Grease management is the part that starts patio fires. Fat should hit a flavorizer, drip through the firebox floor, ride a rail, and land in a cup you can empty. When any piece is packed, warped, or missing, fat lands on the tank, the igniter, or a hollow lid.
Know your path
- Weber Spirit and Genesis. Removable cup under a sloping catch, often behind a small door or under the firebox at the back. Empty it. Do not “line forever and forget.”
- Char-Broil and Nexgrill. Wide foil-lined V-tray under the burners plus a small cup at the end. Foil is a liner, not structure. When the tray warps, foil does not save you.
- Pellet (Traeger and similar). Bucket under a grease drain tube. The tube clogs with cold tallow. Warm the tube, push the plug out. Do not rod it with a screwdriver through the barrel wall.
Cup-and-rail gas cart
- Grill cold. Tank shut. Gloves.
- Slide the cup out. If it will not move, look for a clip or a bent lip. Packed tallow: warm with a hair dryer — not a torch.
- Dump the cup into a can you will trash when solid, not into a sink if you can avoid it.
- Scrape the rail toward the cup opening. Plastic scraper. Metal on a thin aluminized rail opens a hole that then drips on the tank.
- Shine a light up through the firebox drain. If you cannot see through, pick from above after the grates are out. A blocked hole is a grease lake.
- Wash the cup in hot soapy water. Rusted through → replace it. A foil nest in a rusted cup is a hobby, not a fix.
- Optional foil liner: one layer, tight, no wad that blocks the hole.
- Reseat the cup fully. A cup that sits halfway dumps on the first lid slam.
- After the next cook, check. Already full → very fatty food, or the path is leaking above the cup.
V-tray
- Remove grates and heat plates so you can lift the tray without smearing fat on the tubes.
- Lift the tray. Support it — a tray full of tallow is heavier than it looks.
- Discard foil. Scrape outdoors. Wash. Flattened V no longer drains; replace the tray.
- New foil, smooth, low spot toward the cup. Cut a drain hole if the tray has one — do not foil over the only exit.
- Confirm the tray sits below the grease hole and above the tank.
Grease fire
- Yellow fire in the box that does not die when you move the food is often the rail or cup lighting.
- Shut the burners. Shut the tank. Lid closed to starve oxygen if the fire is contained in the box.
- Do not spray water.
- Fire in the cabinet around the tank: get people back, use an extinguisher rated for grease or flammable liquids. Then the grill is a replace conversation until every melted line is inspected.
Buying a cup
- Search Amazon or BBQGuys for brand plus model plus grease cup or drip pan.
- Cups are cheap and model-specific. A “universal” cup that does not lock will walk out. We do not list ASINs or prices.
Related: degrease, deep clean.