Getting Your Outdoor Grill In Shape For The Season

HUDSON VALLEY, NY — Yes, the Memorial Day weekend is in the rear-view mirror, and there's still a whole season of ahead of us that will be perfect for grilling. There are probably some of you backyard cooks who did a cursory cleaning of your grill, fired it up and cooked away, but maybe something was off.

Maybe — in the case of a gas grill — it wasn't working as well as you remember from last season. Maybe something about the food was off or funny tasting.

Well, it's not too late to get an expert to come to your home and clean your grill, give it a tune up and offer some advice on how to get the most out of your outdoor kitchen, whether it's gas or charcoal.

Anthony "The BarbeQue Guy" Drago, who lives in Dutchess County, has been providing grill cleaning, service and repair throughout Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess counties for more than 35 years. His customers range from those who grill only from Memorial Day to fall and those who grill year-round no matter how much snow is on the ground.

Drago said it can be hard to tell when it’s appropriate to start thinking about prepping their units.

“Three out of four don’t even set up the grill until warm weather comes,” he said. “It’s the onset of warm weather that gets people thinking they need to get their barbecue ready.”

Drago said his phone starts ringing steadily as soon as the first nice day of the year arrives.

The chief reason to keep your grill clean is safety, he said, with the biggest hazard being grease that drips down and sits in the bottom of the barbecue. Grease buildup can be particularly risky if you’re the type to fire up the grill and walk away to let it warm, since it can ignite and fully engulf the grill in flames in a matter of minutes.

Drago said he receives calls of this nature at least every couple of years, “where people say things like, ‘My grill totally erupted in flames,’ or the exaggerated one, ‘My grill blew up.’ ”

Not only does having a clean grill decrease the chance of grease igniting, but Drago said a second good reason to clean your grill would be cosmetic and even olfactory in nature.

“If you’re entertaining people and you have everybody standing around the barbecue, the last thing you want to do is open the lid and see chunks of meat, or a piece of chicken, or have it smell like fish,” he said.

Drago said he now advises his clients, which include retailers, to emphasize the importance of buying a gas grill with a side burner. The severe weather in May that knocked out power throughout the region showed the need for the side burner when he started getting numerous calls from clients saying they needed their grill cleaned immediately because they had no electricity and they were using their grills for all their meals.

"You never know when it's going to come in handy," Drago said.

The BarbeQue Guy can be reached by calling or texting 914-588-6811. His website can be accessed here.

With additional reporting by Lindsey Lennon.

Photo caption: Anthony “The Barbeque Guy” Drago cleaning a grill in the City of Poughkeepsie. Photo credit: Michael Woyton/Patch Staff.