How Often Should You Clean Your Grill?

Grease is the problem, not the black stuff on the grates. Every cook drips fat down through the grates onto the heat plates (or briquettes, or ceramic tents), and from there into the firebox and the grease tray. Some of it vaporizes and gives you flavor. The rest builds up in layers.

That buildup causes most of what people call grill problems. A thick layer on the heat plates turns into a flare-up waiting to happen. Grease and carbon flakes drop onto the burners and plug the ports, which gives you weak, yellow, uneven flames. A full grease tray can overflow into the cabinet or catch fire. Left long enough, wet grease sitting on steel holds moisture and salt against the metal and speeds up rust, which is why a grill that is never cleaned tends to need new burners years earlier than one that is.

In Los Angeles there is one more wrinkle. Grills here don't get a winter off. Plenty of people cook outside in January, so the grease never gets a quiet season to be dealt with, and the buildup just keeps going.

The table above is a middle-of-the-road starting point. Move toward the shorter end if any of these apply:

• You cook fatty food a lot. Burgers, chicken thighs with skin, sausages, and anything marinated in oil or sugar drop far more grease than vegetables and fish. A household that does burgers every weekend needs the monthly cleaning to be truly monthly.
• You live near the ocean. Within a couple of miles of the water, the marine layer deposits salt that mixes with grease into a film that holds moisture against stainless. Coastal grills benefit from a deep clean twice a year instead of once. Our salt air guide goes into detail.
• You've had ash fall. After a fire event or a heavy Santa Ana stretch, ash gets into the firebox and burner ports. Ash plus moisture is corrosive, so a cleaning after a big ash event is worth doing regardless of the calendar.
• The grill sits near a pool. Chlorine in the air and splashed pool water are hard on stainless and on the steel parts inside.
• It's a shared or rental grill. Guests and neighbors cook differently than you do. Shared grills tend to need cleaning two to four times as often as a private one.
• You smoke or use a rotisserie for long cooks. Long, low cooks render out a lot of fat that doesn't burn off the way it does at high heat.

A grill used once or twice a month, mostly for vegetables, fish and steaks trimmed of excess fat, can comfortably go a full year between deep cleans as long as the after-cook burn-off happens every time. Inland homes in the San Gabriel Valley, away from salt air, also get a bit more slack on the stainless. The internals still need attention, though. Low-use grills are exactly the ones spiders move into, so an annual check of the burner tubes matters more, not less, when the grill sits idle.

This one habit does more than anything else on the list. When you're done cooking, close the hood and leave every burner on high for 10 to 15 minutes. Most of the fresh drippings on the grates and heat plates turn to dry ash that brushes off easily. Then brush the grates while they're still hot, using a bristle-free brush or a wire brush you inspect regularly for loose bristles, which can end up in food.

Burn-off has limits. It cleans the cooking surface but doesn't reach the grease tray, the bottom of the firebox, or the inside of the burners. People who rely on it alone end up with a grill that looks fine on top and is packed with grease underneath. The monthly and yearly cleanings are still needed.

Plenty of homeowners do, and the basic vs. deep cleaning guide explains what's involved. It's messy and takes most of an afternoon on a big built-in. The places people tend to skip are the venturi tubes, the burner ports, and the area under the burners where grease collects out of sight.

If you'd rather have it done, a professional cleaning covers all of that, with the grease and rinse water hauled away instead of washed into the yard. Many people pair a once-a-year pro cleaning with their own monthly upkeep. Others put the grill on a maintenance plan so it happens without anyone having to remember.