I just picked up the Weber Genesis II E-335 and with a new propane grill, there are a few things that can be done to better your enjoyment with the grill and to help prolong its life. These things include the initial cleaning, burning in, and seasoning. I’ll go over what I did to accomplish these things and although I’m doing my demonstration on a specific Weber, these steps apply to almost any grill.
First, let’s start with the initial cleaning of the grill. From the factory, the manufacturers coat the grills with various oils that can affect your food and possibly make you sick so we want to clean up as much of that as possible. For all the removable parts like the grates, flavorizer bars, and warming rack, I clean them with old-fashioned dish soap and a sponge. Since the grill and I were outside, I just used the garden hose. To me, this part is going to be most important with the parts that actually touch your food. So more attention should be paid to the grilling grates and warming rack. It’s also important to note that with many grills, the various parts are going to be made with some sort of ferrous metal, and for our purposes, that just means that they can rust. So you should not get the parts wet and just let them sit there. You should dry them off somehow. I just had a roll of paper towel nearby to dry off my grill parts.
Once everything is clean and dry, we’re going to reassemble the grill and perform a burn in. This is done by turning the grill on high and letting the intense heat of the grill burn off any residual manufacturing oils. I’ve seen people do this in different ways. Some say to leave the lid open, some say to close it. To me, it makes more sense to close the lid so you can reach higher temperatures and you can let the heat hit everything to a greater degree. The length of time for the burn in is also debatable. The Weber manual actually says to close the lid and burn in for at least 20 minutes. 30 minutes seems to be a pretty standard recommendation so I went with that.
Now that the burn in is complete, we’re going to turn off the grill and let it cool down. At this point, we can season the grill. This means that we’re going to apply a coat of oil to the various surfaces. This will help make things more nonstick and help to prevent rust. For this step, you want to use some sort of high smoke point oil. I’m using avocado oil, but there are plenty of other options. Canola oil is a pretty popular recommendation. Grapseed oil is another good one. Some people just use a potato or onion and rub that around. It just comes down to what you’re comfortable with. You can do your own research on what’s best. If you’re going with an oil, something to consider is liquid or spray form. As you can see here, I’m using liquid oil and am spreading it around with a paper towel. This works, but it takes significantly more time to apply than a spray oil.
With the seasoning, you can basically apply oil to anything on the grill. I’ve seen people oil the entire interior and exterior of the grill. At the end of the day, it’s just a matter of what you’re comfortable with and how much work you want to put in. Oiling up the entire grill will absolutely help to protect it from rust, but what grill you have is going to play a bigger role in that. If you have some super cheap sheet metal grill, it’s likely going to have some rust issues no matter what. With seasoning, I would say the most important parts to cover are those that food is going to touch. So it’s important to season the grilling grates and the warming rack because seasoning will also help prevent food from sticking. Another good place to apply oil to is the inside of the lid as this is one of those places that sees build-ups. Then like I said earlier, everything else is kind of just the cherry on top. The more you cover, the more protected your grill is going to be. Once you’re happy with the coat of oil that you’ve applied to the grill, we’re going to turn it back on high and let it sit for another 30 minutes or so to really bake that oil into all the surfaces. Once that’s done, the seasoning process will be complete and you’re ready to start grilling.
Now, the burn in process is a one-time thing that you only need to do with a brand-new grill. With seasoning, that’s more of a once in awhile, as-needed thing so I can’t give you a time frame. However, it’s probably a good idea to season if you perform a good deep clean of the grill because you’ll probably strip the seasoning after. Aside from that, it’s also good practice to apply some oil to your grill grates before and after cooking to help with the nonstick and rust protection. Especially so if you’re going to be storing the grill for a while.
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