How to Season Your Electric Smoker

Are you ready for your summer barbecue session? Do you have your electric smoker up and running ready to smoke all kinds of meat? Surely you’re aware that before you can even think about smoking your meat in a newly bought electric smoker, you need to season or cure it. But not everyone is familiar with this process. In order to find out how to prepare your electric smoker for use, all you need do is read through this article and take notes.

Seasoning and Electric Smoker – What does it Mean?

Curing or seasoning an electric smoker is a process of relieving the inner chamber of dust, industrial oil, and any other harmful material that was leftover from the production of the machine. Electric smokers are becoming quite popular, so naturally, the demand for these devices increases. Naturally, the industry also needs to step up and speed up the mass production of these devices. This leaves us, consumers, with a small problem. Every time a person buys an electric smoker, they will need to cure it or season it in order to use it for smoking meat.

Why is Seasoning Important?

Because electric smokers are produced on a mass scale to meet the demand of consumers, these products aren’t sanitized and ready for use immediately after they are bought. There is a significant amount of paint, oil, and industrial waste in specks of dust in the inner chamber of an electric smoker. These substances can not only affect the quality of food that you’re smoking but also affect your health. And this is exactly why it’s so important that you cure or season your electric smoker before you start using it.

Now that you know why it’s important to do so, you can learn how to actually to do it. The process is very simple, and you’ll only need to do it once on a newly bought electric smoker.

Unpacking and Preparing your Electric Smoker for Seasoning

So first thing’s first, you need to unpack and get your electric smoker ready for seasoning. It’s best to pick a location in your garage, workshop or choose the great outdoors for this. Haven’t picked your electric smoker model yet?

Take a look at our top smoker models and chose the one that’s right for you. Once you’ve picked a place to unpack your electric smoker, unpack it and start checking for irregularities on cable and other parts as well. This way you won’t have to find out that you have a malfunctioning electric smoker once you’ve neatly placed it on your favorite spot. After you’re completely sure that it’s working perfectly, you may continue to the next step.

Turning it On

Now that you’re ready to start with the seasoning, you’ll need to turn on your electric smoker. This is a fairly easy job.

So locate the power button and hold it or press it once, depending on the model that you have in front of you. Now all you need to do is to wait for it to start working.

Set it To Preheat

If you skipped the first part of this article, you’re probably wondering why the need to preheat the electric smoker, right? As it turns out, your newly bought electric smoker isn’t ready for use just yet. You’ll need to cure it first before you can use it to smoke various types of meat and food in general. This is why you’re preheating.

So set the temperature to 275 degrees and leave it for three hours. During this time the oils, dust and everything else that can alter the taste and smell of your food will evaporate and leave the inner chamber of the electric smoker.

Essential Part

Smoking or curing your electric device sounds simple, but there’s a catch. Once you set it to preheat, change the temperature to 275 degrees you’ll leave it to accumulate the heat and relieve your precious electric smoker of harmful substances, right?

But to do so, you’ll also need some wood chips. The goal is to place the wood chips in the last hour of your smoking session. This will ensure that your inner chamber becomes sanitized and ready for use.

Which Wood Chips to Use for Seasoning?

There isn’t really much difference between using a Mesquite wood chips for seasoning and using a Maple wood chips.

The result is the same. And the result is exactly what we’re after here. So pick your favorite wood chips brand and type and make sure that you insert them in your electric smoker exactly two hours after you’ve set it on preheat.

How to use Wood Chips for Seasoning?

Even though you haven’t used an electric smoker before, you should be able to do this without anyone’s help. Depending on the model that you got, you’ll either have a knob on the side of the device, or a lever. Pulling either of this will reveal a wood chips tray. This is where you’ll place your favorite brand of wood chips every time you’re smoking meat in the future. For seasoning or curing an electric smoker, you’ll only need a small amount of wood chips. So grab a bag and get a handful of wood chips and insert it into the tray.

How To Season New Electric Smoker Easy Simple

Finishing the Process

Once three hours have passed, and all the wood chips that you’ve used in the third hour of the process is burned, you may turn off your electric smoker. Be careful when opening the inner chamber as it will be filled with the smoke of your preferred wood chips type.

Now all you need to do is get a clean cloth and wipe the bars. This will make your electric smoker ready for use and the best thing about this process is that you won’t have to do it again anytime soon. The only reason why you might repeat the process of curing or seasoning your electric smoker is when you’ve smoked one type of meat, and you want to smoke another. To ensure that you don’t mix those flavors, you can repeat the process.