I know from a long time ago when I bought a small offset smoker, that I covered the whole inside with peanut oil, then burned it in for 4 or 5 hours.

I am currently building a custom smoker, and I'm about ready to fire it up. Is it ok to fire it up with heat before putting oil on it just to test heat temps? Or should I go ahead and brush the whole inside first with oil before I do that? Also, what about the fire box itself, do I need to brush oil on that as well on the inside?

James, everything I know and have read on this subject says that you don't need to burn in the smoker, other than building the fire to burn off any unwanted chemicals or substances that might be on the materials used. I would definitely not oil anything. I think all you would accomplish with that is greasing the inside of your cooking chamber and render it more susceptible to attract creosote build-up. My .02. George

The more I think about it, my current smoker is cast iron, that is probably why I did it that way.

I will post pictures of the one I'm doing now soon, it's made from 3 55 gallon drums, it's my variation of big baby. These all had apple juice in them so no chemicals. Thanks for the reply, in a few days once I'm done with the fire chamber door, then I'm going to fire it up and test the temperatures.

James, when we fired up our custom built smoker we did not oil it. We did burn it for a couple times before we cooked on it just to make sure it was seasoned good and to test the venting to make sure that it was correct.

Team
wildhogsmokers

How long did you burn it in for? I just did my first burn in for 2 hours to test temps. I plan on doing a 2nd burn in next week, just wondering if I should do it longer.

A couple of hours burn in is plenty to get the smells and tastes out of the smoker. I add smoking wood to get that first layer of smoke going but it's not necessary to give it hours of burn in. Mostly to get the raw metal heated and cooled. I had one smoker I sprayed with Pam and heated. Didn't make any difference in how it performed. You can burn it off with a good high heat run if you don't like the way it turned out and start again.

You could just throw some pork skin in there to get it started....

Good luck and enjoy your new smoker!