Five Ways To Maintain Your Barbecue Grill

Got a new barbecue grill but are at a loss when it comes to maintaining it? Remember, this isn't a car and it's not something that you can hose down with water. A barbecue grill can gather a lot of dirt especially if it's left outside most of the time. The dirt does not necessarily gather on the outer areas of the grill either. Dirt and grease can be found in hard to reach spaces of the grill as well. Here are a few ways that you can follow to maintain your grill.

• Use a spray – In the supermarket, you can pick yourself up a few cans of non-stick cooking spray. This spray can be used before each time that you use the grill so that anything you cook on the grill will not leave any residue. This residue is usually in the form of something crusty. Another trick is to use vegetable oil by brushing it on the grill where the cooking will take place. This is one way to keep dirt and burnt residue off your grill metal.

• Use foil – Another way to cook your meats and fishes is to use foil. You can wrap up the food in tin foil or you can line the grates of your grill with aluminum foil. When you clean up all you really have to do is get rid of the foil. This is an easy way to keep the dirt off your grill. You won't be sacrificing any of the taste of your food either so don't worry about that; this will definitely make things easier for you and it will keep your grill almost like new.

• Don't use old coal – Want to maintain a clean grill? Make sure that you change the coals that you use for cooking. When coal is burned it leaves a lot of ashes and these ashes coupled with heat and oil can stick to many surfaces on your grill. This can make things more complicated for you to clean. One way to control this dirt from gathering is to always use new coal each time that you barbecue. This will prevent ash mixing with liquid and eventually sticking to the metal parts of your grill.

• Cover & heat – If you are done grilling your food, remove it but do not kill the heat from the coals just yet. In fact, you might want to turn up the heat by adding more coal or a little more gas. Then cover the grill and let the heat melt all the sauces and liquids that have been used for the foods that you just cooked. These sauces are usually caught in the grill and heat is a great way to get them off before they dry up on the metal.

• Soak & soap – A tried and tested method of cleaning grills is to soak them in soapy water. Or you can wash them, then soap them up and leave them in soapy water again for a few hours. This will soften up any of the hard residue that is stuck to the grill and you can easily wipe off the dirt later in the day.