In just about every climate, it pays dividends to cover your grill once it’s cooled and won’t be used for a while. You’ll have less rust and corrosion to deal with over time. Lightly grease the cooking surface with either meat fats or with a non-stick cooking spray to help protect the surface.

 

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Use sandpaper and steel wool to clear away accumulated rust. For widespread rust, use a wire wheel attached to a drill first. Wear eye protection while doing so.

A wire or brass brush is indispensable in clearing stuck-on food bits from the cooking surface. Different cooks have their preferences on when to do this – some say it’s best just before cooking, while others are just as convinced it’s best to do so right after grill use. While the food might come off a little more easily right after cooking, high temperature is key either way. Use tongs to turn over the grate occasionally to remove food scraps from the underside, where they tend to hang just out of reach of the brush. Don’t worry about disinfecting the cooking surface, since high heat will do so quite effectively.

Removing accumulated grease and ash from a straight-sided charcoal grill is a simple matter of scraping the cool insides with a putty knife or similar metal tool, and then discarding the gunk.

Scraping isn’t that practical on the curved surfaces of a kettle-style grill, so spray oven cleaner onto the cold metal, allow it to work for at least a couple of hours and then use a garden hose to wash away the debris.

Caution: Oven cleaner will mar aluminum, so don’t use it on aluminum grills. Be careful when using oven cleaner around any aluminum parts. If in doubt, use a commercial degreaser instead.

Inhibit future rust by oiling the insides of the cleaned grill before use.

Warning! Never start a charcoal fire with gasoline, a potentially explosive fuel. (You don’t want any residue from some of the compounds in gasoline on your food, either.) Apply a clean-burning lighter fluid before lighting the wood or charcoal, and don’t add any more once the fire starts to prevent hazardous flare-ups – or worse.

Reference:

Don Aslett in The Cleaning Encyclopedia: Your A to Z Illustrated Guide to Cleaning Like the Pros.