What to clean with

Hey Other,
Welcome to the Cookshack Nation. You're gonna love your Smokette.
You're probably going to get a lot of different answers, but here's what I do: Soak the shelves in hot soapy water for 15 minutes or so. (I bought a shallow plastic storage bin to use for this) Meanwhile, assuming you lined the bottom and covered the top of the woodbox with aluminum foil, dispose of the foil and wipe the bottom grease free with paper towel. Back to the soaking racks, scrub the gunk off with the scrubber side of a kitchen sponge. Put in dishwasher along with the side shelf holders.
Total time: 30 to 40 minutes.
After you've used your Smokette a bit more, you may notice some "stuff" sticking to the sides. Scrape this off with a putty knife when necessary.
May be interesting to read what others do.

Rick, thanks a lot, pretty much what I had figured. Thanks again.

The only thing i have ever used on my CS is Simple Green. Light scrub and soak for a few and then hose it out. Cover the heating element if possible. Simple Green is Bio-degradable and conatins no chemicals so your food won't smell and taste like cleaner. Make sure you re-season after each time you clean.

Welcome to the forum.

As a new owner, make sure you read through this area as well as the Owners Archive for helpful hints.

For highlights, you don't need to clean it very often, top to bottom. About all you will need to do is clean the shelves, and I do them as sugested here.

The sides and all that dark looking metal is "seasoned" and don't clean it with chemicals. Think of the smoker as a cast iron skillet. You don't clean the cast iron down to the bare metal, same with the CS.

I use a simple scraper to knock off any meat that might adhere to the sides.

And so course, cover the fire box top with aluminum foil and the bottom with foil (don't forget to poke a hole at the drain hole)