How to season an offset smoker – Step by Step Guide

Are you considering adding an offset smoker to your kitchen to cater to large and small parties alike? It sounds wonderful. It would be best if you took some notes before using your new offset smoker. But how do you season it? Ensure you don’t fire your offset smoker before giving it a good clean.

Moreover, people admire using an offset smoker because of the delicious food it cooks. Besides, you must take important measures while buying the offset smoker. It must cook good food. It cooks good food, but it should cook food with immense safety.

What is an offset smoker?

An offset smoker is a large, horizontal smoking chamber with a built-in firebox where you use fuel like wood, charcoal briquettes, and other materials. There are altogether 2 doors, one for the firebox and the other one for the food. The doors open in an upward direction. However, some offset smokers, and their doors open outwards, unlike the traditional smokers.

There is a place for charcoal grates on the inside of the smoker. At the same time, the stainless-steel cooking grates are placed on the top of the smoker. Also, the smoker has a thermometer outside to control the temperature.

You can Also Check – How Much Charcoal to Use in Offset Smoker?

Why is it necessary to season an offset smoker?

Offset smokers need to be seasoned only once. There are some reasons behind doing so. If you have recently bought an offset smoker, before using it, make sure you season it. Seasoning is important because burning the smoker before cooking any food is a convenient way of preparing your smoker. During the sealing process, the residue left by smokers will be burned away.

Smokers coming directly from the manufacturers have a lot of dirt and germs, which are supposed to wipe away before using the smoker for cooking purposes. Likewise, smokers in stores accumulate dust with time. So, if you don’t season your smoker, you will have the flavor of all the dirt and oil mixed with your food.

What do you need to season an offset smoker?

To season your offset smoker, you will need a few things. It would be best if you kept in mind that you only need to season the new offset smoker and not the one you bought second-hand. Of course, you have to clean your secondhand smoker, but you will surely not need to season it. So here is a list of the items that you will need to season the offset smoker:

• Power washer that cleans all the surfaces of the smoker
• Oil to coat the smoker
• Brush to clean the charcoal grates
• Paper towel or a clean cloth to wipe away the residue

Step by step guide to season an offset smoker

The entire procedure to season the offset smoker may require some patience. However, it won’t require much of your energy, since you just need to set it and forget it.

Let’s look at a few steps that tell you how to season an offset smoker properly.

• Use a power washer

A power washer is a useful piece of equipment that helps you clean the outer and inner sides of the smoker very well. Moreover, you don’t need to buy your power washer if you don’t own one because you may not need it too often.

What you can do is, rent it out from a nearby hardware store. The manufacturing process creates a lot of mess, and there is too much oil and debris both inside and outside of the smoker, which needs to be removed before using the smoker for cooking purposes.

You must wash away all these pollutants to make your smoker neat and clean. However, if you don’t clean the smoker before using it, your food may have an unusual taste and odor, which may be unpleasant. So make sure to power wash every part of the smoker.

• Clean the grates

Cleaning the grates is yet another important task. Remove all the cast iron grates from the smoker and clean them well. Power wash every single cooking grate where your food will be cooked.

Use a thin wire cleaning brush and thoroughly clean every corner of the cooking grate. The debris and oil on the grates can mix up with your food, and you may unintentionally eat it up, which may disturb your stomach.

Now once again, powerwash the grates after scrubbing them so that the leftover debris may leave the grates. Your dishwashing soap can also work great for washing the grates. Ensure you wipe off the grates with a dry and clean towel before fixing them back into the smoker.

• Cover the grill with oil

The essential step for seasoning your offset smoker is oiling your grill. Ensure you do not miss a single place on your smoker’s interior where you have not applied the oil. The smoker must be greased well.

The oil acts as a protective layer for your smoker. Also, do not use water in any case as there are high chances that your smoker may catch rust. Use a type of oil that is highly suitable to bear your smoker’s heat.

Even more, the usage of extra virgin oil is not suitable for smokers. Hence you must use vegetable or canola oil. The reason you must stick to canola and vegetable oils is that they have higher smoke points compared to virgin oil.

For your convenience, if you find it complicated to spread the oil in the entire smoker, it is highly recommended to use an oil spray. This will help you not only save your time, but you can efficiently cover the entire interior of the smoker.

• Lighten the grill

After evenly applying the oil to your smoker, make sure to wait for 15-20 minutes so that the oil sets up well. After the oil is set up for enough time, it’s time to light up the grill; use smoker charcoal to season your grill instead of using wood or wood chips.

Make sure the temperature is as high as possible as soon as the flames go up, and open half of the dampers. Make sure the process doesn’t stop before 2 hours.

• Maintain the temperature

You must be sure to monitor the temperature of your offset smoker. The temperature should be consistent. The ideal temperature for the entire process must be above 165°.

However, 250° temperature is perfect for seasoning the smoker. Also, the temperature must be for the whole 2 hours until the process is not complete. This will let the oil set a protective layer and prevent rusting.

Another Incredible fact about seasoning the smoker is that the residue and debris from the manufacturer’s side will eventually clean away.

• Wipe off the oil

After the oil is set properly and the charcoal has died, let the smoker cool down for an hour or two. This is sufficient time where the smoker is perfectly cooled down, and now it’s time to wipe off the excess.

Gently move the towel to the entire smoker where you sprayed the oil and clean it off. Make sure you don’t use any sharp object to wipe off the smoker, as it will leave scratch marks on the protective layer.

Also, you must be aware of the fact that the shiny surface that is left behind after wiping off the grill is the one that will protect your smoker from the inside. However, you must also take out the cooking grate and clean them separately as you won’t be able to do when they are fixed in the smoker.

Grilling on an offset smoker may cook you a portion of delicious food for sure. But it would be best if you also cleaned the smoker up once you are done cooking the food. Your food must taste delicious because it requires effort to cook food, but cleaning is yet another important task.

Besides, now you know quite well why do you season a smoker if you buy the brand new one. Since even the brand new smoker has a lot of germs, dirt, and oil, it surely requires cleaning before using it for the first time.

You can Also Check – Best Wood For Offset Smoker

Conclusion

In essence, here is how you season an offset smoker if you’ve ever wondered how to do so. Having read the article, you now know what steps to take to season an offset smoker. The procedure will take some time, but it is certainly an effortless process.

Also, you don’t have to invest a lot of money in seasoning the smoker. Keep in mind that the new offset smoker requires seasoning. Furthermore, the manufacturing process makes the smokers full of dirt and debris.

So, when you buy a new smoker, you must season it so that the dirt, oil, and debris do not mix up with the food you cook.