Care to Share Your Tips on Seasoning A New Smoker

L

LVBBQMan

Guest
My new Backwoods Fatboy arrives next week. I am planning on seasoning it next weekend. Currently I am planning on smearing the inside with bacon grease and using hickory wood for seasoning. What other tips and tricks to season a new smoker do the brethren have out there?
 
Might I suggest Lard vs. bacon grease? Lard will accomplish the same thing and not impart a bacon smell (which is great, but not always desired).

I HIGHLY recommend not using something like Canola oil.
 
Love bacon. I would just do up a big batch of moink balls with lots of hickory!
 
Definitely consider Lake Dogs advice about the lard. It's cheap, easy to find in any grocery store (look in the prepared meats isle - bacon, lunch meats, hot dogs, etc.).

Make sure you get the cooker really good and hot . . . THEN apply the lard. Keep it going for a while and apply a second coat after about 20 minutes. Then let the cooker cool down to ambient air temperature. It'll be safe from rust for about one year.

I perform this ritual each spring around the middle of March.

Oh! Also - be sure to heat the cooker up over a place that you do NOT care if grease stains get on it. The first time I did it, I wasn't thinking it all the way through and my wife was not happy about the large grease stain on the patio concrete.
 
I don't know that I'd go to the effort of even using lard. I know it's cheap but it's messy too. All you need is a very light coating of spray-on cooking oil. You can either buy a can of something like PAM or similar. I used my olive oil atomizer to coat the inside of my drum and wsm with a very light coating of EVOO. I probably used less than 1/4 cup to do the seasoning on both smokers combined.
 
I used Olive Oil Spray. (Pretty heavy) Then I cooked 'Fatties' and 'Moink Balls'.
The inside of my drum looked like a seasoned skillet.
THEN...
I put on two large racks of Spare Ribs, and 3 hours later my drum was seasoned and broke in... I love it.

I had to mop grease out of the bottom of the drum after the first smoke session.
Paper towels on a garden hoe made for easy cleanup...
 
Last edited:
Ole Man Dan said:
I had to mop grease out of the bottom of the drum after the first smoke session.
Paper towels on a garden hoe made for easy cleanup...
Click to expand...

This is something I have been thinking about as I have not cooked a big slab of meat in my UDS yet. My charcoal basket does not have an ash catcher pan on the bottom. I haven't decided if I want to add one yet or not. One reason I'm thinking about not adding the pan is so I can leave a thin layer of ash in the bottom of the drum to absorb some of that grease.
 
I sprayed PAM inside & out when it was new, wiped it down with a paper towel, then lit it up. I have an offset so I put coals in both the firebox and the cooking chamber to make sure the thing got good and hot. Now I just give it some PAM on the outside after each cook, and once in a while I'll wipe it down with some rust remover/protectant. I almost never see rust anymore, except occasionally a hint under the firebox or right at the base of the feet (they get more exposed to weather). I use a steel brush to scrape off any rust and then hit with the rust remover. Never tried the lard trick, but PAM has been working great.

T
 
Ole Man Dan said:
I had to mop grease out of the bottom of the drum after the first smoke session.
Paper towels on a garden hoe made for easy cleanup...
Click to expand...


For the big pool of grease gunk at the bottom of a cooker, I've thrown a few coals on top of it at the end of my cook and it pretty much incinerates it. I use to worry it would flare up but it really doesn't. Then you can just scrape out the ashes just like the firebox.

T
 
It may seem like over-kill but before I cover, I spray everything with a light coat of Pam and wipe it down. Like Turk, the rust is on the firebox and it is minimal. After wiping down, I'll hit those spots with extra Pam and it seems to do the trick ~ haven't needed rust remover.
 
I do a lot of frying and usually have about a half a jug of oil laying around. Smear it on. Seems to work.
 
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