How Often Should You Really Clean Your BBQ? An Australian Guide

Professional Insight

This guide draws on the experience of Oven Brothers after professionally cleaning BBQs across Sydney, the Central Coast, Newcastle and the Hunter.

The simple answer to how often you should clean your BBQ is that it depends on how often you use it, what you're cooking and how much grease is accumulating underneath the surfaces you can see.

What You'll Learn

By the end of this article, you'll know:

• What to clean after each BBQ.

• How often your BBQ may need a deeper clean.

• Why cleaning the hotplate alone isn't enough.

• The signs your BBQ is overdue for some attention.

• When a professional BBQ cleaning service might be worthwhile.

Quick Answer: How Often Should You Clean Your BBQ?

For regular BBQ users, a quick clean of the cooking surfaces after each use combined with periodic deeper cleaning is a sensible approach.

There's no single timetable that suits every BBQ. Someone cooking sausages occasionally will accumulate grease very differently from a household regularly cooking steaks, burgers, marinades and fatty meats.

Instead of relying solely on the calendar, pay attention to what's accumulating inside your BBQ.

Cleaning the Hotplate Isn't the Same as Cleaning the BBQ

You finish cooking, scrape down the hotplate, give it a wipe and put the cover back on.

BBQ cleaned. Right?

Well... partly.

One of the biggest misconceptions about BBQ maintenance is that the cooking surface tells you how clean the entire BBQ is.

While you're cooking, fats, oils, marinades and small pieces of food make their way underneath the hotplate or grill. Grease can accumulate around burners, flame tamers, drip trays and throughout the body of the BBQ.

Because you don't see these areas every time you cook, the build-up can be surprisingly easy to forget.

What Should You Clean After Every BBQ?

Once your BBQ has cooled sufficiently to clean safely, giving the cooking surfaces some regular attention makes deeper cleans much easier later.

Depending on your particular BBQ and its manufacturer's instructions, regular maintenance may include cleaning food residue from the grill or hotplate, removing obvious grease and checking the grease or drip tray.

This is also a great opportunity to look underneath the cooking surfaces occasionally.

You don't need to perform a complete restoration after every Sunday lunch. The goal is simply to stop small amounts of residue becoming months of accumulated build-up.

How Often Does a BBQ Need a Deep Clean?

Rather than giving you an arbitrary number of months, we'd suggest looking for the signs.

Your BBQ may be ready for a deeper clean if you're noticing:

• significant grease underneath the hotplates

• thick carbon build-up

• overflowing or heavily soiled drip trays

• old food debris inside the BBQ body

• excessive smoke during normal cooking

• frequent flare-ups

• persistent burnt or rancid smells

• uneven burner performance that may warrant cleaning or servicing

If you're using your BBQ several times a week, you'll naturally need to inspect and clean it more frequently than someone who brings theirs out a few times each summer.

What you're cooking matters too.

Fatty meats and oily marinades can create significantly more grease than foods that release very little fat during cooking.

From Oven Brothers

One of the biggest surprises we see when professionally cleaning BBQs is the difference between what the owner can see and what's sitting underneath the hotplates.

We've opened plenty of BBQs where the cooking surface has been beautifully maintained.

Then we lift the plates.

Underneath can be a completely different story.

Grease, carbon and food debris gradually collect in places you don't normally look. Because it's happening out of sight, it's incredibly easy for months or even years of build-up to go unnoticed.

That's why we always encourage BBQ owners to occasionally look beyond the surface they're cooking on.

Don't Forget the Grease Tray

The grease tray has one fairly unenjoyable job: catching everything you don't want sitting inside your BBQ.

And because it's usually hidden underneath, it's very easy to forget.

Letting grease accumulate excessively can create unpleasant smells and unwanted smoke, and accumulated grease can contribute to flare-ups or fire risk.

Make checking and emptying the grease tray part of your regular BBQ routine, following the manufacturer's instructions for your particular model.

What About the Burners?

Burners deserve a little more care than simply attacking them with whatever cleaning tool happens to be nearby.

Food debris, grease and other material can interfere with burner ports, which may affect the flame pattern or performance.

If the flame looks different from normal, the BBQ isn't heating evenly or a burner isn't lighting correctly, check your manufacturer's maintenance instructions before cleaning it.

If you suspect a problem with the gas system itself, have the BBQ inspected by an appropriately qualified professional rather than attempting repairs yourself.

Pro Tip: Take a Photo

Here's an incredibly simple trick.

The next time you give your BBQ a thorough clean, take a photo of the inside when you've finished.

A few months later, lift the hotplates and compare.

You'll quickly get a feel for how fast grease accumulates based on the way your household uses the BBQ. That's much more useful than following a generic cleaning timetable.

When Is Professional BBQ Cleaning Worth It?

Plenty of BBQ maintenance can be done at home, particularly when the BBQ is cleaned regularly.

A professional BBQ cleaning service may be worth considering when there's substantial grease and carbon build-up, the BBQ hasn't had a thorough clean for a long time, you're preparing it for summer entertaining, you've moved into a home with an existing BBQ, or you'd simply rather spend several hours doing something else.

Professional BBQ cleaners also know where build-up commonly hides, which is particularly useful when the visible cooking surfaces look relatively clean.

One Last Thing...

Your BBQ doesn't suddenly become dirty on one particular day of the year.

Build-up happens gradually.

A little grease here. A splash of marinade there. A piece of food disappearing beneath the hotplate.

Each individual cook doesn't seem to make much difference, which is exactly why it's so easy to overlook what's accumulating underneath.

So rather than asking only, "When did I last clean my BBQ?", try asking:

"When did I last look underneath the hotplates?"

The answer might surprise you.

Prefer to Leave the Deep Clean to Someone Else?

If you've lifted your BBQ hotplates after reading this and discovered a little more than you were expecting, Oven Brothers can help.

We provide professional BBQ cleaning services across Sydney, the Central Coast, Newcastle and the Hunter, along with professional oven, range

hood and cooktop cleaning.

Call 0449 748 722, email contact@ovenbrothersaustralia.com.au, or visit Oven Brothers Australia to request a quote or make an enquiry.