sheets on the tray and then just peel one off each time you cook on the grill. It makes the process much easy.

If you are going to place aluminum foil as a liner, ensure it is at least a few inches away from the thermal sensor on the left side.

If the grease tray gets dirty, you need to clean it out. Even though there is a tray liner on the grease tray, still there is a bit of grease on the tray left.

For cleaning the grease tray, you have to take out the aluminum foil or grease tray liner and discard it.

Then spray a Simple Green degreaser on the drip tray. Allow it to soak for a couple of minutes to cut through the grease.

Fire-pot cleaning

The best way to clean the firebox is with a Shop-vac.

If ash covers the igniter fully, the grill won’t light. So, regular cleaning of the firepot is essential.

Cleaning after 2 to 3 cooks is considered as a thumb rule for cleaning frequency.

Get the shop vac and vacuum out everything inside the grill and firepot.

Don’t try to scrape off the inside wall too hard as it may cause lose the paint or break it off.

If you put your food far to the side, it leads to grease drip down to the bottom.

After vacuuming out the ash completely, you can inspect the inside of the grill whether there is any grease residue left in the bottom.

If there is no grease in the bottom, you are good to start your next cooking.

When you clean the ash from the fire pot, it is not essential to add in more pellets later.

The auger will add in the right amount of pellets in the next start-up cycle.

Cleaning temperature sensor

Cleaning a temperature sensor is very important as the dirt or grime on the temperature sensor leads to show up the false temperature.

The dirt on the temperature sensor also causes frequent temperature fluctuation and affects the function of your grill.

The cleaning of a temperature sensor is very much easy. You just need to wipe down the temperature sensor gently with a scotch bright pad and it is ready to use again.

Clean the chimney cap

You should clean the chimney or smokestack regularly as it there is build-up trapped and may cause fire easily.

Allow your grill to cool down completely. Take out the cap from a smokestack.

Scrape inside residue of the smokestack using a brush or wooden scraper. Wipe off remaining dirt and ash using a paper towel.

Clean the chimney cap using a Simple Green degreaser and a soft cloth.

Allow drying the cap before placing it back on the smokestack.

For cleaning the chimney cap wipe off the underside of the cap regularly to prevent grease drip.

For vacuuming out smokestack, take off the chimney cap and give a quick vacuum.

Drip system cleaning

Keeping your grill at level is crucial. If your grill is not at the level or leaning to the back a little bit, there is more grease trapped in the front of the drip system. Eventually, it causes grease to fire up.

Always make sure that your grill is set at a level. It also helps the sensor for even reading.

The trough where grease drains into the discharge spout is clean.

You can just scrape off the grease with a scraper inside the drip system and grease trap.

If the grease trap gets clogged, the grease gets down into the bottom and causes grease fire.

Cleaning the window

Many of you wonder, how to clean the window of the Green mountain grill?

But cleaning the window is super easy and quick. You can clean the window with scotch bright and Simple green degreaser.

Spray off the degreaser on the window and take a scotch bright and gently scrape off the grease on a window.

Then wipe down the window with a clean paper towel.

Before going to start cooking, you just have to clean the window with a scotch bright pad and degreaser so that you can keep eye on the inside of the grill.

Cleaning the interior of the grill

For cleaning the interior of the grill, you have to remove grease with hot, soapy water or you can use a simple green cleaner.

You should keep any liquid away from the auger tube and the pellets.

Instead, you can turn the grill on at 500°F for an hour or more as it bakes off most internal residues.

Cleaning the exterior of the grill

Spray the degreaser on the exterior surface and underneath the grill. Wipe off the cleaner using a clean paper towel or rag.

Repeat the process once more to removing off remaining grease or smoke.

When you are using a cleaning agent you are required to do a burn-off.

There is a 30-minute cook with 350 degrees recommended. It will help to cook off the odor of the degreaser.

Clean the grease bucket

You can clean the grease bucket by scrubbing the grease with a wooden scraper. Don’t use a nylon brush to scrape off the grease as it becomes too much messy.

Empty the grease into the container. You can throw it into the trash.

You should not pore directly to the drain. Ensure the grease is cool before discarding as it is flammable.

After discarding the grease from the bucket, you can also clean it with cleaner or soap and water.

It is best practice to use a drip bucket liner or make your own with aluminum foil. It makes a clean process easy and fast.

Maintenance Tips for Green Mountain Grill Care

1.Clean the fire pot on regular basis.

2.Don’t leave the pellets in the hopper or auger tube if you are not going to use your grill for more than a couple of weeks.

3.Remove grease or food particles on regular basis before storing the grill.

4.Cover the grill with a weatherproof cover to protect from environmental conditions. If you keep it covered for a long time, check for condensation and dry it off as needed.

5.If you notice peeling paint on the grill, fix it immediately to prevent the grill from rusting.

6.You always use high quality pellets as high-quality cooking pellets are made from 100% wood.

It will produce less amount of ash. So it helps to keep your grill clean longer.

7. Avoid using water inside the grill for cleaning as most of the components in a Green Mountain grill can get rust. You can use the water only when you remove the grates.