The Cover That Stopped My Grill From Rusting

Last spring I watched a good gas grill rust out because its owner thought a cover was optional. The cart sat next to a shed all winter, and by March the metal along the drip tray and the lower shelf was scaling like an old gate. It still cooked, but it looked rough, and the rust was spreading faster than anybody wanted to admit. That sight sent me home to look at my own offset smoker, and the first thing I ordered was this Simple Houseware 55-inch Heavy-Duty BBQ Gas Grill Cover.

I have cooked outside on the same back deck for more than twenty years, and I am not careful with gear. My 22-inch charcoal kettle is old, dinged, and still turns out a fine Sunday shoulder for whoever shows up. The offset is the cooker I rely on when I want serious smoke, and it carries more exposed steel than most grills. That exposed steel had already started to rust along the cooking chamber by the time I checked it.

I ordered the cover because it was sized right for the long body of my offset smoker. It is sold for gas grills, so I will not claim it is a custom fit for a stick burner. But it does what matters. It sheds rain instead of holding it against the metal. The fabric is heavy enough that a north Georgia downpour does not soak through, and the cover reaches down far enough to keep the seams that used to rust out of the weather.

By the time I got the old rust knocked back with a wire brush and a fresh coat of high-temp paint, the cover was already in place. It has now been through the rest of spring, a wet June, and a couple of thunderstorms where the rain came in sideways. I ran my hand along the underside of the cooking chamber last week and found it dry. Not damp. Dry. The rust line has not moved one inch.

Here is what I learned: a cover is only as good as the job it does in the months nobody is looking. The Simple Houseware cover sits over my smoker between cooks, shedding rain and keeping the morning dew off the steel. That sounds like faint praise until you have spent a season with a wire brush in your hand, chasing rust off a cooker you care about. Then it sounds like exactly what you need.

Every inch of steel under this cover stayed dry through a north Georgia summer. That has never happened to anything else I have left outdoors.

A cover only earns its keep when you are not cooking. I take mine off every time I fire up the smoker, and I put it back as soon as the coals are out and the metal is cool. If it were hard to do, I would skip it, and the rust would win. This one takes about a minute, maybe less, and that is the whole reason it still gets used.

I will also tell you what nobody puts on a product page. Leave a hot cooker uncovered until it cools. If you cover it too soon, the trapped heat and moisture can work against you. A few times I have been in a hurry and thrown the cover on while steam was still rising, and I always regret it. The cover is not magic. It works because I use it at the right time.

If your cooker runs on propane, the same advice holds. The burner box and the lower shelf are usually the first places to rust because water sits there after every rain. A cover that reaches down over those panels does the job before rust ever starts. On my charcoal rig, the Simple Houseware cover protects the offset the same way. It is not fancy, but it is doing exactly what it was bought to do.

I checked this same cover again this morning before writing. The underside is dry, the straps are still tight, and there are no soft spots where the fabric has started to break down. Rain has hit this deck almost every week since April. The high-temp paint underneath still looks like the day I brushed it on. That is the proof that matters to me.

If you buy one, spend the extra minute to seat it properly. I tug the front down first, then the back, then I pull the straps snug. A cover that just sits on top of a grill looks fine but lets wind get underneath, and wind is what turns a cover into a sail. When it is fitted down at the base, the water runs off the cover instead of under it.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

Buy the cover before you need it. I watched a friend's grill cart go bad all winter only because nobody covered it, and I came within a season of doing the same to my smoker. The Simple Houseware cover costs very little compared to the work of grinding rust off a cooking chamber. Put it on when the cooker is cool, leave it on through the rain, and the metal will still be square next spring. That is the whole thing.

One more thing: I did not buy this cover because I expected it to be interesting. I bought it because it stops a slow problem before it starts. If your grill cart has already started to rust, wire-brush what you can, paint it, and then cover it. If it has not started yet, consider yourself lucky and cover it anyway. The water will find the steel the moment you look away.