I left my little blackstone at a friends house for a few months. Took it to cook on when we were putting up drywall. after a few months it had a lot of crud on it. I bought one of those pad like in the one griddle cleaning video, from dollar tree I think. We were there and I saw them and picked one up for some reason. Heated up well water and scrub cleaned it up well. It had a lot of dust on it so I had to do it a few times. If you have sensitive skin where a glove with a long cuff because that steam is really hot coming off the griddle.
Taking the flavorizer bars out will make a big difference. I noticed that on my one grill, the temps on the lid thermometer were very slow coming up. It didn't cook bad but the way the bars are on this grill really deflects heat downward the grease in the the drip pan was burnt to a char.
Cleaning of my blackstone is usually a quick scrape after I am done cooking, usually have the heat off at this point, sometimes I will wipe up with a good paper towel if there is a lo of left over oils or something. It is a 90 second process, if I cook something that has sugars or makes a mess I will hit it with some water and scrape. I took a dremel and ground a radius to kind of match the BS radius o make cleaning the edges and corners out a little easier.
That bacon looked pretty good, like it came from a butcher shop instead of the store.
