Barbecue aficionados and owners of gas grills, do you clean your grill down after every use? I don’t mean scrub the cooking grates. I mean, do you remove the cooking grates and wipe down the flavor bars, the burner tubes, and replace the grease tray after every use?
Because I don’t.
You don’t need to, right?
That seems like a lot of useless busy work. After all, fire is the ultimate cleanser. Any food that sticks to the grill during cooking will be incinerated off, and you only need to scrub its cremated remains off with a wire brush.
Worried about bacteria and food poisoning? No problem! Fire is a great antibacterial.
Leftover hunks of your last hamburger stuck to the cooking grates? Crank the gas up to 11, come back after ten minutes, and it’s like you’re working with a brand-new grill. This is how self-cleaning ovens work, after all.
This is how I’ve always cleaned my grills, and no one has ever gotten food poisoning, so what more could you want?
Recently, my wife watched a YouTube video that said you needed to clean your gas grill after each use to prolong its life. I said that’s like washing your car every time you use it. Sure, it will prolong the life of your car, but who wants to spend the next 30 years washing it every day?
But she’s undeterred.
I’m giving my gas barbecue grill to a friend, and I’m considering getting a small charcoal grill, as I have been a gas passer for the last 30 years. Not like that.
My dad taught me how to grill using charcoal, but I got my first gas grill shortly after I got married because I liked the cleanliness and ease of use. Also, I got it for free, and free always burns cleaner than paying for it.
The great thing about gas is there’s no mess to clean. No dumping fluffy ash into the garbage. No wind kicking up as you pour the ashes into the bag. Or the bag folding in on itself and spilling the ashes onto the ground.
Also, you are not supposed to dump your ashes until they have cooled for at least one day, or the can will get stolen. This happened to me once.
One summer day, many years ago, we'd had a small fire in one of those portable fire pits in the front yard. When we were done, we let the fire go out and went inside. Several hours later — it was many, many hours despite what my family claims — I dumped the barely-warm ashes into a plastic garbage can near the side of the house and went inside.
The next morning, I came outside, and the garbage can was completely gone. The only clue was a perfectly round, burned circle where it had been sitting.
The answer was obvious: Neighborhood teens stole it.
I could imagine it: There they were, cruising around in a stolen car and smoking when they spotted the garbage can and decided to steal it. They paused only to set the grass on fire with one of their cigarettes. Then, they stamped it out and took the cigarette butts with them.
This is the only possible explanation I will accept at this time. Don’t come at me with your crazy ideas of the coals still being hot and setting the can on fire. That’s utter nonsense. However, it’s a good reminder about why you should use a gas grill: teenagers are less interested in stealing a 100-pound gas grill.
Now, I’m sure there are many charcoal aficionados who will swear by charcoal and say that there’s nothing better than a burger fired over an open flame. And that cooking with gas just isn’t true grilling.
I don’t disagree, but then again, you’ve never had the wind blow charcoal ash onto your sweaty body. That only needs to happen once, and you’ll be a gas passer for life.
The only downside with a gas grill is the possibility of a grease fire. What happens is that as you cook, the ash builds up in the recesses of the grill — the parts my wife says you’re supposed to clean every time. That caked-on ash soaks up new grease like a sponge. It slowly incinerates and the ash cakes get bigger, and soak up more grease, until one day you’re in danger of scorching $200 worth of ribeyes because your grill caught fire like a 1970s disaster movie.
At least with a charcoal grill, you’re dumping out each day’s grease, so you’re less likely to burn the grill down.
Which, I guess, does mean you should probably clean out your gas grill more than once every five years.
After all, you don’t want teenagers to steal it.
Photo credit: Mroach (Flickr, Creative Commons 2.0)
My new humor novel, Mackinac Island Nation, is finished and available from 4 Horsemen Publications. You can get the ebook and print versions here.