Tikkabik

Five years of near constant abuse and relatively little maintenance had left my beloved Weber Genesis Silver a mere shadow of its former self, but I spent a couple of hours doing some TLC that's really, really helped.

The Genesis Silver is a propane-powered grill with three control knobs and three stainless steel burner tubes, five "Flavorizer" bars that cover the tubes to provide some indirect heat to the meat above them, and porcelain-enameled cooking grates.

In recent years grill makers (including Weber) seem to have favored stainless steel as the material of choice. I can understand why -- it's elegant and very masculine looking, and who doesn't like that for a grill? But this one is clad almost entirely in porcelain -- there's very little actual exposed steel.

I got this as a Father's Day gift from Mom the year after we moved in and have basically used it every week since then, year round. Outside of scraping detritus off the cooking grates, I've barely done anything to the poor grill, and taking stock of it this afternoon I realized just how badly I'd let it slide.

Today I got out a bucket of soapy warm water and a Cell-O sponge and took to it. I got off years of grime, mold, and dreck, both inside and out. I got off some serious ground in mildew from the Thermoset work table surfaces and cleaned out the tray underneath, which had a two or three inch thick layer of burnt sediment from months -- if not years -- of meat drippings and barbeque sauces. Not to mention a few dead insects that had wandered into the grill by mistake. I'll run the control knobs through the dishwasher tonight to get some of the grime off of them. I need to take a run to the hardware store at some point this weekend to get some steel wool so I can get some of the thickest scaling off the sides and the interior, too.

Outside of the cosmetic improvements, I also took the grille apart and took stock of the stainless steel burner tubes. Five years of direct propane flames over the Flavorizer bars had caused one of them -- the one over the middle tube -- to degrade pretty badly, so I tossed it. I have to order a replacement set, which is relatively inexpensive -- $30. I should really get new cooking grates, too -- these are getting pretty worn. That'll run another $30.

After taking a wire brush to the propane burner tubes, I'm amazed at just how well they still work. There's some corrosion, but the flame distribution is still pretty even, which is great -- I've noticed a "cold" spot on the left hand side that will be gone the next time I run the grill (tonight, in fact, I'm making bratwurst).

I'm going to need another igniter kit -- the one that came with this grill has long since died: The gas catcher ignition chamber corroded. I've resorted to using a Bic fireplace lighter to start the grill. That'll run another $13 or so. Replacement warm-up basket and warming rack will run another $17. They're getting pretty rusty. I don't use them much anymore.

The only other thing that the Weber really needs is a new thermometer -- it fits into an opening on the front and tells you how hot the interior is; it also doubles as a meat thermometer. Oddly, those aren't available to order from the Weber Web site, or from Home Depot. Hmm.

Anyway, $100 to rehab a $500 grill seems like a pretty good deal to me, especially since that'll get it basically in brand new condition again, and hopefully net me another five years of year-round use. I'll try not to abuse it this hard for the next five, though.