Memorial Day BBQ Hacks and a Pressure Washer Warning You Can’t Ignore!

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Eric G. Welcome to the around the House show, your trusted source for everything about your home.

Thanks for joining me.

I'm Eric.

Eric G. This is our midweek update.

This is that special we do every single Wednesday too.

Well, talk about the stuff that didn't make it into last weekend's show and is not making into this weekend show.

And boy, can't believe we are already cruising up on Memorial Day weekend.

Thank you everybody else out there who has served and gave the ultimate sacrifice for us here in the United States to have the freedoms we enjoy.

And speaking of that, it is one of the big barbecue weekends and for some people, this is one of those weekends that you go out and go, wow, I haven't used my barbecue in a few months.

Let's get it cleaned up.

I always recommend first time of the year.

Spend some time out there, get it clean, but don't get it too clean.

So here's what I say.

Here are my tips for a great first barbecue of the year.

Clean it thoroughly right now.

Get in the inside, clean it up.

You know, with many gas barbecues, I'll have that little tray on the bottom.

What's my secret?

I take aluminum foil and wrap it so the drippings when they land down there, they could still go into the catch basin.

But when you want to clean it up, you just go in there, tear it up, put another one down.

It's not like you're cooking on it.

So there's no health issues there.

It's just at the very bottom and it helps clean the bottom up really easily.

Instead of having to pull that thing out and scrape and and try to get most of it out, it'll just keep it that much cleaner in there.

And you can see when the rest of the barbecue starting to get dirty is when you lose that shiny aluminum on the bottom.

So go through, clean it up.

If you have glass in your grill, get that cleaned up.

There is a some really good barbecue cleaners out there nowadays.

So take a look.

I used a goof off one the other day that Lisa had gotten it like the Dollar Tree or something and it was five or six bucks.

But holy smokes, that was great.

One that cleaned up really well Because I've got in.

In the house over here.

I don't have my outdoor kitchen anymore because we sold that with the last house.

So I've got a temporary one outside with a, you know, propane barbecue.

Not my favorite.

It works, but definitely not what I'm going to have long term.

But it gets the job done.

But you know something, keeping it clean is important.

So I want to make sure that we get it all cleaned up, get all the grease and stuff wiped off.

You don't have any grease fires.

And then what I do is I just get it lit up.

You know, if it's gas, get it nice and hot.

Charcoal.

Spend 20 or 30 minutes, get that thing going, get it going.

And I love charcoal cooking.

Don't get me wrong, it is awesome.

But it does take a little more patience and it does take a little more skill to manage your air coming in and out correctly.

But get it nice and warm and you're ready to rock.

Now here's one of the biggest things that I want to make sure the mistake that people make if you're barbecuing have a digital meat thermometer.

Whether it's just one of those ones you flip out and poke it or something like that's a little more techy, like the meter.

That will really up your barbecue game.

That way, when you know when to pull it.

And for instance, when I'm cooking beef or chicken, I'll pull it a little early.

If it says the FDA rules say to cook it to 165.

Usually I pull it 155, 157 in there because it's going to continue to cook afterwards.

So I want it to peak at that resting spot at that, because if I pull it off at the temperature, it's going to continue to cook and you're going to have dry food.

Nobody wants that.

Now, if you're cooking with propane, make sure you got enough propane.

If you got a pellet grill, there's a little more maintenance, depending which one you've got out there.

One of the things they say is never store those pellets outside because they love to get kind of gummed up.

They'll suck up moisture and you'll have an issue.

So I like to keep those inside someplace out of the weather.

If you haven't cleaned your pellet grill out before, if you've got that Traeger sitting out, there might be time to give everything, the hopper, everything else, a good clean out, get it dialed in.

Last thing you want is that Grease and, and we see more of that grease buildup on things that are slow and low because if you get it too hot, all that grease fires off and you got a heck of a fire and we don't want that.

So that's a key right there.

Keeping it clean, keeping your hands clean and making sure that you're not mixing up, you know, raw meat and all the food handling stuff that you normally deal with.

And never leave that thing unattended.

And then the other thing is to be careful with all those grease drips.

If it's on a wood deck, it's going to be an issue.

You know, they make some pads you can put down that are rubber that'll work better with that so you can clean it up.

Composite decks, not so much the old Trex decks used to, but that's, you know, that's a 20 year old deck at this point, so that's not a big deal.

So just make sure you got enough stuff out there ready to go and you're going to have a good cooking season and then you can build it up and make it as nice as you want from there.

If you're going out and buying one of those Blackstone grills you see out there, just make sure you read the directions first and get that set up so that way you can season it.

It's gonna take you an afternoon to go through and get the seasoning done right.

So don't think that you're gonna go down to your local Walmart, pick one up real quick and bring it back and use it.

You've got half a day of getting that thing ready to rock.

So don't let that sneak up on you.

Plenty of stuff out there to do that, you know, as far as the information on online to do that.

But really it's gonna, you're gonna want to go through and season that thing three or four or five times to get that thing really dialed in and ready to cook on.

That's the key right there.

So like cast iron pan, the more you cook on it, the better it's gonna be.

Now next up here on our recalls, only a couple this week, but a big one.

Generac Power Systems expands its recall of Generac and Dr. Power Electric start pressure washers due to risk of serious injury or death from carbon monoxide hazard.

And it includes additional models.

Here's the issue.

The electronic start stop button on the pressure washer can malfunction and self start.

Oh.

Posing a risk of serious injury or death due to carbon monoxide poisoning if the Unit is in a confined space.

So in theory what they're saying is that this could be sitting in your garage.

No one touches it.

It auto starts and it's running, filling the place up with carbon monoxide.

So the pressure washer can still be used.

But what I would do is what what they recommend here.

Consumers should immediately stop using the recall pressure washer and contact Generac to arrange a free repair at your dealer's location.

The pressure washer could still be used with the battery removed by using the pull start option to start the unit.

So there's about 16,260 of those.

So that's a big one there.

There is a light fixture up here, Minka Barden series pendant light.

Looks like it could fall impact hazard there.

And that's the main ones right there.

There is a couple little things.

There's a pool drain cover recalled, it doesn't meet spec.

That could be dangerous.

There is also another one here.

A Zwilling J A Henckels recalls electric water kettles due to risk of serious injury due to burn hazard.

So be careful right there.

All right, guys, well, I'm gonna wrap this one up.

I got a lot to do.

We got a busy day today.

A little inside.

I'm gonna be working on my shop.

I gotta get ready for camping this weekend.

We went out and got a new RV this weekend and did that.

So we are going out to do the inaugural.

You know, kind of burn in on that.

Let's see if we remembered what we didn't.

I think I'll do a video on that.

Be kind of fun.

We're gonna give that thing a test and see how it goes and we're gonna have some fun with that.

We're gonna be outfitting that thing over the year too.

So we'll do a little bit of content on RV and for all you RV guys out there as well.

And boy, we got some great interviews coming up here in the future this weekend, just so you know, we.

I remixed some stuff because I'm gonna be gone.

We're gonna be out doing stuff.

So we've got a best of show this weekend of two great interviews that are spring ready.

Something you probably didn't hear before.

And they've been remastered, remixed.

There's stuff in there if you heard last time.

If you just listen to the regular radio show, you didn't hear it.

So there's some new information there.

All about stuff in the outdoors which will be a lot of fun.

I'm Eric G. Make sure you follow us on social media.

Check out our YouTube page.

We've got two of them at around the House, Eric G and around the house HQ.

The Eric G1 is our long form stuff for our podcasts in our long form interviews are there and the HQ is where we're going to be doing more curated content for DIY projects and some tool reviews and things like that.

So we got a lot going on.

I'm Eric G. Thanks for tuning into around the House.

We'll see you Saturday.

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