My Traeger was greasy. It got so bad that every time I ran my smoker, black grease was dripping off the lid, the chimney, and pretty much anywhere it could, and it was getting all over my deck. It was bad. It needed a degreaser in a bad way. I’d never taken on the job, and it was about 2 years overdue, so there was plenty of grease for experimentation. That’s a nice way of saying- I spent several hours over a few days and got really frustrated trying a lot of things that didn’t work. Through all of this, I found the best degreaser for the job, and I got my Traeger almost factory clean.

The Best Degreaser for Traeger Pellet Smokers

Traeger’s own cleaner was the best. I’m not a big Traeger fan boy. I like a lot of their products, but I try and experiment with a lot of things. Traeger’s All Natural Cleaner is the best degreaser for my Traeger I have used. I’m not sponsored by them, it just works. I was trying to be careful, and not get too many harmful chemicals in my smoker, but you want to still get the thing cleaned. I got both with this. 

Traeger’s All Natural Cleaner is citrus based. I wouldn’t want to try making lemon chicken with it, but it’s not dangerous like a lot of the other degreasers on the market. Now, if you’ve tried and had trouble cleaning your smoker before, you might be ready to throw in the trowel and blast it with every chemical under the sun. I’ve been there. My experimenting and cleaning was incredibly frustrating. It’s still a dirty job, but this one works.

Traeger’s All Natural Cleaner

Best Budget Degreaser for Traeger or Other Grill or Smoker

Citrusafe is also good, and is much cheaper. It’s got good reviews, and is the go-to cheap version of the Traeger product. I found the Traeger one to work a bit better. I hate cleaning that smoker, so speed is a priority for me. Citrusafe works though, and costs less than Traeger’s Cleaner. You just might need to scrub a bit more with it. They advertise themselves as being “the first” and “the best” but I feel like half the cleaners on the market do. Who cares if you were first? And they might be good, but I liked Traeger a bit better.

CitruSafe Grill and Grate Cleaner Spray

Degreasers to Avoid

You want to avoid cleaners that have a lot of toxic chemicals. You know how different woods give different flavors to meat? I don’t want to find out the flavor of smoke that comes from some of these nasty chemicals, let alone find out just how toxic it is. I get it, these chemicals work, but you don’t need to get your smoker sparkling clean like an oven. You just need to clear the grease out and make sure it stays functional.

Easy Off for Grills and Smokers- I don’t recommend. You can’t use this on aluminum, painted solutions, and contains monoethanolamine and diethylene glycol n-butyl ether. I’m no hippy, but I don’t want all those chemicals seasoning my steak. Don’t get me wrong, it is effective at getting the caked on hard grease and grime off, but then you’d want to clean your Traeger out VERY well. 

The easy off you just spray, wait 10-45 minutes, then wipe it away. I prefer to use Easy Off in an oven. It works great, and then you can turn the heat up in the oven and burn away the chemicals. Additionally, the food in an oven doesn’t sit right on the grill rack. It does in your Traeger. 

Can You Use Dish Soap To Degrease

The first thing I tried when I started trying to put a dent in the grease was dawn dish soap. I had seen their commercials of cleaning off baby ducks after oil spills, and thought- metal has to be easier to clean off than ducks. Nope. It cut through a bit of grease, but dish soap is not a degreaser. Given a few days of solid scrubbing, I probably could have made it work, but I don’t recommend it.

Can’t I Just Hose or Power Wash Out My Smoker?

Modern pellet smoker grills are electronic devices. If you want to risk shorting stuff out, soaking and turning your pellets to sawdust, and ruining your machine, you go for it. It’ll still leave globs of grease. You might could get away with it on the grate, but the main body of the smoker, the grease doesn’t have anywhere to go. You’ll be left with a nasty mess, and maybe a ruined Traeger.

How Often Should You Degrease Your Traeger?

I degrease at least when I vacuum out the ash and debris, which I do every time I start a new bag of pellets. If you’ve just cooked something especially greasy or fatty, you may want to do it sooner. I find that if I’m cooking a fatty meat at a higher heat, I get more grease spread throughout the Traeger.

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