Owners of commercial smokers, how often do you clean them?

nskitts · Newbie Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Posts: 80 Location: Jackson, OH

Specifically,
The big rotisserie smokers from Ole Hickory, Southern Pride, Oyler, and Cookshack.
How often do you remove the shelves and racks, clean them and then clean the interior? I just tore my OH apart and made the racks shiny again, but I looked like a coal miner when I was done.

There has got to be an easier way or at least a routine that will keep this job from being dreadful. Maybe if I cleaned them more often it wouldn't be such a chore.
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500 Gallon Propane Offset
22.5 WSM "Set it and Forget it."
Ole Hickory EL-IB

Harry Nutczak

qfanatic01 · Posted: Jul 25 2013 Post subject:

I keep the cleaning limited by not cooking 97% of my food directly on the racks. I put foil down for the ribs with the ends turned up to catch the juices and tin pans for the sausage, butts, chicken and brisket. Bacon is the only meat cooked directly on a brushed rack. Best 100 bucks I spend a month.

This helps in two ways. First, I keep the mess to a minimum and have less stuff dripping in my oven and out the drain spout. I have a 5 gallon bucket under each of my smokers and it takes 3 months or more to fill. I remove the meat and reuse the pans usually 3 times before they have holes. We transfer the meats to hotel pans for holding, then we're not abusing the dish staff which has been myself plenty over the years. You respect the dish staff quite a bit more if it's you from time to time. I believe management should do all jobs ongoing to to a good job. I brush my shelves as needed, scrap the top and sides when I get flaking and kind of deep clean every couple months. I pull the racks, scrap, brush and scoop out the charred juices and creosote. No point in scrubbing and oven cleaner, looks the same in two days. I make it shine once a year.

The second benefit to the pans and foil is that the meats are cooked in moisture without fooling around with foiling and you have the natural juices which are smoke infused to hold your meats in. A long moist cooking method gives the best results to tough cuts of meat, not long and dry. That's for jerky and low yields. Just basic cooking knowledge here, backed up by all the best chefs that ever lived. And the best way to keep your smoker cleaning schedule as light as possible. Clean as you go and work smart.
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RodinBangkok · Posted: Jul 25 2013 Post subject:

We picked up one of these for doing general purpose cleaning, makes cleaning floors a real easy task, as long as you have some protective gear on, it works good on internal greasy surfaces also, but the splash back is quite nasty, so necessary to wear some simple protective gear, like those throw away white plastic coats. We flush grease catch trays with this about once a week, the steam just melts it away, but watch out for splash back!

http://www.karcher.com/int/Products/Professional/Steam_cleaners/10921030.htm

This one is European, but I'm sure they make them for the US in this price range, less than $1K US.
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Rod

nskitts · Newbie Joined: 14 Jun 2011 Posts: 80 Location: Jackson, OH

Thanks for all the awesome replies. I have been draining about 5 gallons of grease a day! I am going to try to use the foil half pans and see how that goes and also foil lined racks for ribs. I can get the half pans for 50 cents a piece from GFS.
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500 Gallon Propane Offset
22.5 WSM "Set it and Forget it."
Ole Hickory EL-IB

qfanatic01 · Posted: Jul 26 2013 Post subject:

necron 99 · Posted: Jul 26 2013 Post subject:

You can get both size pans inexpensively at Sam's Club

http://www.samsclub.com/sams/search/searchResults.jsp?searchCategoryId=all&searchTerm=steam+table+trays&fromHome=no&_requestid=267993
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Bbq Bubba · Posted: Aug 06 2013 Post subject:

I scrape the racks on my Oyler daily. I also shovel out the smoodge bi-weekly as well as hose down any loose chit in the interior.

I would NEVER power wash the inside. if you seasoned it properly it will build up seasoning that you don't want to remove.

If you foil over your racks your robbing yourself of smoke on the racks below? Cooking in pans is not bbq to me, just my opinion.

BBQ is not suppost to be shiney clean. (unless your a gasser)

Cool

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Harry Nutczak · Posted: Aug 07 2013 Post subject:

Pressure washing doesn't budge most of the stuff on the interior of my pit, so I have no worries about de-seasoning it.

But I am also not using a military grade 40K PSI pressure washer.
I mainly use pressure to get the loose carbon off the top of the interior and to help push the stragglers out the drain.
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Mr Tony's BBQ · Posted: Aug 10 2013 Post subject:

GFS [ my weekly delivery] is about DOUBLE Restaurant Depot on aluminum pans and most paper products! I may a monthly pilgrimage [ about 80 miles round trip] to RD, what I save pays the gas and time IMHO.
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Swamp Mama's · Posted: Nov 26 2013 Post subject: I'm a lover of pans too.