Taking care of your pellet grill is important. You invest a lot into that grill, so you want to make sure it stays in the best shape possible. Therefore, you occasionally need to do some maintenance. This just keeps your grill clean and in the best working order. Always make sure to unplug your grill before doing any maintenance that involves the electrical components. If you are doing a deep clean its best if you let the grill sit off for 24 hours before starting.
WiFi
It’s important to regularly check and update the firmware for your grill. This ensures your grill and the smart control are working as efficiently as possible. It its not up to date there could be issues in communication and which will make your grilling process more difficult than normal.
You also need to make sure the WiFi antenna is attached to the control panel and that it’s in good condition. The antenna communicates between the grill and your smart control app. If there’s an issue with the antenna it will make it difficult for the grill to communicate.
Firebox
You want to make sure to regularly clean out the firebox of any ash or debris. 
This prevents too much build up that will prevent the grill from working efficient. Simply take a shop vac and vacuum out the ash. If the ash covers the igniter the grill might not light so it needs to be emptied about every 3-4 bags. Don’t worry about trying to replace the ash with pellets, the auger will automatically add the necessary pellets during the start up cycle.
When you do this, it’s a good idea to clean out the hopper as well. Every about 3-4 bags of pellets just clean out the firebox and hopper, this cuts down on the saw dust and ash that builds up in the grill.
Grease
The Grease Tray is an important piece that needs to be cleaned regularly. If the tray gets to full it becomes a fire hazard, and it prevents the grill from being able to efficiently run. Our Grease tray liners are extremely helpful for this. It’s easy to put off cleaning the tray, but if you have a liner you can just remove the dirty one and replace it. This makes cleaning it much easier and you will be more likely to keep the tray clean, which will help your grill a lot. You also want to clean any other grease found. This could be the grill grates, the trough or the discharge spout. Grease is a recipe for fire so its important you regularly clean up all of the grease.
Every one in a while it’s a good idea to take hot, soapy water and clean the whole grill. Make sure to keep the auger tub and pellets dry, but clean out everything.
You could also turn the grill on to 500oF for at least an hour, this will cook off pretty much any residue in the grill, but its important you clean out most of the grease before doing that.
Yearly
There’s a few things you should do yearly just to keep things running smoothly.
Remove your control panel and spray the back of it with canned computer cleaner. You want to use canned computer cleaner instead of something like an air compressor because its important to make sure there are no water molecules. Using the canned computer cleaner just allows you to clean out an dust or anything else from the control panel. This makes sure nothing prevents the computer board from running properly
You also want to spray some WD-40 on all of your grill motors: the hopper fan motor, the auger motor, and the combustion fan motor. This makes sure they keep running smoothly and don’t develop any issues.
Next, check your chimney cap and make sure its at the correct height. This makes sure the grill gets proper air flow. About 2 finger widths is typically a good measure to make sure its high enough. When you check this you should check to make sure its clean. Simply check the chimney cap and the chimney stack, if there’s to much build up you can remove the chimney stack and the chimney cap, soak it and wipe it out. This helps to ensure there’s good air flow for the grill.
You also want to check for any air leaks. Grills that sit outside all of the time can take a beating and over time air leaks develop. You want to catch these and seal them with a high temp, food safe silicone. A couple places to be sure you check are;
- where the hopper mets the auger
- where the combustion fan housing mounts to the belly of the grill
- Where the chimney mounts to the grill
Don't forget, a clean & working grill is important to getting the best food possible. So clean your grill, load it up with pellets and get grilling!