How To Season A Smoker

Our Guide To Keep The High Quality

People who hear “season your smoker” for the first time are often confused about what exactly it means. Most think of shaking salt and pepper on it to add seasoning to it, but this is not at all what it means.

The dictionary also isn’t any help at all when it comes to explaining what seasoning means in terms of your smoker. You will only find the explanation of seasoning food, and treating timber wood.

If you look into top-rated offset smokers, you will know that seasoning your smoker isn’t the same as seasoning food and timber wood. Another couple of terms that you might hear people use when it comes to seasoning your smoker is “curing” or “pre-seasoning.” If you look in the Business Dictionary for the term curing, you will find that it gives an explanation based medically on preserving food.

As we take a further in-depth look at the meaning of what seasoning is for your smoker, you will have a more clear and concise understanding of the process.

Why your smoker needs seasoning

Learning about what a new word means for something that you need to do is confusing at first but interesting at the same time. However, another fact about the word seasoning is that it also comes from the word “sow.”

So face it, seasoning is just the word that is used for a process or preparation of your new smoker. Let’s get a bit further in detail about how this process works.

Firstly, there are two reasons as to why you need to season your smoker. First, it’s a cleaning that needs to be done after buying it to get any manufacturing residue off of it.  Secondly, this process of seasoning is done to keep rust from forming on your smoker.

Post manufacturing cleaning

Remnants and debris from your smoker being boxed to being shipped for purchase, often remain on your smoker until you take it home to season in. You have solvents, dirt, and oil leftover from the building process, and you really don’t want to have any of that in your food.

Even more so, many of the chemicals left on your smoker after it is finished being built, are toxic. So you are basically taking safety precautions when you season your smoker before using it for the first time.

The process of seasoning will easily remove any excess residue left on your smoker.

Extend the years of your smoker

Seasoning is something that also must be done to extend the years of use for your smoker. When the smoker was built, there was nothing used on it to keep your smoker from rusting as time goes on from being outdoors in various weather conditions. Rust doesn’t look very pretty building up on your smoker, and it isn’t something that you want accidentally getting into your food.

Also you can learn how to smoke ribs and steak in our guides

When you season your smoker, a protective layer is added, keeping it from rusting over time. Seasoning your smoker also allows for the condensation to easily roll of it, so it isn’t just sitting. The moisture will be kept from seeping into the metal which is what can also cause the rust to develop over time.

Instructions for seasoning your smoker

Let’s go ahead and get started with the step by step instructions on what you will need to do so season your smoker.

Clean it

First, like what you would do with many new products, you will need to clean the interior as well as the exterior of your smoker. Clean your pans and racks with dish soap and some warm water. Mild soap should be used only, and only a small squirt of it should be used. This will remove any grime, oil or debris on the smoker.

Dry

After cleaning, you need to let the pieces air dry completely.

Interior Seasoning

After your smoker and your pots have been rinsed, you now need to spray or wipe the interior down in cooking oil. It needs to be a thin layer; enough to cover the interior. It should not be smothered in oil. Cooking spray with no flour added is probably the best way to go; just spray a thin layer to cover your smoker.

This step should be completed while your smoker is unassembled to ensure that you get all of the hard to reach corners.

Open your vent and set the temperature

Now you need to open your vent on your smoker and heat your smoker at the max heat. You will need to add some charcoal and let it burn. Then dump the ashes once it has cooled.

This is it! The process of seasoning your smoker has been completed!