00:00:00:00 - 00:00:07:18 Speaker 1 Your resume is good in numbers given to give more people.

00:00:07:18 - 00:00:30:00 Speaker 1 You're listening to the Barbecue Nerds podcast, where smoked meat science and flavor is our favorite experiment. Hey, barbecue lovers, I'm David, your resident pitmaster and science geek, along with my co-host Frank. We're diving deep into the world of barbecue where tradition meets innovation. Now let's get to today's episode.

00:00:30:00 - 00:00:58:00 Speaker 1 So it's Monday night, 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, 7 p.m. central. You know what that means. Welcome to the Barbecue Nerds podcast, where we geek out to your barbecue. Doesn't flame out. This week's podcast is Clean Your Pits. As always, I'm Dave Fier, also known as the Real Meat Stick. And with me is Mr. Frank Cox, the barbecue pit engineer himself from Smoker Builder.

00:00:58:01 - 00:00:58:12 Speaker 1 So hey.

00:00:58:12 - 00:00:59:00 Speaker 2 Buddy.

00:00:59:00 - 00:01:07:23 Speaker 1 got to tell you, you know, even when I started in the beginning and I started on that, that gas grill as a child that my father had in the backyard, we had a Weber. It was,

00:01:07:23 - 00:01:12:14 Speaker 1 it we use natural gas. And one of the things that would occur,

00:01:12:14 - 00:01:21:05 Speaker 1 we didn't know at that point about just how necessary it was to to clean the pits so that you get your creosote off and all the other,

00:01:21:05 - 00:01:28:01 Speaker 1 burnt up material on the inside, or even during those times that we would try to burn things off occasion.

00:01:28:01 - 00:01:34:11 Speaker 1 You get that grease fire. Has this ever occurred to you? You know, it's you're you're the master of barbecue.

00:01:34:13 - 00:01:42:16 Speaker 2 Dude, we had a grease fire one time. That was super bad. It was 2017. Whole hog cook.

00:01:42:16 - 00:01:54:07 Speaker 2 In my cooker. We called the the hog coffin. Hey, I got to spill it every time I say it because we spelt it obnoxiously. H awg CA w f I n.

00:01:54:07 - 00:01:57:18 Speaker 2 That's how we spelt o coffin. Anyway,

00:01:57:18 - 00:01:59:03 Speaker 2 my buddy, Mr. Voight.

00:01:59:04 - 00:01:59:14 Speaker 2 And,

00:01:59:14 - 00:02:05:02 Speaker 2 Spearman pig daddy Spearman, those guys all remember because they was there Terry Rod crafter

00:02:05:02 - 00:02:06:03 Speaker 2 was there, but,

00:02:06:03 - 00:02:14:04 Speaker 2 yeah, it got, it got out of hand really quick. And you, man, there ain't nothing that can hurt somebody worse than a grease fire.

00:02:14:04 - 00:02:19:21 Speaker 2 But, you know, cleaning your pits isn't just about preventing grease fires and stuff like that.

00:02:19:23 - 00:02:24:06 Speaker 2 There's also some super bad toxins that can get in your pit. And,

00:02:24:06 - 00:02:28:15 Speaker 2 if they're not properly cared for and cleaned, and it can actually,

00:02:28:15 - 00:02:36:20 Speaker 2 I always say the the best way to ruin a pit is don't cook on it and don't clean it like, that's that's the thing that kills it faster than anything.

00:02:36:21 - 00:02:59:03 Speaker 1 So did did you know that if you don't clean those pits beyond the grease, just the creosote itself that, that tarry gunk that you get from the smoke could ignite in seconds, you know. So as a firefighter and this has been going on all the time, I got to tell people about this chimney fires, the creosote from people burning wood, burning,

00:02:59:03 - 00:03:02:09 Speaker 1 pellets in their, in their fireplace in their home.

00:03:02:11 - 00:03:13:06 Speaker 1 If you don't clean that chimney out one of these days, it's going to light up. And, you know, it's it's not funny, but you get flames that come shooting out the chimney of your home.

00:03:13:06 - 00:03:21:09 Speaker 1 And then firefighters like myself and others out there have to come in, shovel the wood out of your fireplace, get all that fire out.

00:03:21:09 - 00:03:33:12 Speaker 1 And then, unfortunately, you know those. It's red hot. Those bricks don't like water. You know, there's there's a good chance that when the bricks are that hot and we hit it with a fire hose, now we're going to end up cracking the the,

00:03:33:12 - 00:03:36:04 Speaker 1 the bricks, that masonry work is gone.

00:03:36:04 - 00:03:39:04 Speaker 1 Fortunately we're not. We're dealing with barbecue pits.

00:03:39:04 - 00:03:40:09 Speaker 1 They're they're made of

00:03:40:09 - 00:03:42:20 Speaker 1 very good types of metal.

00:03:42:20 - 00:04:07:11 Speaker 1 And I tell people, even when it comes to the barbecues in their backyard, when they get a blazing fire, please don't open up the cover to your to your grill, to your smoker. You're adding oxygen to the fire. Keep it close. If you have the availability to be able to close the dampers, you know, as long as the oxygen doesn't get to the fire, you're able to to kill that fire out.

00:04:07:13 - 00:04:19:10 Speaker 1 And this is one of the reasons why I think it was so important for you and I to have this discussion tonight about cleaning the pits so that you don't have this fire that can ignite in seconds.

00:04:19:10 - 00:04:26:05 Speaker 1 Yeah. Did you know that one study says that flare ups cause 3000 grill fires a year? I've seen. Yeah.

00:04:26:05 - 00:04:30:04 Speaker 1 Like I said, my own pit as a child went up as a Roman candle.

00:04:30:06 - 00:04:33:18 Speaker 1 And we see this again in fireplaces in people's homes.

00:04:33:20 - 00:04:35:17 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. So,

00:04:35:17 - 00:04:37:07 Speaker 2 for that for reference, guys,

00:04:37:07 - 00:04:47:07 Speaker 2 I should have actually done it already, but I think in the description of the video, we're going to have a link to a video I did on the Smoker Builder YouTube channel.

00:04:47:07 - 00:04:48:15 Speaker 2 If you're listening on,

00:04:48:15 - 00:04:54:18 Speaker 2 iTunes after we had the show live, the the go to smoker builder on YouTube, there's a video there.

00:04:54:18 - 00:05:02:01 Speaker 2 It says, how to clean and Season Your Pit. And that's where I take a deep dive into one of my pits and,

00:05:02:01 - 00:05:06:11 Speaker 2 go the full. The full deal. It's a big, big offset. I call bingo.

00:05:06:11 - 00:05:12:21 Speaker 2 But, you know, grease and flare ups and stuff like that, that's all really bad and dangerous and stuff like that.

00:05:12:21 - 00:05:16:04 Speaker 2 But. But not cleaning your pit can have some other,

00:05:16:04 - 00:05:20:01 Speaker 2 some other issues that could cause a lot of other things to happen. Such as,

00:05:20:01 - 00:05:32:12 Speaker 2 like they always say, rust is one of the things that'll happen. But more importantly than that, we're talking about a greasy pit. So what grows in that greasy stuff in the middle of the spring?

00:05:32:12 - 00:05:43:10 Speaker 2 Like, you ever open up a pit and you see that white mold that just goes left to right and some other kinds of colors in there, too, like I've opened up drums. It looked like it snowed inside from all the like,

00:05:43:10 - 00:05:46:02 Speaker 2 drum smokers and stuff. Have you ever seen that?

00:05:46:04 - 00:05:54:15 Speaker 1 I've. I've seen people's pits that they they leave them covered and it's just a cesspool of bacteria.

00:05:54:15 - 00:05:57:14 Speaker 1 And other microorganisms that are growing in there.

00:05:57:14 - 00:06:00:00 Speaker 1 And then, you know, you ask yourself like,

00:06:00:00 - 00:06:07:07 Speaker 1 maybe we should order out this. Yeah. I don't think that tonight's the night. You should like this. And we all become the next,

00:06:07:07 - 00:06:09:11 Speaker 1 bioterrorism experiment.

00:06:09:12 - 00:06:12:16 Speaker 2 You know, I love it when people are posting pictures of their of their,

00:06:12:16 - 00:06:23:12 Speaker 2 whatever they're cooking. Ribs, chicken, whatever it is. And you see expanded metal cooking grates that are starting to close up from all the food build up. Right? The grease.

00:06:23:12 - 00:06:23:20 Speaker 1 Stuff.

00:06:23:20 - 00:06:43:08 Speaker 2 Just like, my gosh, you gotta really be careful bad. Like where you where you go and what you're getting exposed to because so so the longer you wait to clean it, the worse it's going to be to clean it. It's going to take a lot more elbow grease to do it, you know.

00:06:43:10 - 00:07:09:13 Speaker 1 So what do you suggest when it comes to, to to cleaning these pits. So let's say it's, you know, one of these individuals you're talking about and we know that there's plenty of people out there. They cook and cook and cook. And you're lucky if once a season they clean their pits, some of them can go season. Yeah, they can go many, many seasons without seasoning and cleaning their pits.

00:07:09:15 - 00:07:14:03 Speaker 1 And, like you had mentioned, you know, things like rust come into play.

00:07:14:03 - 00:07:20:00 Speaker 1 On the, on the bars are on the inside, whether it's expanded metal or it happens to be round bar.

00:07:20:00 - 00:07:24:13 Speaker 1 They, they begin to close up or they begin to to rust and paint and crack. And

00:07:24:13 - 00:07:27:04 Speaker 1 how do you how do you remedy this situation?

00:07:27:04 - 00:07:28:14 Speaker 1 What do you do.

00:07:28:16 - 00:07:38:14 Speaker 2 So that when I'm on my A-game, which is rare, I'm usually on my B game is usually where I'm at. So when I'm on my A-game, if,

00:07:38:14 - 00:07:40:10 Speaker 2 if I have the time

00:07:40:10 - 00:07:42:23 Speaker 2 immediately after a cook while it's hot,

00:07:42:23 - 00:07:50:09 Speaker 2 just dousing with some hot water in the pit and then letting it steam will take care of like 99% of everything.

00:07:50:11 - 00:08:05:14 Speaker 2 Also, while it's hot, just open like on an offset or something like that, a bigger cooker that's got a drain valve. Just leave the drain valve open with a pan underneath of it during your cook, and you're going to. A lot of that stuff will drain down and get out.

00:08:05:14 - 00:08:11:06 Speaker 2 The, the real problem comes in when you don't do that and everything cools down.

00:08:11:07 - 00:08:22:19 Speaker 2 Then we're starting to get like overnight, especially in the winter. Overnight, everything starts to kind of like salt, get solid, you know, as as it sits there and, and

00:08:22:19 - 00:08:31:21 Speaker 2 the temperature goes down, you know, it starts to get hard. And then it's really hard to make yourself go back out. Of course, you just spent 12 hours cooking a brisket.

00:08:31:23 - 00:08:41:11 Speaker 2 It's not exactly exciting to clean your pit immediately after that. So the next morning, if you at least light a fire and heat things up first, you know,

00:08:41:11 - 00:08:45:19 Speaker 2 good scraper, wire brushes, those kind of things.

00:08:45:19 - 00:08:51:19 Speaker 2 I'm I'm the kind of guy that's not afraid just to go ahead and powerwash, you know, especially if, if,

00:08:51:19 - 00:08:52:17 Speaker 2 it's fresh enough.

00:08:52:17 - 00:08:55:17 Speaker 2 But if it if you wait a long time,

00:08:55:17 - 00:09:12:02 Speaker 2 it's just going to sit there and get hard and, and especially if you ran the pit again, cooked on it multiple times, you start to not just build bark on your food, but your shirt. You're turning all of that buildup into bark. So, right. Yeah. You know,

00:09:12:02 - 00:09:17:15 Speaker 1 You know, tell me. Barbecue. Come kill me. Competition. Barbecue. I just brought this this,

00:09:17:15 - 00:09:30:06 Speaker 1 this quote up that he has here, and he's right. I do hear the same thing he's saying here. He writes, I hear people all the time say they don't clean their pits because it adds flavor. I hear the same thing. Yeah, all the time.

00:09:30:07 - 00:09:31:23 Speaker 1 Is there any truth behind that?

00:09:32:01 - 00:10:09:17 Speaker 2 No. None whatsoever. So? So seasoning this. Let's dwell on this for a minute, because seasoning your pit is when you're trying to get a nonstick surface on the inside of the smoker so that a lot of this buildup comes off easy. That's the whole point behind seasoning. The second part of it is so that whenever you get that polymerized oil on the inside of the pit, it literally protects the inside of the pit from rust and that rust eventually, if a pit is not cooked in, what typically kills it the fastest is a thing called d laminates.

00:10:09:17 - 00:10:13:04 Speaker 2 Eight d lamination. And that's where the steel,

00:10:13:04 - 00:10:15:11 Speaker 2 like when you see flaky steel,

00:10:15:11 - 00:10:30:12 Speaker 2 that's been sitting and rusting and stuff like that, exposed to the environment for a long period of time, especially if there's been some caustic in there, you'll start to see that, that steel, those layers of steel start to D laminate, which means they peel.

00:10:30:13 - 00:10:48:02 Speaker 2 They're not there, they're no longer together. And that's how you begin, like a hole in your pit, especially if it's thinner material. Whatever that delay, it gets weak and eventually it blows out, you know, just from time, you know, especially if you go in there and try to clean it for once. Rains are knocking holes in it.

00:10:48:04 - 00:10:59:08 Speaker 1 You know, I've heard people say that it's it's necessary to get the ash out of your firebox. If we're talking with a would, say, an offset smoker to get the ash out.

00:10:59:08 - 00:11:05:04 Speaker 1 So that water, however the water gets in, doesn't get in there and mix with the ash.

00:11:05:04 - 00:11:13:05 Speaker 1 And there's this rumor that it creates some type of acid and that acid eats through the metal is out the caustic acid that you're speaking of.

00:11:13:07 - 00:11:17:00 Speaker 2 In some cases. I mean, because what you wind up with is like lye,

00:11:17:00 - 00:11:19:14 Speaker 2 you know, it's very acidic and,

00:11:19:14 - 00:11:24:17 Speaker 2 like potash, you know, that's basically kind of what they're talking about there.

00:11:24:17 - 00:11:36:09 Speaker 2 Yeah. If you just leave ash in your pit, what happens is it draws moisture. And if your pit may not leak around the doors, but I guarantee it's not liquid tight, there's no way.

00:11:36:11 - 00:11:41:15 Speaker 2 And so is the temperature outside. So temperature outside goes up and down the pit.

00:11:41:15 - 00:11:51:05 Speaker 2 Environment inside of there also goes up and down. And sometimes if it's been baking in the sun all day long and you got a really humid environment in there, whether it's,

00:11:51:05 - 00:11:56:10 Speaker 2 vapor from the air, you know, water vapor from the air or whatever, at night it's going to start to condense.

00:11:56:10 - 00:12:05:23 Speaker 2 And then all that moisture winds up blending in with whatever's in the cook chamber or the firebox. And then that's actually what causes this magical,

00:12:05:23 - 00:12:09:08 Speaker 2 erosion to happen. You know, it starts to,

00:12:09:08 - 00:12:16:07 Speaker 2 starts to eat away at the fire, but the pits die from the inside out. That's what I always say. Almost never from the outside in.

00:12:16:09 - 00:12:16:22 Speaker 2 You know,

00:12:16:22 - 00:12:25:09 Speaker 2 that's the part we're worried about. So we keep it painted and keep it trying to look good, you know, right in the inside. You know, we're closing the door and hiding it when we go to bed.

00:12:25:09 - 00:12:49:15 Speaker 1 That's a wrap for today's episode of the Barbecue Nerds podcast, where smoked meats, science, and flavor always comes first. This episode is brought to you by Smoke Slinger, the craftsman behind some of the best barbecue pits and offset smokers in the game. Whether you're a backyard warrior or a pro, Pitmaster smoke slinger builds custom pits designed to help you cook your best barbecue ever.

00:12:49:17 - 00:13:09:06 Speaker 1 Visit Smoke slinger.com to see their lineup and bring competition quality smoke to your own backyard. A big shout out to smoke slinger fueling our passion and keeping the smoke rolling strong. And as always, keep those pits hot, the smoke rolling and stay nerdy about barbecue.