Seasoning the smoker

This was recently addressed in this thread. The suggestions here should take care of you. Check out redoakNC's post where he lists a number of items to consider. Let us know how they help.

Congrats on the new smoker! While the seasoning of the smoker is very important and the thrill of a new toy can't be slowed down,don't ask how I know this!

I must give you a little friendly advise. Read, practice, and good notes will be needed if you want to learn to cook like the pros. I'm not trying to scare you, but just offer you a little reading material.

Hey, if you don't understand anything or just have a few questions that can't be answered with the find button,please ask.

Your gonna love that CS.

After the "no smoke" seasoning attempt, I went ahead and threw in a 11.5 pound brisket. At 225 it smoked fine, and the brisket turned out great (used the brisket rub that came with the smoker). I was a little apprehensive about cooking a brisket my first time using a smoker, but it was pretty much a no-brainer. Thanks for the help. It just seems like they need to write a higher temperatur for the seasoning in the instruction manual.

The brisket acts as a heat sync and will cause the element to come on more often than an empty smoker resulting in the wood burning better. The manual recommends an empty smoke. Most here at the forum would recommend you smoke a pork butt. It'll season the smoker better because of the heat sync concept and all the fat from the butt.

Come to this forum for info rather than relying on the manual. LOts of help and good info from experienced folks.

Just a thought about seasoning a cooker.

It has bright ,shiney,stainless walls,and stuff bounces around.

Granma's old black iron skillet wasn't seasoned after the first cook,or maybe the 20th and neither will the cooker be.

Like the experienced cooks above said,cook until it is black and greasy and it will cook more consistent.

You can then probably cook chicken without adding any wood.

A pork butt to START the seasoning process will still be pretty good,but you can cook without it.

The goal is helping you get consistancy,and you have to start somewhere and it lets you see how the cooker is doing,right out of the box.

Hope this helps a little.