It is with great shame and embarassment that I have learned of lots of mold growing inside my seldom used OTG (seldom because I always use my performer). After a Cinco de mayo cook which required both grills, I closed up the OTG, covered it, and left it alone. I needed the second grill yesterday and found mold along the bottom part of the kettle and both grates.

Plan is to light a few super hot charcoal fires to clean it up. Has this happened to anyone else out there? Will the hot fires be enough to safely continue use of my dear OTG?

In Florida with its very moist heat it happens all the time to my cookers. I just rinse out the mold and wipe. If I'm not ready to cook, leaving the lid off and upturned in the sun dries it and the bowl more quickly. Coal heat will handle the extraneous when cooking commences.

Don't get me started about mold. People have been way too worried about mold of late due to exaggerated reports about noxious strains of mold, with the assumption that all mold is the same. The truth is, the vast majority of mold strains are nothing to worry about and have coexisted with humans for most or all of our history.

There are much bigger fish to fry when it comes to grill safety.

Yeah I don't care about mold in the grill, nothing can withstand the heat the kettles and gassers produce.

Regarding "exaggerated reports" about noxious strains, I won't go that far. My buddy who I went to law school with deals with mold claims for an insurance company, he is not a plaintiff's lawyer, but a defense lawyer, so no reason to embellish or exaggerate, but from what he tells me, mold in the house is not to be taken lightly at all.