How to deep-clean a gas grill

The teardown, step by step

1. Burn it off, then kill the gas at the tank. Run the burners on high for 10-15 minutes with the lid closed to carbonize residue, then shut the burners off and let it drop to warm. Once it’s cool enough to touch, turn off the propane at the tank valve and disconnect the regulator. The burn-off is the only step that needs the gas on. Everything after this is scraping and degreaser, so you want the fuel off and the line disconnected before you go in. Warm grease lifts; a blazing grate warps and burns your hand.
2. Brush the grates bristle-free, then pull them. Use a bristle-free brush or a crumpled foil ball. Never a wire brush; a stray bristle in a burger is an ER trip. Lift the grates out to soak. If the grates are coming up orange, stop here and get the rust off them properly first, and for a heavy cast-iron set, re-season the iron before it goes back on.
3. Remove the heat tents / flavorizer bars and soak them. Drop them in the bucket with hot soapy water alongside the grates. Scrape heavy carbon with a putty knife.
4. Scrape the firebox, then degrease it (cool, not hot). Push the carbon and debris down toward the grease drain with the putty knife or scraper. With the grill cool (the gas is already off and disconnected from step 1), spray a grill-safe citrus degreaser on the firebox walls, give it a few minutes, then wipe. Never use oven cleaner or any lye-based cleaner on an aluminum firebox or coated parts; it pits and corrodes them. Keep chemical cleaners off food-contact surfaces, and rinse anything that touches them with clean water.
5. Clear the grease drain channel. This is the step people skip. A clogged drain backs grease up under the burners, and that is what flares on the next cook. Run a wadded paper towel or a bottle brush through it until it runs clear.
6. Clean and reline the grease tray. Empty it, wipe it, and reline it (foil or a fitted liner) so the next clean is a lift-and-toss. A full tray is the most common flare-up source.
7. Reassemble and burn off. Put it back together dry, run the burners 10-15 minutes to confirm they light evenly and to dry everything out.

A built-in cannot go to the driveway and the hose, so the whole job happens in place. Lay newspaper or cardboard under the doors to catch drips, soak parts in a bucket on the ground rather than rinsing into the cabinet, and keep degreaser off the surrounding stone or deck.

How often

Every ~3 months if you cook fatty or messy (ribs, burgers, anything that drips and flares). Lighter use, once or twice a season (Weber’s guidance). The trigger is not the calendar, it is the drips: when you can see grease pooling or the flare-ups start, it is time.

What real grillers get wrong

• Wire-bristle brushes. Weber recalled ~3.2 million metal wire brushes in February 2026 after bristles detached and ended up in food; a peer-reviewed study counted ~1,700 ER visits from swallowed bristles over 2002-2014, and the authors call that a likely undercount. Use bristle-free.
• Stainless tools on porcelain-coated grates. Brass or nylon is the safe default on a coated grate; stainless can chip the coating (check your grate’s manual). Nylon brushes are for fully cool grates only; they melt at grilling heat.
• Oven cleaner in the firebox. Lye-based cleaners corrode aluminum and coated parts. A grill-safe degreaser on a cool grill does the job without wrecking the metal.
• Skipping the grease drain and tray. The grease you cannot see is the grease that flares. The drain channel and the tray are the whole point of a deep-clean, not the shiny grates.