How to keep your Pellet Grill in Tip Top shape

When cared for properly as well as using a little know-how pellet grills can last you a long time! Our first pellet grill we bought used it was 7 years old at the time, and we have had it for at least 7 years and still are using it!

Funny story time with Erin

There was once a situation where I had to cook lemon tarts for a BBQ contest in Wilson NY. We were in a rush and the Traeger was a complete mess. I threw the tarts in and cooked them like I always would. When we later turned them in for judging, we finally had a moment to try them. They looked so good, but when we tasted one, it tasted like BBQ hamburgers! These tips will help you avoid making hamburger-flavoured lemon tarts and more!

Regular maintenance tips for your Pellet Grill:

  1.  When pellets burn they create debris, dust-like ash that collects in the burning pot and under your deflector pan, over time it can cause the ceramic element that is used to light the pellets to breakdown because as this dust builds up it starts to take more and more energy to light the pellets through this debris. Every few cooks it is a good idea to take out your grill grate and deflector pan and vacuum out this accumulation. It will have your hot rod working for a longer period of time, and prevent dust could in your grill every time to start the smoker.

  2. Cover your deflector pan with tinfoil for easy cleanup after your cook. While you cook, spices, sauces and, juices run off of your meat and drip onto the deflector pan (now covered in tinfoil!). Just make sure that the tinfoil does not block fluids’ ability to leak out of the smoker into your collection pale. Now all you have to do is change tinfoil between cooks, this is always a great idea to prevent off flavours from previous cooks.
  3. Eventually, the hot rod will no longer work in your grill we have learned over the years to always have a second on hand, and if we need to buy one we usually buy two, nothing worse than going to use your grill after preparing your meat and it won’t light.
  4. Keeping your grill out of the rain! Seems like a no-brainer, but keeping your grill dry is important the newer and even older pellet grills have a lot of electronic components and if they are exposed to moisture you can start to get error codes on your grill.

That’s all for now folks! Happy cooking!

~Pitmaster Erin