Hello Everyone,
After I came back from the VA hospital today, I decided that with all of the use that we had in the last 10 days that I would clean the Yoder. I grabbed a pair of work gloves and removed the grills and for the time being just leaned them against the bottom of the pedestal. I removed the heat diffuser and walked over to the trash can and began to tear off the tin foil. Boy, that top layer was really greasy. Then I washed down the metal and wiped it clean with paper towels. I relined that with brand new tin foil and let that sit.
I then went to the combustion chamber and removed the burn grate from the fire pot. Got my little Eureka hand held vacuum and clean out the fire pot and the main area of the lower grill and I had to empty this little vacuum 3 times. When this was done, I re-installed the burn grate and placed the heat diffuser back into position. That was the easy stuff.
Then the real work began. I brought each of the grills into the house one at a time and scoured them with "Dawn" liquid soap and a scotch pad which eliminated most of the stain from smoking. The second shelf, I really did not pay much attention as I really just wiped this down with a wet towel and then a dry cloth. I think that this part consumed most of the cleaning effort. And, then, it was simply put all the grills in place and wipe the exterior clean with a damp cloth and dry.
Oh, yes, I emptied the grease can was surprised to actually see that this had grease in it. I washed that clean and re-installed that as well. First time doing that. Put the cover on and it is now ready for the next use.
This process took about 1 1/2 hours. it could have been done more quickly, but I am old and slow. I think that if I do this twice per month, that this will keep it in premium operational condition. Do you guys have a cleaning regimen? And, how often do you perform a full cleaning on your pellet grill?
With kind regards,
Ed