Tune Up Outdoor Grill

With the outdoor cooking season just around the corner, now is a good time to give your grill a quick tune-up to keep it working safely and efficiently. Here’s a list of maintenance tips:

1--Clean the burners of grease, rust and debris. The burner openings are prone to clogging with grease and rust. This keeps the heat from dispersing uniformly and can keep it from lighting. To clean burners, first remove the grill by lifting it out. Then do the same for the lava rock tray (if there is one), which sits below the grill. Finally, simply lift the burners up off the gas tubes they sit on. No tools should be necessary. Remove any debris with a wire brush, talking care to brush particles away rather than into the burner openings. (Reverse procedure to reassemble, but first see next item).

2--Clean grease from inside BBQ. Most barbecue supply stores sell special cleaning products to remove grease, but I find that ordinary oven cleaner works very well. With grill, lava rock tray and burners removed, apply cleaner according to directions on the label.

3--Replace lava rocks if needed. If the lava rocks are covered with cooking grease, simply replace them to help prevent flare ups while cooking.

4--Tighten all fittings. Use a common adjustable wrench to tighten all gas fittings at the control panel, at the tank and at the burner connection.

“With a little time spent to keep things working, your barbecue should be trouble-free for many, many years,” said Vic Evans of Zenders BBQ’s, Thousand Oaks. “We sell many new parts to people who could have avoided problems by following simple maintenance steps.