Speaking of wood chunks...

Red Neck In Training,

You need to come down here to Oklahoma for a while and you won't be in training any longer. I swore 20 years ago when I moved south that I wouldn't pick up the Okie slang, well that lasted about 6 months...

It sounds like to me your smoker worked fine. It is not unusual not to see a whole lot of smoke coming out of the unit while you are seasoning it. And not unusual for it not to burn completely up. The important part is that the walls of the oven got a good coating of smoke on them. The darker the inside the better the unit works.

Throw some food in there and have fun..

Stuart

Thanks, Stuart. I was just a bit surprised after a 12 hour run to find wood left.

quote:

Stuart wrote:

Throw some food in there and have fun..

You betcha! Just finished my first load - some chicken quarters and ribs.

Outstanding! My wife (who wasn't really psyched about the whole thing) is now a fan as well.

When SWMBO (she-who-must-be-obeyed) puts her approval on a new $900 toy, you had better believe it was good!

Today her ribs. Tomorrow my butt!

Thanks for a great product.

-Ron

Stuart, I was just wondering in what way the Smokette works better with more smoke coating? I been thinking about giving mine a good cleaning, but it sounds like I might want to rethink this! Please give me your thoughts on this.

Morning,Bruce...IMHO ,unless you have large chunks of creosote,. the walls can be just wiped down after use....That black /seasoning on the walls gives you your consistent cooking surfaces.....If you do think it is needed ,you can use a plastic windshild scraper to clean off large deposits.Hope this helps.

Your smoker is kind of like the old cast iron skillet, the better seasoned it gets the better it works.

Cookshack smokers are designed so that they do not move much air through them. The reason for this is the more air you move the more you will dry out the product, cause shrinkage, and reduce the amount of smoke flavor that pentrates the meat.

Also, the inside walls are made out of stainless steel to keep them from rusting as the envoirment inside the smoker will rust metal pretty quickly. However, stainless steel is also very reflective. So, unless the unit is well seasoned, you get a lot of temperature bounce causing hot and cold spots in the smoker.

Also, if the smoker is not seasoned, you don't get nearly as good smoke flavor in the product.

So, our recommendation is to keep it well seasoned. On the other side of the issue, you do not want to get a lot of grease build up in the smoker. So, we recommend taking a plastic scrapper and scrapping the inside walls down from time to time.

I personally wipe my whole smoker down after each cooking. Just take a damp cloth and wipe all the sides. This pretty much takes the grease off but doesn't do much to the seasoning.

Hope that makes sense...

Stuart

OK Stuart, could you expound on the wood topic just a little more.

I have had a smokette for 2 1/2 years now and very happy. My wife just gave me a model 50 as a gift, because my only complaint with the smokette was it was too small for my large parties.

Now, there is a difference in the woodbox designs in these units as you know. In the smokette, the wood is directly above the heating element and will burn completely up with each use. Through experience I have learned how much wood to use based on the type and amount of product I am cooking. But the model 50 has an enclosed woodbox adjacent to the two heating elements instead of directly above. Therefore the wood does not completely burn during each use.

My question is, should I use a little more wood in the model 50 since it is not being completely consumed, or am I getting more for my money from the wood because it takes longer to burn up?