How to Season A New Smoker

To season a new smoker or even reseason an old smoker is to get rid of oils, chemicals, cleaning compounds, etc. and to infuse the metal with smoky residue that will make your metal box or cylinder worthy of being called a smoker.

All smokers MUST be seasoned be fore you use them the first time and/or after they have been cleaned by a chemical or degreaser.

This goes for propane, charcoal, electric or wood..no exceptions.

The steps are very easy and I will cover them below in easy to understand steps:

1. Spray a very light coating of vegetable oil on the inside surfaces of the smoker. I usually buy a cheap can of sprayable olive oil or something similar and it works like a charm. If you are using a horizontal smoker with a side firebox then you really only need to spray oil on the cooking chamber.. you can omit the firebox.

2. Fill the smoke box with wood chips if you are using gas or electric or just set up your charcoal or wood smoker as if you were going to perform a normal cooking session.

3. Start the fire in your non-electric smoker and try to maintain a temperature of around 225 for about 2 hours. If the smoker stops smoking during this time then provide more seasoned wood or wood chips to keep the smoke constant for the entire two hours.

4. Electric smokers are easy.. just plug it in and if it has a power button or a controller then set it to smoke for two hours at 225 degrees. Keep providing smoke chips throughout the two hours to keep the smoke constant.

5. The seasoning of your smoker is complete and you can now use it to smoke a bit of meat or you can turn everything off or let the fire die out until you are ready to use it.

See.. I told you it was simple to season your new smoker;-)

Just a side note… if you do need to clean your smoker then something like simple green works great but it will need to be seasoned afterwards. I clean my smokers in this way very seldom and only if absolutely necessary.

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