How do you clean you MAK?

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PappyFatcap

New member
Just wondering what is everyone's procedure on cleaning their Maks.

I've only gotten two cooks in on my 1-Star but after each one I've:


----Emptied out the pellet hopper, vacuumed out any sawdust and pellets I could pull from the auger area.

----Vacuumed out the entire inside of the grill, including the fire pot

----Washed off the diffuser plate, fire pot, and scrubbed the entire inside of the grill using Simple Green and water. I foil the drip tray so all I have to do there is wash the smoke off the bottom side.

---- Scrubbed the outside of the grill using Simple Green, removing any traces of smoke around the edges of the hood.


So I ask for you veteran owners, is this overkill in your opinion? I just want to take care of my investment. What is your procedure for cleaning your Mak? What cleaners do you use?
 
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sptucker

New member
I empty the pellet hopper after every cook, and vacuum the interior/fire pot and hit the thermocouple with steel wool about every other cook. I check the vents and wipe off any excess gunk whenever I think of it. I have both the flamezone and the one-piece tray. The one-piece is always foiled, the flame zone parts are never foiled.

I do -try- to keep the exterior pretty clean, using Sprayway Stainless Cleaner and Polish (I highly recommend this) along with Weiman Stainless steel wipes, but have gotten behind on the areas near the vents. I have never cleaned the inside of my hood. In any case, it cooks just as well or better than it did when it was all shiny inside. I have inner confidence that the 304 stainless is bulletproof and so is MAK engineering, so I'm not stressing that much about protecting my investment. It's going to outlast me by many decades.

I cook so much that if I did what you do after every cook, I would be cleaning all the time! Plus, I would have to move the unit down some stairs and out onto the grass so as to not trash my deck. So, IMHO, it is massive overkill. Maybe someday when I'm really bored I will look at removing the hood and giving it a good cleaning, but that day is not yet in sight. Having said that, if stuff starts flaking off onto my food, then I will clean it pronto!

Have fun with your new MAK!
 
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PappyFatcap

New member
I figured it was a bit of overkill. I guess some of the things I've read regarding creosote buildup and rancid grease has me a little paranoid. The tongue-in-cheek idea of last years grease in the grill providing more flavor isn't all that appealing to me, heh.
 
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sptucker

New member
Don't get me wrong -- if there is visible grease I wipe it off -- and I replace the foil on my drip pan if it shows any buildup. And I do clean my grill grates frequently. But I have spent zero time removing smoke residue/stains from the inside of my MAK.
 
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SmokinKat

New member
Glad to hear you're enjoying your MAK, Pappy! Sptucker is right-- you don't HAVE to do all of those things after each cook. While you can't really clean it TOO much, you certainly don't need to do those things every time.

He did hit on a few of the more important items for keeping the grill running smoothly: regularly dumping the ash out of the firepot, cleaning the vents, and scrubbing the thermocouple.

You'll want to dump your firepot every 3-5 cooks, but it doesn't hurt to do it before you fire the grill up if you want to. It isn't necessary to sweep or vacuum out the ash that settles in the bottom of the grill each time-- every couple months would be more than sufficient for that. (Remember that you can just brush the ash through the trap door in the bottom of the grill, rather than vacuuming it out.)

You'll want to keep an eye on the vents-- yours are on the back of the grill, with a baffle covering them on the inside (which protects the grill from wind gusts). You'll want to remove that baffle a couple of times a year and make sure that the vents are not clogged with grease buildup. Airflow is very important for your grill to function correctly, and the vents are often overlooked.

You'll want to clean your thermocouple (in the back left inside of your grill) about once a month as well. Using some moistened steel wool and scrubbing it until it is shiny all the way around will help ensure that it's getting accurate temperatures to feed information back to the Pellet Boss.

You can leave pellets in the hopper between cooks if you're cooking regularly-- the only times you'd want to be sure to get them ALL out would be if you know you're not going to be cooking for a couple of weeks or more. Since pellets are just compressed sawdust, if left in the grill for an extended period of time, especially in wet or humid weather, they will absorb ambient moisture in the air, swell, and jam your auger tube like nobody's business. So if you know you'll be away from the grill for awhile, get all the pellets out of the hopper, then turn the grill on HIGH and burn up all of the pellets that are in the auger tube.

Simple Green is a great choice for cleaning the exterior. There are a number of enzymatic degreasers that work nicely as well. While the stainless steel interior components will hold up to just about anything you use for cleaning, you never want to use anything caustic (like oven cleaner) on any powder coated surfaces.

Your manual has a recommended cleaning schedule for reference which might give you some guidance on how often each component needs to be cleaned.
 
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