Recently liberated an 18.5 OTG from languishing in my parent's garage. The last time it's been used was about 2006.

The grills are in good shape, clean, no rust.

The bottom area by the vents and about 1/4 of the way up however, has some left over ash. It's not thick or caked on, just a slight covering/dusting.

Planning on going over it with a sponge and some warm water unless someone can recommend using something a bit stronger.

And is cleaning the residual ash something that should be done, or can I leave it be, so long as it's not getting on the meat.

Thanks.

Are you sure it's ash and not mold? You can use a brass brush and then simple green or Greased Lightning to clean the tough spots off.

i would just rinse it out with a garden hose then build a nice hot fire in it

what david said.

Definitely not mold as I ran a finger across it and sure enough it was ashy.

Some water and a hot fire sounds simple enough.

Thanks all!!

i use oven cleaner and steel wool such as sos pads. then rinse. then wash with soap and water and rinse well. do an empty smoke to pretreat unit.

quote:

Originally posted by Patrick Sand:
Planning on going over it with a sponge and some warm water unless someone can recommend using something a bit stronger.

And is cleaning the residual ash something that should be done, or can I leave it be, so long as it's not getting on the meat.

I would just roll it over a dead spot on your lawn and use the garden hose to start with. If that don't clean it to your liking, do with it as you will. The Weber kettle is porcelain coated and can take pretty much any chemical cleaner you can put on it. Porcelain is a "glass" put on at temperatures that melt sand that makes glass. One reason Weber's last your years.

Use as hot of water as your hands can stand.

"should be done" is more like it. Lucky if it gets done.

A 50/50 concentrated mix of Simple Green, and an SOS pad with soap in it works very nicely! Check out my post showing the Red Jumbo Joe. Thats what I used to clean the inside of it and it looks new. Good luck!