Seasoning new Amerique with meat?

I too would like to know. I am getting a ST and in the book it says to just season with wood, no meat. What does this exactly do? Thanks for the help.

Call me a dog then, because my first Pork Butts were excellent! The first seasoning is with just wood. Then the meat is the second smoke. Check out the lessons learned thread. The CookShack book will explain most of this. Good luck from a new AQ owner myself.

Instructions say to season your unit with wood. I can't say for certain but I would venture to guess it is to get the inside used to heat and smoke, burn off any oil or metalic residue and cover any taste associated with all it takes to build a smoker.

I won't say it will harm you in any way but if I had it to do over again I would still do the seasoning process just as indicated in the manual - THEN toss in a big fatty butt.

I think the confusion is most of us on the forum say season it with a fatty pork butt. The initial seasoning is done with just wood for a minimum of 4 hours as per the manual. At that point the initial seasoning is done. You're free to smoke anything at this point. The pork butt is easy to cook and you do want the fat to hit the sides of the smoker so it's a great first smoke. Each time you smoke sesaons the smoker a little more. Well that's my 2 cents worth.

Pork fat is traditionally used to season any cooking implement. Nothing will get your smoker ready for further use better than cranking it up on a big fat hunk of pork. You will be glad you did. It is the tried and true method of seasoning.

Somewhere in the CS literture you will find that they say it's ok to put in a fatty chunk of beef or pork for the seasoning. When I got my 055, I smoked a butt overnight for the first use, and understood that it was 'experimental'. That is, it will probably turn out ok but a new unit tends to have larger temp swings at first. Mine hit plus/minus 45 degrees from the set point of 225. Haven't checked it since but I am sure it has evened out.

And at some point in the night, I lost my connection for power and the power was off for 2 hrs, but it still was a great butt when I finally got it to the right temp.

Go ahead, do a butt, and eat it... it will probably be great but don't blame much on the smoker if it isn't.

I seasoned with just wood and the first 15 minutes did not smell good at all.After that
Q ON!